stupid heat exchanger questions

so ive got a pretty thick stack of crap up front. large tube and fin trans cooler, large ac condensor, 3 core aluminum radiator.

few questions as im engineering the core support area in my head and on my napkin.

1. is there a certain amount of space required between the components? on c5 corvettes, theres abou 1.5 inches between the condensor and radiator, but oil/at coolers are flat up agains the condensor.

2. is there any better ways to mount the universal trans cooler than the zip tie things?

3. what is the cheap and easy way to straighten the fins on all these things? primarily the ac condensor, as thats pretty bad. the trans cooler and radiatopr only have a couple of spots.

4. do i need to rubber mount any of this stuff?

5. whats the proper spacing for a mechanical clutch fan to radiator? i need to get a shroud yet, but dont know what room ill have to work with so dont know what to use.

thanks guys.

michael

1. Nope, just make sure they're not touching/rubbing on each other.

2. Hell yes. Those things will wreck your radiator over time. Get some metal brackets made, you can even ghetto-fab them yourself with just a drill, aircraft scissors, and vice/concrete edge.

3. Fin straightener comb, they're not that expensive. If you have an exchanger with zig-zag fins, then a needle-nose pliers and lots of patience.

4. It can keep the NVH down and maybe lasts a little longer, but not necessarily.

5. As much as you can get away with while keeping the fan mostly inside the shroud. Old Land Rover Defenders have a long tube for a shroud. A Samurai has about 2~3" of space.

cool. on the fan, if i build it per the current napkin blueprint, ill have about .5 to 1 inch of space between the snout of the fan clutch and the radiator. add another .5 inch to the blades themselves.

too close? or did i read it wrong, and it should be as close as possible without touchig?

No it should be as far as possible while still getting air through. Keep in mind it has to keep your fan from touching the radiator as the engine moves around on the mounts (also if it's an offroad vehicle and the blades hit water, you want to have room for them to bend forward).

Less than 1" between the snout and radiator is asking for it IMO.

I thought there was something to rubber mounting a radiator to prevent electrolysis of the coolant or something. Am I just making that up? or confusing some other thing?

I guess there is no way the engine isnt grounded, so why would the radiator need to be different...

That could be a factor, but many factory cars have metal-to-metal mounted radiators and seem to do fine with them.

Is there such a thing as too big of a trans cooler? I've been running one from a motorhome.

Dusterbd13 wrote: Is there such a thing as too big of a trans cooler? I've been running one from a motorhome.

Without a thermostat you could overcool the trans (just like running a big oil cooler with no thermostat), I don't know if overcooling will cause any real problems with a transmission though.

Here's a nerdy discussion on it from BITOG:

http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2145553