Seems like a bunch of people are using intercooler cores for rads nowadays and I figured I would weld one up and see how it did. I was wondering if it would be a wise choice to baffle the end tanks and make it dual or triple pass, instead of straight thru. These bar and plate cores look like theyll flow a lot more than a tube fin design and could benefit from a multi pass setup. Assuming the bottle neck in the cooling system is the tstat, what effect would splitting the rad up make? I've got a 10x12x3 garrett core to work with and it will have a shrouded fan as well.....

 

I run a dual pass VW Scirocco radiator on my car. Works well even with only one 12" fan and no shroud.

 

Are you really running warm with a aftermarket civic sized radiator like PWR, etc?

 

i dont have the space for a half size without mounting it all goofy.

 

Single pass works for my car. Get the big boy SPAL fan and be done.

 

i took a cxracing mr2 intercooler and converted it over to a radiator. I didnt do a write up cause i didnt get a chance to do more testing. But i will say it seemed to work well. At first I could tell the fluid was flowing through way to fast and after short driving it would get a little warm(200-210) and would have a hard time cooling down below 200. I cut the bottom tank off, made a restrictor plate with cut off wheel sized slits(if there was 6 passages in the core, thats how many i cut in the restrictor plate) and had the restrictor plate welded in the bottom side of the core. This definitely slowed the flow down a bit and allowed the fluid to stay in the core long enough to transfer heat. I had the fan setup to come on at about 175-178. Temperature stayed around 190's under normal stop and go driving and in a pull at the drag strip. I cant remember what the high driving temperature was though. I will try to find pics of it.

 

Here is one I quickly found. I know its not the greatest but I will try to find more

 

 

See attached picture of mine. Its a Bell FMIC Core, Dual Pass, SPAL fan. Works great on me ethanol car for sure.