EJ20G into 67 Bug

[Buggin_74]

A shroud will help out, it's there to ensure the fan draws air across the entire radiator surface but they are more for radiators where there is only one fan that either doesn't cover the whole radiator and/or there is a large gap between the radiator and the fan but that is more on mechanical driven fans on older RWD cars rather than electric fans.

THat said I've never run one.
My first radiator only had a single fan which covered only about 60% of the radiator but that was always adequate enough.

My new Alfa radiator has 2 fans so covers the vast majority of the radiator and modern high speed curved blade fans move alot of air.

[GS guy]

That's the main reason I haven't gone for the direct bolt-on Afco fan and shroud yet - I need to see how much room I'll have between radiator and frame/body (on my buggy build). I could probably squeeze a full shroud in there, but everthing on this build has been tight to the 1/4" (or 6.5mm) with no room to spare - I figured I'd better wait until I can fully mock up the radiator first!

If I don't do the Afco fan (@ 1155cfm), my next choice will be the SPAL 12" @ 1360cfm. At a minimum I'd fit it with some kind of rubber seal between fan and radiator, even if I just make brackets that that mount it off the supplied fan mounting bosses.

Another (half-baked?) idea was to use a 12"x18" Jelly Roll "baking" sheet to form a shroud. Lots of inexpensive aluminum baking sheets out there, and one near perfect size for these radiators.
http://cooksdream.com/Merchant2/merchan ... LPCS12181C

[surfbeetle]

The baking sheet idea is a pretty good one. If you can find the proper size, then you already have the bent sides and just need to make a hole in it.

I got my radiator today from Speedway. I'm very pleased. Here's a photo of the inspection tag, it's perfect 9 out of 10, I don't care if it didn't buff out correctly, I'm not going to see it!

RadiatorCutTest4.jpg

Here's what it looks like out of the box. I did take the cardboard off of the radiator to check, there's maybe 6 bent fins, an easy fix. Needless to say, I'm happy to have saved the extra 80 dollars by going with the garage sale item at Speedwaymotors. I purchased a radiator with the inlet/outlets on the right hand side of the car, the filler neck is on the left side. I also got a afco radiator cap as well.

RadiatorCutTest5.jpg

I cut the spare tire well out and so far only did the bottom. I am trying to maintain as much strength as possible. I am going to make holes where the washer reservoir was.

RadiatorCutTest1.jpg

RadiatorCutTest2.jpg

RadiatorCutTest3.jpg

Here's kind of what it will look like in place.

RadiatorCutTest7.jpg

RadiatorCutTest8.jpg

RadiatorCutTest9.jpg

So I am going to fab up a framework to support the radiator out of angled metal and square tubing. Also, I am debating on how far to lean it back. At this point, I have decided to go with the fan in the front of the radiator because of how the scoop below will fit and duct the air.

[Ghia Nut]

Weird question, but will your filler cap be the highest place in the cooling system?

[surfbeetle]

Weird question, but will your filler cap be the highest place in the cooling system?

Not a weird question. At this point, I'm not sure. It actually might not be since the car is lowered in the front. I still have to work out the overflow tank.

I have seen posts where the person has done any one of the following: welded on a much taller filler neck, used a hose from the normal overflow on the neck to a tank that is higher up in the front trunk, I've also seen where they just T into the hose from the upper hose back at the engine up to a tank mounted high up in the engine compartment.

It's definitely an important detail since you don't want air in the lines. Not related to VWs but rather still cooling system related... I changed a heater control valve on my Nissan Armada. When I pulled it out with all of the hosing for it, there was a bunch of coolant leaking from the part I pulled out. So in my infinite wisdom (insert sarcasm here) I thought that to save the leaking coolant, I would open the cap on the overflow and drain it back into the system... It was great until I quickly realized that the point in the valley of the V8 where I had disconnected the heater valve coolant was now flowing out quite freely and it hadn't until I had removed the cap.

Also of note is that on the Armadas, the radiator cap is only a fill cap, no spring inside of it. The overflow tank as the cap with the typical spring set up in it. So I may end up plugging the overflow port on the filler cap and use a tank with an overflow cap elsewhere in the system.

[GS guy]

Hey Surf,
Do you know of a cap that is the standard radiator cap configuration, but has no spring or relief valve? Would just seal up the cap opening?
Kind'a similar situation on mine - I actually don't want a cap on the radiator and am considering having it welded up. However, it is about the highest point on the radiator and the overflow fitting would make a nice bleeder valve location. I'd prefer to find a "screw-on" solution but have never seen or come across a radiator cap that didn't have the overflow spring built in.

I have a separate overflow tank near the engine (and highest point in the cooling system) with the regular radiator cap and overflow tank, so don't need a fill cap or overflow at the radiator.

[surfbeetle]

I googled "non pressurized radiator cap" and a bunch came up. I don't know if they will fit the AFCO radiator. If yours is like mine, I think the overflow barb will just unscrew, I think that I could find a plug with proper thread and just use it to block off the hole. This should effectively make the spring in the cap a non issue. I bought my cap with the radiator, it's a 18 to 30 psi cap if i remember correctly, so it still may need to be changed for lower pressure. Even if I don't need to use it, I like the idea of having the cap so I can (partly) fill the system from there.

[surfbeetle]

So Good Friday was a good day for me to work on the car... I did some more cutting in the spare tire area. I had a Subaru Fan (puller) and shroud I used to use on an oil cooler with the air cooled motor and decided to use it on my radiator. I made some more space for it so I could adequately position the radiator. I had to fab up an addition to the fan shroud of the suby fan so it was wider. I my have to do some more cutting up front but I will have to fab up the rest of the radiator supports. The difficult part is figuring out how to make up for the parts that were cut out in terms of support and stiffness of the front of the body.

[surfbeetle]

Not much has been done on the bug over the last month. We had a car accident on Easter evening in my wife's car. So after we got her car back from the body shop, we traded it for a new car. Hopefully as things settle down I can get more done on the bug. I can say that I plan to modify the radiator so the upper pipe is either lower or angled down. Right now when I put the radiator in place, that pipe sits too high for my liking.

[GS guy]

Hey Surf,
Regarding your Afco radiator you mentioned picking up an "Afco" radiator cap. Would this happen to be a re-badged Stant (or other manufacturer) cap? I looked at Afco's website and see at least one Stant cap shown, but with their own "Afco" part number that I can't cross reference.

I'm going nuts with the radiator cap business. I guess I wrongly figured most radiator caps were some standard size and would fit the Afco radiator. I've been hunting a "0" PSI cap to use on my radator as my pressure cap will be on the remote fill tank - so basically just need a cap on the radiator to seal up the hole. I picked up a 0psi Stant cap, but turns out it is way bigger in diameter than the radiator opening size. This got me thinking that there must be a wide variety of cap sizes and designs out there? More 'net searching is turning up no 0psi caps to directly fit this radiator - any that I can find seem to be this larger diameter size (a little over 3").

My 2 choices are to just weld up the opening and seal it off, or modify a standard cap by removing the presure relief spring assembly in the middle. I like the 2nd option because it allows filling the radiator at initial fill-up, vs having to fill the entire cooling system through the remote tank and 1/2" hose into the engine. However, not sure how well the cap will seal to the radiator like this, can a std. cap even be modified like this?
I guess there's a 3rd choice - the most expensive one: Weld on a Pro-Werks neck and cap assembly.
http://www.pro-werks.com/partlist/914/
Hmmm... maybe not a bad idea? The more I think about it, this really makes the most sense!

The question: What number Stant cap fits these radiators (besides the Afco caps)? I can't seem to find that answer despite lots of searching. Also, I'd much rather hack up a cheaper standard cap (< $10 variety) than the more expensive "racing" caps which seem to be around $20 and up - just in case it winds up being trash-can material!

Any ideas?

Besides this - how is your project going?

Jeff

[surfbeetle]

Jeff,
When I ordered the radiator, I added the cap at the same time from Speedway. I just went out and looked at it, it's a 29-31 lb cap. No real progress on the project, (thanks for asking, I need motivation). I have lots of excuses for not getting out to the garage, I just need to get out there and do something, anything is better than not doing a thing since slow progress is still progress.

My next task is to get the top radiator outlet cut and welded angled down at about 45°. Since I can't TIG weld, I have to find someone to do it for me. Also I bought Airkewld's air shocks so I need to either pony up for their through rods for the front beam or make my own. Then I still need to run the cooling lines and have them bent up. I was thinking instead of using round cooling pipe, to maybe use some rectangular tubing that could be attached to the underside of the pan and then somehow make round ends or weld round ends to connect to the hose for the coolant lines.

[GS guy]

That's some serious pressure Surf! Keep close tabs on the hose connections, heater core, and anything else the coolant is running through!
I've got a 21-25lb cap I bought to run on the reservior tank, but now re-thinking even running that high of pressure. I dug through some older notes I had detailing some of the techniques Renegade Hybrids uses for keeping V8s cool in 914s. They recommend a 16lb cap, and 180* thermostat. I believe I'm good to go with the OEM thermostat, research indicates it operates at 180*.
Canton sells a 16lb cap for their coolant tanks (which I'm using) - so will be picking up one of these shortly. I have a strong hunch that all the "racing" caps are the same size and fit all these aftermarket "racing" radiators (or coolant tanks). However, when selecting from the standard automotive caps I think you'd have one in hand to personally test the fit. With hundreds of different cap model numbers, it's a crap shoot.

I've pretty much sold myself on re-doing the radiator fill neck with one of the screw on Pro-Werks fill caps. The smaller size weld bung fits the ID of the filler neck - so easy enough to slip it in and have it welded up while I'm having my inlet and outlet tubes re-positioned.

No reason you can't use square or rectangular tube coolant pipes - just have to deal with the transition to a round tube at the ends. I'd try to avoid any major bends though (with mitered joints). I almost went that route myself, but decided (on my custom buggy chassis) I didn't want the pipes running underneath and instead will be snaking them around the sides of the chassis using round tubing.

Ditto on the progress - I try to plan for one accomplishment every week, no matter how small (ordering some needed parts for example). At least that way I feel like I've made at least "some" progress!

Jeff

[ambrynmc]

Hi GS, As far as I know, there are 2 radiator cap sizes: "regular" and "mini". The regular is often the normal one and the mini is used on a lot of import cars. Like the Subaru tank on top of the engine uses the mini size. I know the 0 psi or non-spring loaded radiator caps are available from Stant (Summit Racing, etc.). I would go to the local NAPA so you can get the right one. They may be $1 more locally.

Keep it up, Surf!! I'm right with you on the slowdown....sometimes life gets in the way...

[surfbeetle]

An update... Yes I actually got out there and did some work on the car today. We went camping at the beach in Cardiff last week, surf was only 2 feet so it was longboard and very warm water, 70+ degrees. Nice! So the surf report is important because where I live, when the water temp is 70 degrees at the beach, that means it's usually over 100 degrees at my house. It was only about 85 ish when I went out to the garage.

Okay, so I decided that I am not going to cut and weld the top radiator pipe. I am going to trim the car at the top of the access hole in the apron opposite of the steering gearbox.

I added some angle iron at the bottom sides of the opening of the spare tire well. I only got the driver's side welded in place before I ran out of gas for my welder. Truth is that I ran out before I was done welding since the welds started looking like crap, and I thought it was just me being out of practice. I have to wait until payday to get more gas. At the very least I plan to get back out there this week and get all of the pieces cut and ready to weld. I'm going to basically box around the opening so I can lift up radiator in place from the bottom.

[fezzic181]

It does seem a better idea to make the radiator fit without having to modify it. Otherwise if you have to replace it you are going to have to do that full mod again.