SeanR

If Greg is building/designing it, it's going to be a fantastic product. Can't wait to see it.

ptuomov

GB --

I am very interested and a potential customer, as I foresee cooling issues in my future from my crystal ball. I have an '87 5-speed which by my understanding has an engine oil cooler built into the radiator.

Some questions:

- What is the cooling capacity of your radiator compared to a new, properly functioning stock '87 radiator?
- How heavy is your radiator compared to the stock '87 radiator?
- Do I understand the above posts correctly that your new radiator unit for manual cars also has the engine oil cooler built in? (I am slow, just making sure.)
- How thick is the radiator, what do I have to check in terms of clearance in my rather unusual system?
- Can I continue to run the funky stock '87 cooling flap system that may in fact do some good in the New England weather?
- Do you offer in a kit an additional, external oil cooler and hoses need to hook it up with your radiator?

I am not just "internet engineering" ;-) in this case or busting your ***** with irrelevant questions, I'll buy the thing if I am convinced that it's a significant improvement over what I have now (should you offer one for sale to the general public.)

6.0-928S

Ok, I'm in. I'll take it as soon as it's available Greg.

Regards, Hammer

syoo8

Greg, please post when the new radiators are available on RL. I'd like to buy one as well.

shmark

I wasn't implying you should. The OP asked for information about aluminum radiators and who had experience with them. I do and am a happy customer with a very nice radiator, so I thought I would share that. Nothing more, nothing less. Sorry I didn't realize this thread was only about yours.

blown 87

I have yet to put in any replacement aluminum that fit with out modification, in any car, the Corvettes are really bad for poor fitments.

I am willing to bet that Greg's will fit like the original.

GregBBRD

I understand why you posted it....and it is good that he has built a product that worked....And it is not my thread. Actually, I'm not aware that any thread can be a "personal" thread.

I was simply trying to make you understand that Carl and I (as well as car and others) have had some "issues", which eliminate him as a potential provider of pieces.

Mike Simard

GB, is there any reason to use a 'shared' oil cooler on a race car?
I've seen that on a big trans am racer and it surprised me.

GregBBRD

When we get done, I'll have all this data. Things have been changed enough that I'm not sure about the exact numbers on any of these items...and I'd rather not make general statements.

We will be making at least 3 versions. One with no coolers, one with oil cooler only. One with oil cooler and transmission cooler. I'm not seeing much need for one with transmission cooler only. We will be offering hose kits for a few different applciations...including a manual transmission cooling kit!

Regarding the flaps, certainly you can retain these.

I think that the factory late model oil cooler is pretty easy to get, not super expensive, and has a pretty good location....other that being close to the pavement. Not sure if we will build something else, right now. I've got enough projects going to fill up the days, right now.

gb

GregBBRD

Mike:

There might be several reasons, for that.

Lack of frontal space could be one. There's really not much reason to hang an oil cooler in front of a radiator...all that heat is going to go through the radiator, anyway. Might as well keep it simple...and run it through the radiator.

Most of the "off road" racers (with water cooled engines) run their oil through the radiator. This makes me think that in high temperature conditions, 200 degree water might cool better than 110 degree air...since water can completely "surround" the cooler...and is really efficient at heat trannsfer.

Closely controlled/predictable oil temperature (like a water heat exchanger can offer) should allow more efficient engine running...especially on anything that doesn't run fuel injection that can be programmed to compensate.

The downside would be that you'd think that they would need a larger radiator to cope with the additional thermal load. It would be interesting to ask and see why they chose that method.

I'll ask and see how the Nascar guys do things...I'd guess they have a combination of both air and water cooled oil.

Bill51sdr

Watching this with intense interest... May have a C&R for sale soon if Greg's pans out.

Alan

Greg - thanks for posting this - yes oil cooling is quite horrible in hot desert conditions on the later seperate oil cooler cars...

Imagine a high speed run out of town then you get into town - rush hour crawling traffic in 110F heat - the oil temp spikes through the roof... there is no oil cooling going on at all - no airflow over the oil cooler - not a great plan... I'll be using the side tank also.

BTW I have a 928 Intl Aluminum radiator and have had to repair it once already (when I say repair - it was sawn apart & rebult) - fitment also needed work - but seems most types aren't just bolt in - and having leak issues is not that uncommon...

Alan

GregBBRD

Thanks for the confidence...hopefully I can come up with something better. Learning from other's mistakes certainly helps.

I always try to keep in mind that "You are only as good as your last undertaking"....not sure who said that originally, but it makes me try hard.

BC

This is an interesting (good) way of thinking of it. And along with cold oil not working as well as properly heated oil - it goes with the shock idea that Todd talks about. He has his thermostat basically designed to make coolant always circulate the system (blocking off the back hole in the bridge and having the front open) so that he would only be controlling the system temp with the radiator fans. It seems to work for him - a rock solid temp number sampled properly.

The oil needs to have heat removed from it, obviously, but not ALL the heat. So the coolant will almost act as an oil heater when it needs to, and when the oil gets above 200 or or so, then the oil is actually cooled by the hot water.

I like it. I like it even more because when an engine runs large amounts of alcohol, I hear that keeping the temps up if ambient temp is low may be a challenge. The lower combustion temps, from what I read, seem to keep the engine total system temps lower. So that could remove some strain from the coolant system so maybe there will not be a need for an external cooler (which would need a separate thermostat)

dprantl

This is exactly what happened to me last summer. I was going fast down the highway in near 100 deg F heat and A/C blasting for ~30 minutes, then pulled off the highway and stopped at a gas station very quickly. Upon restart, I got an oil pressure warning and almost freaked out. I was thinking of wiring a bunch of 3" square fans in parallel in front or behind the cooler, but don't know if that would be very effective...

Dan
'91 928GT S/C 475hp/460lb.ft