dville_gt

iTrader: (5)

My car will run perfectly fine a/c off, but when it's hot outside and the a/c is on it runs hot as hell (235*+).

My combo is in a fox body, I have a 3" aluminum dual pass radiator w/a 3.8L Tarus fan (3700cfm@33amps). I have the stock f-body condenser in front of that, and a 4" intercooler in front of that, with a portion of that covered by a 1.5" thick trans cooler. So obviously part of my problem is just having so much stuff for the air to have to pass through. I even built air shrouding to force the air through the radiator, still no dice.

With the a/c going on a 95* day I am seeing 160* IAT's and 235* coolant temps. I am running 100% water w/1 bottle of water additive.

I am lost as to what to do now. It is def. related to the a/c. It can run 235* a/c on, within a few minutes of turning it off it'll be down to 212*.

Anything I am not thinking about that could help?

skinnies

iTrader: (33)

Moving the trans cooler to the back or under the car will help some, we only saw 5-10 degree changes though. Why is it running so hot without the a/c on though, my ltd(basically a fox) will run 165 degrees on a 90 degree day, 175 beating on it on the highway, and in extreme cases might get up to 200(very rare). It does have a 31x19 dual pass radiator and two spal puller fans with nothing behind them. I don't have the ac lines made yet, but the rest of the ac system is in the car.

stangtrader

iTrader: (2)

May not be enough air flow from the fan. If I remember right dont the stock ls fans pull 6000cfm combined? Is there any kind of air gap between the intercooler,condensor, and radiator?

edge04

iTrader: (9)

what does it run if you never turn the a/c on? Where are you taking temp readings from? What type of guage are you using? If it's an electrical one the extra electric load from the a/c could be setting it off. I have been dealing with odd guage readings so just sharing some info I'm reading.

edge04

iTrader: (9)

Here are is some other info I got.

Some other ideas might be to make sure the condenser is clean and free of debris, spray it from back to front with a hose/nozzle, same goes for the radiator. Monitor the A/C pressure on the high side and flip the a/c on at idle and see what happens, if it starts to get too high you have an airflow problem IMO. You can also verify that by spraying water on the condenser and see if the pressure starts to drop. High pressure means more heat means hot coolant temps as the air coming off that condenser is VERY warm hitting the radiator. Maybe use a temperature gun to see how hot the condenser is getting.

FastKat

iTrader: (10)

Do you have an air dam under the front bumper? This was necessary on a lot of cars. It allows less air to flow under your car, creating a higher pressure area in front of the radiator, which in turn forces more air through the radiator.

Can you post a pic of your cooling system setup?

dville_gt

iTrader: (5)

i'm running a the 28x19x3 northern dual pass radiator

there is pretty very little gap between the radiator and the condenser, there is a 1/2" or so between the intercooler and the condenser, and the trans cooler is mounted directly to the intercooler.

temps run ~196 (thermostat) occasionally going up to ~205, the temp immediately starts rising when the a/c comes on. I have the stock sender in the driver head (using hptuners to monitor it) and an autometer probe in the passenger head. the autometer reads lower then the stock sender.

i don't have a manifold gauge set but i can probably find a buddy who'll check it. this seems like it could be likely since the a/c doesn't really cool that great after a hot restart, it works great on the first start of the day, but once the system is heat soaked it struggles. i can see through the fins of the condenser but have not specifically cleaned it (it was a take out from an unknown fbody). i'll put the ir thermo on it later. what is a "normal" temp for the condenser?

not only do i have an air damn, i built a "radiator box" that scoops air and forces it through the cores. any air that comes through the front end opening has to go through the cores.