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Here is my radiator setup. I had issues with it because of the location of my turbo. I needed my radiator pretty far forward. The Griffin radiator is a few inches to wide to fit between the head light mounts so I inverted it some like the stock one.
I made some L brackets and welded them to the frame and put rubber pads on them to support the bottom and I will have tabs weled to the top of the radiator that extend over the core support that I can bolt down. This is the most room you can get with the 27.5x15.5x3 radiator with out moving/removing the headlight mounts and completely cutting out the center support. I will have 2 pusher fans and im pretty sure this will interfere with the hood latch so I may have to get rid of the hood latch and put in hood pins.
Anybody running the Griffin 55241-X with Mighty Mouse's shroud?
I would like to keep a puller fan combo... and run a custom A/C setup in front with a Huron T4 A/C kit. It's designed to work with a stock radiator and pusher fans. I would think standing up the radiator and using the low-profile SPAL fans would be approximately the same room and cool better than stock+Derale?
Anybody running the Griffin 55241-X with Mighty Mouse's shroud?
I would like to keep a puller fan combo... and run a custom A/C setup in front with a Huron T4 A/C kit. It's designed to work with a stock radiator and pusher fans. I would think standing up the radiator and using the low-profile SPAL fans would be approximately the same room and cool better than stock+Derale?
I made my own puller setup. I'm using the Huron v1 non ac tho. It's just very tight. I pushed the rad as far forward as I could and the turbo still hit the fan. In trimmed the plastic around the fan and it just cleared. Then when it all expanded from heat the turbo hit the fan. So I put a smaller fan. It'll stay around 210 if it's below 85 out. But it'll start to creep up after that. Hope this helps.
I had already removed the center of the lower supports.
Here's a close up of the lower radiator support. You can see its three full sheets of metal in a triangle. The original piece I cut out of the car was like 6 pounds.
So just cut those babies off, or the whole thing if you still have it.
Throw these in the bushes.
Couple pieces of flat bar, 2 90 degree bends later we have brackets. The drivers side has a flat square rubber bushing and the passenger side has a thick round bushing. They are different thicknesses which is why you can see the height difference in the mounts. Also, this mounts the radiator completely straight up and down with no slant, and approx 2 inches lower then stock. The upper support has to be trimmed in from the rear a full 2 inches.
I originally ordered an LT1 top cover because my plan was to keep the radiator in the stock position, and this was the cheapest route to do that. Now that I moved the radiator I had no game plan. The radiator has moved down almost a full 2 inches so there is no bolt on solution here. I started with trying to fit the fans. The shroud above the drivers side fan must be trimmed some. You also must take off about 1.5 inches across the entire top.
I had to notch and bend just a tad of the upper support for the fans to slide all the way up in position.
Passenger side tab lines up with the condenser mount, driver side i looked for a simple solution since they didn't line up. I folded the condenser bracket down, then just hold the fan in position, drill a hole through the plastic and aluminum, and put a bolt there. You can see it here folded over.
That was pretty easy. I decided to trim down the LT1 top cover and make two short aluminum straps to hold it. Turned out pretty good considering.....The brackets are offset because there were holes already in the plastic so i used them instead of drill more.
Nice. So it looks like if I cut the bottom support, I could fit the Griffin without having to hack the top support. And then, with it that far forward, I could mount a shroud on the other side and it would clear as long as it's a small, T4 sized setup.
I'm trying to figure out if I can do the mid-frame CT43/CT5 Comp hybrid there and still run the pullers. If not, I'd have a lot more room for the pusher fans without the bottom support. It looks like if I did that, I could keep my BeCool bigass radiator and just push it forward, giving me the same room as the Griffin... though the Griffin may actually cool better...
Hmm.
I do plan to run the Burkhart support for the intercooler. So I should have plenty of room in front of the radiator.
Nice. So it looks like if I cut the bottom support, I could fit the Griffin without having to hack the top support. And then, with it that far forward, I could mount a shroud on the other side and it would clear as long as it's a small, T4 sized setup.
Yes I believe so. Here's my clearance with a t4 78/75. The blanket isnt touching, and is cutting clearance by Id guess about an inch.
Found one without the blanket. Both kinda shitty sorry.
Anybody running the Griffin 55241-X with Mighty Mouse's shroud?
I would like to keep a puller fan combo... and run a custom A/C setup in front with a Huron T4 A/C kit. It's designed to work with a stock radiator and pusher fans. I would think standing up the radiator and using the low-profile SPAL fans would be approximately the same room and cool better than stock+Derale?
I have thr Huron Speed T4 A/C kit (not in yet).....but been asking and gathering info from guys who have stood their radiators up. I too wanted to try to keep puller fans. I don't think its gonna happen.
I think I'll be cutting off my entire trunk latch and its two rails that are right in front of the condenser. This will allow the condenser to fit, pusher fans and a custom sheet metal shroud that seals the radiator and condenser......so all of the air being pushed goes through the entire condenser surface, then through the entire radiator surface.
Then.....use pins to keep my hood down. I think its the only way to keep the factory sized condenser and pusher fans.
OR.....if getting rid of the latch assembly allows enough room....puller fans. Puller fans are WAY better than pushers....especially when the fans are off while you are moving. The pusher fans block a TON of the ram air flow to the condenser/radiator.
That's why I want the pullers... I see 210 in stop-and-go traffic with the A/C blasting away in the summer here and that's with stock fans and a BeCool 2.5" core radiator. I'm afraid it'll creep up to 230+ with pushers.
One thing I've seen is going to a custom condenser with custom lines.
Something smaller than the stock 25x15.5 condenser would work. eBay has a bunch of Chinese ones... like this one a 22x14 would be a little smaller.
That's why I want the pullers... I see 210 in stop-and-go traffic with the A/C blasting away in the summer here and that's with stock fans and a BeCool 2.5" core radiator. I'm afraid it'll creep up to 230+ with pushers.
One thing I've seen is going to a custom condenser with custom lines.
Something smaller than the stock 25x15.5 condenser would work. eBay has a bunch of Chinese ones... like this one a 22x14 would be a little smaller.
I looked into using two separate smaller condensers too. Same surface area, each with its own fan attached, and angled up front in front of the radiator. This way I could cut away the latch assembly and have room for both of them.
But in talking to a few A/C experts and on a couple A/C forums, they say that if I change the condenser in any way it might not work because this system was designed for this exact combo. I don't see why a slightly smaller condenser will hurt anything. My A/C gets so damn colds that I have to turn it down to low in the hottest days of the summer.......as long as I don't sit still in traffic too long.
But....how on earth do these little tiny 4 cylinder cars blow air like a hurricane and ice cold.....and their damn condensers are half the size as ours.....I don't get it.
One guy on one of these forums said it WILL work......as long as I have a fan on each condenser. He said I could literally cut my condenser in half and it will work.
I also thought of maybe having two separate condensers, say 13x13 each, with a 12 x 12 fan on each, and run them in series. Both will easily fit at an angle in front of the radiator after the radiator is stood up vertical. They would get ram air while moving and fans would come on below 30mph along with the radiator puller fans. If the radiator is moved forward into that top frame rail 3/4 of the way through it, puller fans will fit on the back of the radiator, with a sheet metal shroud.
While I'm no engineer, and have no concrete data, it doesn't make sense that a pusher or puller is better.....other then a couple variables. One main one is blade design, that's a big one. And two is sealing and passive airflow. Passive airflow being you ever see those shrouds that have the flaps that will open to the rear, assuming for hwy air to pass through. If you reversed the same shroud those would non functional. Passed all that, it's air, if the shroud or fans blocks in the front, they will block in the rear. Air doesn't care what side it's being blocked from. The truth is pushers get a bad rap because either you are using the wrong style fan, or what I see a lot there is no shroud to force air through the entire radiator, thereby lowering overall system effeciency. Doesn't mean it won't work, just doesn't work as well overall as the factory engineered system.
That's why I want the pullers... I see 210 in stop-and-go traffic with the A/C blasting away in the summer here and that's with stock fans and a BeCool 2.5" core radiator. I'm afraid it'll creep up to 230+ with pushers.
One thing I've seen is going to a custom condenser with custom lines.
Something smaller than the stock 25x15.5 condenser would work. eBay has a bunch of Chinese ones... like this one a 22x14 would be a little smaller.
There is room for a 28X16 inch condenser, and 26 X 12 x 4 inch fmic inside the front bumper cover. Two Spal 14 inch pusher fans mounted on the ac condenser pull air thru the FMIC and push thru the ac condenser. Both systems are isolated from each other - radiator and ac/fmic.
The reason the fbody can't be compared to some cars for ac efficiency is because of all the glass - huge front windshield, glass t-tops, along with huge rear glass. I'm going to get me some sunshades for the t-tops (never got them when I purchased the car back in 99). Sunshades will help some.
My system works great up to 108 temps here in KS. Car is Procharged so went back to the ATI single fan mounted on the rear of a stock auto radiator sans the tranny lines which attach to an external cooler. With a 185 tstat runs right at 205 in city driving.
Still have some work to do to clean it up with aluminum brackets instead of my crappy mig welded steel brackets. Will repost pics when I am done.
03-11-2017, 10:34 AM
