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- Engine Coolant Radiator
- Next job was to make up some hose blanking ends and a valve device so that I could pressure test the rad.
- 20psi later, some soapy water and there were 2 tiny pin holes, re-weld sorted these out.
Time for some experiments......
- Coolant Volumes
- Now I have a sealed radiator I can measure the volumes.
- Standard LC radiator = 2.9ltr, Aluminium radiator = 4.3ltr, so an extra 1.4ltr coolant capacity.
- Standard LC radiator is approx 0.5kg heavier than the aluminium rad, but due to the extra coolant volume
- it will add an extra 1kg overall.
- Coolant flow.
- I measured the time taken for each rad to completely drain into a bucket after filling with cold water on the bench.
- The std LC rad took 10 seconds to empty, the Aluminium rad took 9secs, in other words the aluminium rad will
- flow 0.477ltr/sec compared to 0.29ltr/sec with only gravity assist, not sure how this works in reality, but flow does
- not seem to be a problem.
- Airflow through core
- A bit simple and I have no idea in the real world how the results measure against each other, the objective
- to prove that the new aluminium radiator was not more restrictive to airflow than the LC radiator.
- A sheet of A4 paper sellotaped to the edge of each radiator, a fan behind to blow air through, measure the
- deflection of the paper.......simple.
- Borrowed the fans from the kids (they get hot in the summer bless'em ;-)
- Set to run at same speed, the the paper on the aluminium deflected 10.5"
- whereas the LC radiator only deflected 5.5". I'm not saying the aluminium
- radiator flows twice as much, but it does display less resistance to airflow.
- Remembering that the aluminium rad core is 15mm thicker than the LC rad.
- Heat loss
- I suppose this is the important test, how does the aluminium radiator lose heat compared to the
- LC radiator.
- Using a volume of water at 60degC equal to the LC rad volume (2.9ltr), I filled the rad and left a
- fan blowing through it for 2 minutes, then drained the rad back into the bucket and measure the
- temperature. Repeated for the aluminium radiator using the same volume as the LC rad.
- LC rad 2.9ltr start 60degC, end 29degC
- Aluminium rad 2.9ltr start 60degC, end 30degC
- Then I repeated the experiment for the aluminium rad, but this time for it's increased volume (4.3ltr)
- Aluminium rad 4.3ltr start 60degC, end 29degC.......interesting, so even with the extra volume, it still
- reduced the temp by the same as the LC rad with less volume.
