if on the highway it was still hot, sounds like its IC blockage, not a fan issue.

 

I didn't have the lower air dam installed when I was driving on the highway, and have not tried it since.

Also, the plastic shrouding above the radiator is also gone.

I can definitely see the IC blocking airflow at speed (especially since the lower air dam wasn't on), but I would still expect it to stay cool at a stop and idling with enough fan CFM.

 

You would be surprised how important that air dam is at highway speeds. The first night i had the wings west front facia on it covered all but about an inch or so of the airdam, i thought i would be fine but the aerodynamics of the car are weird and on the highway the thing overheated after about 30minutes of driving. So i had to make an extension and even with that it ran too hot on the highway.

I think maybe yoru gonna have to fab up something to extend it down further to get more air. The bad thing is it will scrape on everything. I had an old broken airdam and cut the ends off of it so it was about the same width as the piece that hangs down. Then i drilled holes into the length of it and bolted it to the new airdam It extended it about 3 or 4 inches. Seemed to do the job good enough. Maybe you can find a cracked air dam for cheap to hack up or a new one is like 25 bucks at the dealership. Just an idea.

 

I did install the air dam last night. I just didn't drive the car on the highway after seeing it still got hot just sitting and idling.


I'm going to try reinstalling the upper plastic shroud as well. It will need some trimming though.

 

First i would try and streamline your airflow by sealing the i/c, a/c, and radiator so that airflow doesn't escape. Then 1 or even a pair of pushers on the front should take care of the problem. I have 2 pushers in front and 1 puller on my pass side- i can run the a/c and still stay cool- and these are not the best fans.


Good luck, looks awesome.

-Mike

 

hey jim...check out my post on MFBA

1LEThumper...he needs to run the water lines to the turbo because it is a ball bearing turbo, if it was just a thrust turbo it doesn't matter as much

As far as the cooling is mentioned, i wont go into great detail here (look @ mfba), f-bods are bottom feeders. You could put the biggest cooler you can fit in front of the radiator and you should be ok as long as you funnel enough air up.

before i'd go ripping the a/c out i'd get a Spal single fan (ebay has them cheap) to fit on the one side and keep the stock one of the driver side. put the air dam back on (which you said you did) and try and work it out

 

Ok, I know its completely off subject, but did you make the dash to hold your gauges there, or did you buy it. Maybe I jsut have not looked around enought, but that is tight. I would not mind doing that at all.

 

Yeah, I filled it with fiberglass and cut out the holes for the gauges with a die grinder/carbide burr then used a block sander to make the surface flat. Then I masked off the area around it and painted it flat black. Not really hard to do, just a little time consuming.

 

Just saw those.....look damn nice!!!

 

89ProchargedIROC
-I am not for certain because....like I said I don't run turbo's but I was pretty sure the one my friend just got for his DSM was a ball bearing turbo and it doesn't require a water line.....but I'll have to check with him or Buscher to see how they do theirs. You could be right, hell I don't know

And yeah that air damn makes a huge difference....and I agree with 89 again because they are a bottom feeder unless he converted it over to a front breather that intercooler placement isn't going to do jack either way for cooling unless it is now a front breather..in that case some more work is going to have to be done and that front end is going to have to be opened up a lot more.

Now again this is something I'm not sure about because I haven't tried it but wouldn't putting a pusher fan on it.....block a lot of air flow trying to come up from the bottom and thru the radiator? Just seems that way to me.

Make sure all of the factory surrounds are on the radiator and the fans are sealed good and try it again. If it can't cool itself off at speed going down the interstate then something is either blocking air flow, not letting it get to the radiator or the radiator is just to darm small. If it can not cool itself at idle then the fans are to small or the radiator is to small. But at idle I would think this wouild be more a factor of fan speed and air flow then anything else.

 

Tonight I reinstalled the factory radiator shrouds. I had to trim the lower one to fit with the intercooler. The underside of the bumper curves up to the top of the front of the intercooler core.

The bottom of the lower radiator shroud joins the backside of the intercooler at the bottom of the core. There is a space between the back of the lower intercooler core and the lower air dam for airflow.

So, basically, the intercooler and radiator have two separate air paths. The intercoolers air follows the bottom of the bumper, through the core, then goes on top of the radiator shroud.

The radiators air goes between the intercooler and air dam and up into the shroud and through the radiator.

I let the car sit and idle in the shop for 45 minutes. The hottest it got was 208 (reading from the FAST system) , but the coolant temp gauge was right at the first hash mark.

I drove the car home (30 miles) and the temps were between 178 and 188 (reading from the fast system), and usually it was at 184. The factory temp gauge needle was just above the 160 mark.

The difference in temps, (I'm told by Z9's), is that the gauge runs off the sensor in the head, and the FAST system runs off the sensor in the waterpump.

I'm fairly happy with the results, as there are no other problems with the car. It runs and drives great, and is quiet as hell. I would prefer the car to run a little cooler, but I don't think this is too bad given the circumstances.

Now it's time to install the boost controller and get it on the dyno

 

i bet its quiet! even with my 4" exhaust and a straight through muffler, its not very loud. all you hear is turbo.

 

Does vintage air make an in dash unit for the 4th gens?? Might try that if you really really want to keep the AC. Plus...it should free up some extra poines keeping the engine cooler and I'm guessing they run of DC instead of an underdrive crank pulley. As for the h2o cooling on the Turbo, lots of truck motors run them and I know holset lists that as a major option on their turbos. Its a good idea as far as I'm concerend, keeping the turbo happier, keeps it from cooking the oil on the impeller shaft after some hard runs but yeah, def. need to figure out the cooling sys to support that a little bit better. Good luck, and I couldn't get the pics to work, maybe your server is down or is out of bandwidth.

 

What size turbo is that?? looking at the tape measure...is that 4" of turbo?? that equates out to a 101mm which in my mind doesn't add up for a 355 cid motor. So I'm gonna come back and say its a 76, 80, or 88.

 

You can get a 60mm turbo with a 4" inlet (OD)... looks like a ~76mm to me... 80 or 88mm would be large frame territory. I have seen a custom made 88mm T4 from Limit Engineering, but I've heard the T4 bearings (even big shaft setups) usually don't like that big of a wheel.