project 1 from Ogorir: ducting in a radiator

[ogorir]

one of the cars I'm currently working on is a '63 Saab 96. originally, these had the Saab 3 cylinder two-stroke with a tiny little radiator mounted above and behind the engine and a rear-facing shaft-mounted belt-driven fan. they were notorious for overheating, particularly with ethanol blended fuel (the mixture runs leaner the more alcy is in the fuel, and hence hotter).

this car, though, as the V4 engine Saab used in the later 95/96s and sonnets. it's a few inches longer than the 2-stroke, so it's really jammed in the engine compartment. I didn't do the engine swap on this car; it was left half-done, which is how the boss bought it. he had a the local VW beetle shop get it running again, but it still had the stock radiator in it.

the boss bought a used radiator from an '86 Saab 9000 on ebay a while ago, which I'm currently making bracketry and ducting to mount it in this 96.

I've deleted the heater core and fan blower unit off the firewall so I have more room to work with. they're not really necessary here for 11 months out of the year.

the 9000 radiator is 16.5"h x 27"w, so I had to lay the radiator down to about 25 degrees off horizontal to fit the top hose under the hood. because of the angle and it's position behind the engine, I'm ducting the exhaust side out the wheel wells so it doesn't dump back out and heat the radiator back up. there are two engine air outlets ontop of the inner fenders that I've taken out to allow more air to pass. the center section between the shock towers needs to be removable for access to the shift linkage and steering rack.

I've made the tops of the duct boxes removable (well, one. I still have to make the other one). I'm going to have to run wires, lines, ect through the duct area as the duct plenum occupies pretty much the entire area behind the engine from fender edge to fender edge.

eventually, this car will get a megasquirt 3 ECU, controlling port EFI and electronic coil-per-plug ignition. charly wants to stick a turbo on it, too. if that's the case, I'm going to have to re-do all this stuff, as the only place to stick the turbo is right behind the engine, which would heat-soak the radiator for sure.


It's a fun project, though. I'm currently doing another radiator swap in one of the long-nose 2-strokes, as well as changing to an electric water pump. they have a typical front-mounted radiator, but they were still only 12x12, so not a whole lot of cooling going on there. the core on the new one is 21wx14h and will have a 14" electric fan on it. there's not going to be near as much fabrication on that one, else I'd do a project out of it, too. it's a higher priority, as it's a complete car, so the V4 car is sortof on hold at the moment. this car is also getting a new engine, mostly 'cause charly just got a hopped up one back, not because it really needs a new engine. it really just needs a new harmonic balancer.



Pictures:
This is the stock engine compartment (this is actually a different car, but the V4 looked the same before it was v4'd

these two are from another short-nose that the boss bought recently. body's in good shape, but there's a good deal of bondo in the bolt on panels and the mechanicals are mostly toast. we have plenty of good doors and fenders and a few rebuilt engines and trannies coming back soon, so no worries!

left and right view w/o radiator. the silver everywhere in these shots is just silver pain, not bare metal. it was starting to flash and I was out of acid etch. the rebar 'stud' in the top center fits through a rubber grommet in the radiator. originally it would've been a bolt, but one of the mounting studs on the bottom of the radiator is broken, so I put the bolt in that corner.

with radiator in place.

you can see the alternator pulley cut into the hood and the timing cover peeking out in this shot. it's a real tight fit up front.


I thought I had more closeups. I'll take some today. as I said, this project has been put on hold to finish the long nose engine swap. I put the new engine in it yesterday and started fitting the big new radiator in that one yesterday. biggest hurdle left on that car is figuring out the best water flow with the new electric water pump. the stock pumps inlet is off the front of the head and it has 2 outlets, one feeds the bottom of the radiator, the other feeds the block water jackets.