Colonelk
Posted a lot
Posts: 3,742
Club RR Member Number: 83
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Daft extra thoughts as this is a swapped engine....
-still running a heater matrix? If no have the pipes been capped or looped?
-all pipes (including smaller ones) taking a route that doesnt kink them? (even slightly?)
Just thoughts after reading about some other coolant issues with XEs in caterhams...
Also, last time I had an issue as you described, it was a sticky thermostat. I presume you replaced that, but worth sticking it in a pan and testing it as even new many don't work as they should.
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Last Edit: Mar 17, 2017 10:01:01 GMT by Colonelk
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Mar 17, 2017 10:04:13 GMT
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-still running a heater matrix? If no have the pipes been capped or looped? -all pipes (including smaller ones) taking a route that doesnt kink them? (even slightly?) In all honesty I don't know about the first one. I regret few things more than getting this engine swap done, in part because I don't know things like this. The second I can say all the pipes I can see are running smooth, no kinks, we did improve some of the pipe work (as some of it was needlessly long) when Blown_Imp came for a visit. I'll take a look at the pipework at lunch time when I go and have a look at what I can do with the rad mountings with what is already there. |
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Mar 17, 2017 10:06:25 GMT
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FWIW i know of a few other Datsuns running CA and SR lumps: none have suffered the kind of over heating issues you have experienced. Radiators used range from Volvo 740/ Nissan S13\ Golf Gti and some even stock Datsun ! And no fancy heat wraps on exhausts or turbos. All set ups that I am aware of use fans though which are handy in summertime Hopefully your new set up cures this problem . I think the fan is predominately the problem, it just isn't up to the job. It is possible still that there is a head gasket issue at play, but it exhibits none of the other problems of head gasket failure. Roll Center Adjusters arrive today  ... will probably go on over the weekend, not that I can find out if they have improved things until the heating system is all up and running. |
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bstardchild
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 14,971
Club RR Member Number: 71
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Interested to see how you get on  I've always been a subscriber to the 'as big of a rad as possible' school. Although I don't have a great deal of space for one at all in the Rekord! That's you and me both - till I recognised that size isn't every thing and design of the internals is more important The Monza had a 2 core bloody great rad and a mahoosive pusher fan to cope with 250 bhp - it won't fit in the Monzadore - but an S13 rad is much smaller (height) but wider (width) and half the thickness and will slot right in and I can probably get a double fan unit to work with it. It only has to cope with 300 bhp I am looking at HoTWire old rad and wondering if that is also S13 as the alloy one I won at the tat auction got traded to help a fellow RR'r out in getting home. |
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bstardchild
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 14,971
Club RR Member Number: 71
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-still running a heater matrix? If no have the pipes been capped or looped? -all pipes (including smaller ones) taking a route that doesnt kink them? (even slightly?) In all honesty I don't know about the first one. Can you drive it on a cold rainy day without freezing your nads off and having to demist the screen yourself with a towel? |
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In all honesty I don't know about the first one. Can you drive it on a cold rainy day without freezing your nads off and having to demist the screen yourself with a towel? Oh I have no working heater matrix, I believe it has been removed. I don't know of the pipes have been capped or looped though. |
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bstardchild
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 14,971
Club RR Member Number: 71
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Can you drive it on a cold rainy day without freezing your nads off and having to demist the screen yourself with a towel? Oh I have no working heater matrix, I believe it has been removed. I don't know of the pipes have been capped or looped though. I'd need to look at a cooling circuit diagram but in most cases I know of - capping is bad news - looped thro is the better practice |
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Mar 19, 2017 20:02:17 GMT
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Capping most of the times means changed/messed up/constricted flow, so that would be something to find out... Good call on the rollcenter adjusters! They're sooooo easy for this car and they should improve some things you were having problems with  I would change back your balljoints to the OEM mounting style (if I remember correctly you 'flipped' them on the LCA?...) |
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Last Edit: Mar 19, 2017 20:02:46 GMT by demechanik
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Mar 25, 2017 10:41:17 GMT
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This mornings work  So that is intercooler and rad out, the support frame is still there though.  Plan at the moment is to remove that (angle grinder time). Experimenting a bit with the old (big) rad and the intercooler and the Polo rad I think I'm going to buy a fan that would fit the polo rad but would also work as one half of a pair on the big radiator. It is possible I may be able to mount the whole lot in such a way that I can still use the bigger radiator. I also need to get replacements for the water neck on the top right of the engine and the thermostat housing, both were cut down (I suspect for space reasons) but that has caused some knock on issues which it would be nice to resolve, so they may have some influence on what rad arrangement I go with. Further more I need to consider the turbo manifold and all that because I'd like to change the way the pipework over that side works. With all the right bits available this is at most a couple of days work, but sadly I have to do a bit, then order some stuff, then try another thing, all in short hour or two hour bursts, it is a little frustrating. |
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Mar 28, 2017 21:00:45 GMT
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Great work!
Notes -
Fans do nothing over about 10mph, in fact the restrict flow. Overheating whilst moving is purely a lack of flow into or out of the core.
Sealing around the radiator to the grill is the number 1 target in my mind. Even cardboard and duct tape to begin with.
Keep your eyes open for old bed frames etc in skips, great source for non structural steel :-)
As Dom says, aluminium sheet and rivets is a great non weldy way to mount up things like radiators. Cardboard templates, draw round onto ally, then jigsaw / file to shape. Bend over bits of wood with a hammer, then drill one hole, rivet that, then drill second hole, rivet that, then all other holes as you can miss by this point!
I also only get an hour or so a time in the garage, this is where planning comes in. Plan your jobs, make sure you have the parts in stock, then get out there and make progress. An hour a night four times a week can be worth a whole weekend day :-)
Keep it up buddy!
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qwerty
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 2,420
Club RR Member Number: 52
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Mar 28, 2017 21:16:33 GMT
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Quick question. When you originally said it over heated in traffic, was it a case of the needle going into the red on the gauge? Or did you have more issues?
If the former could it just be the gauge? Or maybe a wiring issue between temp sensor and gauge?
Tom
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Thanks for the continued input folks Fans do nothing over about 10mph, in fact the restrict flow. Overheating whilst moving is purely a lack of flow into or out of the core. Sealing around the radiator to the grill is the number 1 target in my mind. Even cardboard and duct tape to begin with. It doesn't overheat whilst moving so it is likely insufficient fan air flow, coolant not moving through the system (water pump problem or blockage), head gasket. Most likely seems the air flow as it doesn't overheat when on the move and I think waterpump/blockage would cause problems on the move too (although I'm not 100% on that). Head Gasket failure is the other option, but the compression test came back even, and there are no other indications. Keep your eyes open for old bed frames etc in skips, great source for non structural steel :-) As Dom says, aluminium sheet and rivets is a great non weldy way to mount up things like radiators. Cardboard templates, draw round onto ally, then jigsaw / file to shape. Bend over bits of wood with a hammer, then drill one hole, rivet that, then drill second hole, rivet that, then all other holes as you can miss by this point! I'm going to see if I can work out the shape I want for my rad/intercooler support this Sunday, it is possible I can reuse what was there and bolt it up rather than weld it to the car. We shall see. Quick question. When you originally said it over heated in traffic, was it a case of the needle going into the red on the gauge? Or did you have more issues? I don't actually have an active temp gauge in the dash. It started running really badly, stuttering etc. after I came off the motorway and into traffic. I pulled over as I had experienced this before :/ ... plugged up the laptop to the little USB socket I have for the ECU and bought up the dials, sure enough temp gauge was right up over 100. Left it 15-20 minutes and it had cooled back down, slight easing of traffic and I was on my way again. It was looking a bit dicey again when traffic built up (I left the laptop plugged in to keep an eye on it), but I managed to time a roundabout just right and took a slightly different route so I could keep air moving over the rad UPDATE! No pictures yet as in a hurry, but my 11" SPAL fan arrived. Even just spinning it by hand you can feel the amount of air it moves, which is a good sign ... I went to the garage and pressed it against the original large rad, then put that in its spot in the car, the fan fits on both halves of the rad, but won't fit in the middle... so I shall be getting the mountings for that sorted, there seems to be some mounting kits that will fit through the rad if I'm reading correctly (but they may damage the core?), then I shall be getting a second one and wiring them up. I know there are other ways to do with with sensors in pipes etc. but I really like the idea of this : www.merlinmotorsport.co.uk/p/digital-thermatic-radiator-fan-switch-adjustable-0444 gives me a bit of extra control. Also I'm now curious, based on Blown_Imp 's point how many CFM a 10mph wind will move (is it comparable?). The 11" low profile SPAL (with curved blades) does 844 CFM, so two does 1,688 CFM. |
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rob0r
East of England
Posts: 2,743
Club RR Member Number: 104
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Mar 29, 2017 10:46:15 GMT
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Some fans just aren't up to the job. I bought what I thought was a top Mishimoto 16" fan brand new which was rated for huge CFM, similar to Spal of the same size. I could not keep my E30 3.5 cool standing still and wondered what the hell was going on, it surely couldn't be my lovely new big spec fan!?! Yes it was! I bought some second hand twin P38 Range Rover electric fans for £15 delivered off ebay and all my cooling issues went away. These are push fans fitted at the front in this application, they're a good source of cheap powerful electric fans.  Good luck! |
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E30 320i 3.5 - E23 730 - E3 3.0si - E21 316 M42 - E32 750i
ETC
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Mar 29, 2017 11:21:57 GMT
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Also I'm now curious, based on Blown_Imps's point how many CFM a 10mph wind will move (is it comparable?). The 11" low profile SPAL (with curved blades) does 844 CFM, so two does 1,688 CFM. Handily someone has made almost the calculations in a thread about how you calculate it : www.scienceforums.net/topic/25944-cfm-to-mph/total cfm = 1900 MPH= 55.733333333333 So in theory I'll be cooling the rad at the rate I would be at about 45-50ish mph... but I think we can all agree that isn't exactly what is going to happen hahahah |
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Last Edit: Mar 29, 2017 11:23:00 GMT by HoTWire
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Mar 29, 2017 11:32:29 GMT
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I worked for an OEM manufacture testing cars in a wind tunnel for 13 years and although I left the industry 8 years ago I've managed to retain some information in my tiny mind.
The golden rule of cooling is "temperature difference is the driving force of heat exchange" you want as big a temp difference between the rad inlet temperature and the air blowing on the surface of the rad as possible. If the rad is at 99°c then obviously air at 10°c will cool better than air 75°c.
Now as Blown imp said the 2nd rule of cooling is "airflow is king". If your rad is fitted with no sealing to the frame, when the fan kicks in it can actually recirculate the air sucking air from the engine bay back over the rad instead of fresh air from the front. This is where you'll get air at 75°c trying to cool the rad instead of ambient air at 10 to 20°c.
As airflow is king your thin large surface area rad will cool a lot better than your thick small surface area rad. As air passes through the rad it warms up. The air cooling the rear half of the rad is now cooled by air a lot warmer than the air cooling the front of the rad so it is now a lot less affective.
Coolant flow is now next and the Polo rad you have is a 2 pass so this restricts the coolant flow a lot more than the old rad. This is not so crucial though.
Before wasting money on fitting the polo unit I would spend a few quid on tape and stuff making sure that every bit of air that goes through the grille, goes through the rad and not around it. Also make sure the coolant is going through the rad as sometimes people take the thermostat out so a lot of the flow goes through the heater circuit or bypass instead of through the rad.
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bstardchild
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 14,971
Club RR Member Number: 71
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Mar 29, 2017 11:56:34 GMT
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I worked for an OEM manufacture testing cars in a wind tunnel for 13 years and although I left the industry 8 years ago I've managed to retain some information in my tiny mind. The golden rule of cooling is "temperature difference is the driving force of heat exchange" you want as big a temp difference between the rad inlet temperature and the air blowing on the surface of the rad as possible. If the rad is at 99°c then obviously air at 10°c will cool better than air 75°c. Now as Blown imp said the 2nd rule of cooling is "airflow is king". If your rad is fitted with no sealing to the frame, when the fan kicks in it can actually recirculate the air sucking air from the engine bay back over the rad instead of fresh air from the front. This is where you'll get air at 75°c trying to cool the rad instead of ambient air at 10 to 20°c. As airflow is king your thin large surface area rad will cool a lot better than your thick small surface area rad. As air passes through the rad it warms up. The air cooling the rear half of the rad is now cooled by air a lot warmer than the air cooling the front of the rad so it is now a lot less affective. To add one more point a radiator at 90 deg (vertical) to the air flow can seriously affect cooling - you actually benefit from a slight tilt - you want the heat transfer from the hot fins to the cooler air and having tit go straight thro doesn't help the transfer process |
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Davey
Posted a lot
Resident Tyre Nerd.
Posts: 2,348
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Mar 29, 2017 11:59:44 GMT
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From everything you've said it doesn't seem likely to be headgasket.
Keep the faith, such a cool car.
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K11 Micra x3 - Mk3 astra - Seat Marbella - Mk6 Escort estate - B5 Passat - Alfa 156 estate - E36 compact
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Mar 29, 2017 13:23:47 GMT
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Thanks for the info cooling people.
A quick question. Intercooler flush to rad, or is it okay with a bit of a gap?
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Mar 29, 2017 13:35:52 GMT
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I would always leave a gap so that dirt and debris can't get stuck between them, or if it does you can get a hose in there and clear it.
That's from a position of developing 4x4s where crud buildup is more significant but the principle is the same.
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Davey
Posted a lot
Resident Tyre Nerd.
Posts: 2,348
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Mar 29, 2017 14:27:07 GMT
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Thanks for the info cooling people. A quick question. Intercooler flush to rad, or is it okay with a bit of a gap? Air gap but it needn't be huge. A lot of heat transfer if they're touching and obviously the cooler the intercooler the better. |
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K11 Micra x3 - Mk3 astra - Seat Marbella - Mk6 Escort estate - B5 Passat - Alfa 156 estate - E36 compact
Mk2 MR2 T-bar - E46 328i - Skoda Superb - Fiat seicento - 6n2 Polo - 6n polo 1.6 - Mk1 GS300
EU8 civic type S - MG ZT cdti - R56 MINI Cooper S - Audi A3 8p - Jaguar XF (X250) - FN2 Civic Type R - Mk2 2.0i Ford Focus - Mercedes W212 E250
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... will probably go on over the weekend, not that I can find out if they have improved things until the heating system is all up and running.
I've always been a subscriber to the 'as big of a rad as possible' school. Although I don't have a great deal of space for one at all in the Rekord! 
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