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horizontal radiator

C

cntry141iq

Silent Prop
R. I. P.
Well I tried it and just like everyone else it doesn't work well. I can cool it fine until the load hits the engine and then it climbs quickly and never recovers. I used two fans and a dual pass radiator, pulled the air thru the core. I don't know what to say about it other than it really isn't worth burning up my engine or wasting a day on the water over anymore. I have my conventional radiator back in on some temporary mounts and it is quite a ways away from the prop and I cruise water or land at 175 to 190. Considering the air temp lately around here that is not too bad. The swing down feature was the second phase of the horizontal radiator test and the first part failed so part two won't happen.

If anyone else has any luck post it on here but I am done with that myself for now.

Now where did the frogs go hide ... here froggy... here froggy wanna come out and play tonight. LOL
 
That suprises me, Cntry. I thought you might be on to something there, especially with the twin cooling fans. Oh well ......

Are you runnin the 1" cooling lines from the radiator like some are ?

olf
 
A friend of mine was convinced that's the way to go. He has spent two years and has over heated his motor 15 or more times trying to run his radiator laying down. The problem is you can't get enough airflow and if you shroud it and run two fans what have you gained a more complex and heavy cooling system. He finally gave up. I finally convinced him nothing will cool his radiator as good as a 80" fan that moves enough air to move a boat. So spend the money and run a small double pass radiator mine is 13''x26'' and cools just fine.
 
recently put a dual pass radiator on my old boat hopin to keep it a little cooler and it did. fatboy what there talkin about is were the water enters the radiator at the bottom goes to the other side then goes up and back again and exits out the same side it came in on on .The radiator tank on the entry and exit side is blocked about half way were in the water has got to go through the core twice. Cntry picked one up at Alumitech for me a while back I believe it was made by afco and was around 325.00.
 
Just like Stan said so if you have a 30'' wide radiator the water must travel 60'' inches thru cores instead of 30'' so theoretically your water spends twice as much time in the radiator dissipating heat.
 
You can purchase Afco radiators online at http://www.afcoracing.com, the double pass are $224.95 they are listed in the online catalog under cooling systems universal racing. I just purchased my second one from them, when my prop decided to throw a foriegn object through mine.
 
I will probably try removing the dual fans and mounting the radiator close to where my old one is now. It is a dual pass that is 34-36" wide and about 16" high I think. it is at my shop and I am not so I may be off on the size. I need to fabricate a bracket to hold it in place but that should be fairly simple. Besides I just got a spool gun to try and weld some aluminum so now I have a real project to do.

I don't know for sure why it wont work it works in some exotic cars where the only air is pulled thru by the fan but I know it won't work on a airboat when you stand on it it gets hot quick. I didn't run mine hot enough to really hurt anything but I was keeping a good eye on things also.

I guess I could also use it for a really big oil cooler I would have some serious oil capacity then. naw it will work as a normal radiator after a few adjustments with a hammer.
 
Hey Cntry, Fatboy and I were talking about your experiment earlier and I was wondering did the water lines run up to the rad or down onto the rad. My fear was air trapping in the top of the tubes. Maybe a slight angle on the rad would help whatever is going on? At least you would still reduce the obstruction. Good Luck.
 
Lines ran down to it but no obstruction checked for flow and air bubbles no problem with either. experiment is over now welded in conventional brackets today. i still need to make some metal tubes but the hoses will work for now. several high performance cars have the radiator almost horizontal mounted below the engine outlet level but I suspect they don't operate under the load an airboat does. The next step up in fans would have required 50 amps to run and that is getting a bit extreme I was not crazy about 30 amps but decided to try it. i could get 4000 cfm with 50 amp fans.

I think that big fan at the back will work just fine I don't have my radiator in the prop trough like most folks do so I don't really get any major disruption to airflow but the horizontal radiator looked cool while it lasted anyways LOL. and besides the fans on the radiator were noisy and yes you could hear it over my engine at slow speeds.
 
Cntry, you'd probably give up 8 - 10 horsepower trying to produce a constant 50 amps. too. Less gas mileage. The prop cooling is free.

What are your thoughts on the 1" necked-down water lines that a lot of folks are using now?
 
havent thought of them or seen anyone runnin them.

supposedly some guy named teddy wenzell and some guy named andy and several others are running horizontal radiators with great sucess. They are supposed to live here on the west coast of florida. Now my guy gets his stories screwed up because he told me he ahd never done it but wanted to try it, when i tell him mine doesn't work he gets all defensive and tells me he has built all these other ones that are working just fine and supposedly he is dealing with diamond back and floral city airboats to make them for them also. he say I must have done something wrong. LOL yeah like I forgot to weld in the seperating baffle the first time we put it on.

So if anyone knows these guys and they are running them tell them to log on and give us a report.

Now I have a couple of issues I need help with on this.

1.) water does still boil at 212 more or less right?
2.) boiling water will make pressure right?
3.) 225 degree water will be boiling and making pressure right?

Just a few things my radiator guy and I disagreed on.
 
Yessir, last ime I checked ...... 212 deg. at sea level, no antifreeze.

Adding Red Line 'Water Wetter' can drop your temperature by around 15 deg. ...... have you tried that?
 
The boiling point of water directly correlates with the pressure it's under. If you raise the pressure in your cooling system you will raise your boiling point.


From Griffins web site!
6. Thou shall consider the effects of the pressure cap
The higher rated the pressure cap, the hotter the water has to get to boil. One pound of pressure raises the boiling temperature 3°F. A 16-pound cap raises the boiling point to 268°F. If your engine is designed to run at 200°F, a 14-16-pound cap should be sufficient. Running a higher pressure cap to prevent boil over is putting a band aid on another problem that needs to be fixed. Higher operating pressure places additional stress on the entire engine system and increases the potential of hoses bursting and possible injury.
 
I went from a 16 lb cap to a 21 lb cap and it made my engine run hotter. I never took the time to try to figure that out but made sure to swap back rather quickly.
 
Thinking out loud .....

Why do we need a pressure cap at all at sea level ? Why not just an expansion tank ?
I really don't know .... just askin. If your engine temp is running in the 160 - 190 range, boiling is not an issue.

olf.
 
boiling water is actually water converting to a gas instead of being a liquid
A water pump is designed to pump water not gas. to stop this you add pressure. To dissipate heat you need a good thermal conduction water is better than a gas for the radiator.
 
I understand that Ted, but if engine temp is consistently in the 160 - 190 range no water is boiling.
At sea level, where we live and run, why do we need a pressure cap ?

Am I missing something?

olf
 
When you shut your engine off, those with engine belt driven water pumps are no longer circulating coolant. Hot spots develop as heat from pistons and heads is transfered to the coolant and if there is no pressure cap, the boiling temperature will be reached and you would need a really large expansion tank. Have you ever had the misfortune of pulling off a radiator cap of a really hot engine. With the cap on, the 220F engine is not boiling, however when you pull the cap off you lose almost everything in the cooling system. If everything is designed and working properly, the hottest your engine will ever be is just after you shut it off. A good argue for electric water pumps! 8)
 
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