This is of course a heavily debated question. The answer is "sort of" On a TT in our climate, it would seem e-fans can't provide enough air flow to keep temps down. The NA boys with their considerably wider radiator manage okay. It comes down to CFM - the much thinner TT radiator can only have one big fan mounted (16" I think), whereas with a wider unit two medium size 14" fans can just be squeezed in. The difference in CFM is substantial. The planned rad configuration is also a twin pass, which'll help some too. I can configure it as more of a V, but it'll only force in some undesirable bends to the intake piping and lengthen the tubing as well. I figure if mounting the fins against the air flow (as with the radiator) isn't a good thing, why do it twice if I don't have to? Thought about it, just want to KISS. Yes. Wouldn't work with my front bar - no SMIC vents.
What front bar are you using by the way? In your engine bay, there won't be a clutch fan will there.......or are you going to you it to pull air through the intercooler. Any planned Bonnet or nose panel vents in the equation we don't know about yet? Also a chunky oil cooler will help your cause temp wise. No idea where you'd put it though
NA front bar. Not best for flow I know. Chunky oil cooler will be fitted. Escort vented bonnet in place, standard nose panel. A opened up nose panel would mean a heap more air flow for the intercooler; it's pretty much right in front of it. Not a fan of the styling though.
If you actually wanted to Keep It Simple, you'd forget about this L-mount set up and stick to the standard arrangement. If you REALLY want to pursue this idea though, look in the front of an FD RX-7. The radiator on those is mounted sloping the opposite to what you've got and way further back in the chassis too, but the principle is similar. Then again, the intercooler is the size of a postage stamp as a result and there's extremely little room to work around things. I'd also consider swapping the position of the radiator and intercooler. Besides putting more weight right in the nose of the car, the radiator won't get anywhere near as much airflow as the intercoolers will in the configuration you've got. Leave V-mounts to actual race cars. The only road car I can think of that has an L-mount heat exchanger configuration is the F10 M5, and it's an oil cooler in the lower position, not the radiator.
I mentioned it as I am running a water injection system, having removed my smics. It was very straight forward & pretty simple, seems to be less hassle than what you are currently contemplating if get off the shelf kit from snow performance.
You're dead right about that - perhaps I should have said I want to "set and forget" and not worry about another system that requires upkeep. I also am relying on the intercooler to split my single turbo outlet to twin plenum inlets. Looking up the FD, it seems that both the intercooler and radiator are mounted in parallel at an angle, leaning forward. Intercooler above the radiator. Similar in the sense that they both get fresh air, but that's all I can really tell from a few searches. Regarding switching the radiator and intercooler my theory (hope) is that the fans on the radiator will pull enough to make up for a lot of the air flow heading to the intercooler.
I don't know if you didn't know this or not, but the NA Z31 has an angled radiator with thermofans from factory.
So do most Lotus's (Lotii?). I'd be worried you won't get the airflow through the radiator that you need in that position. I have nothing to back up my concerns however
It seems like its going to be a try it and see situation. Would it be reversible should it spectacurly fail?
I was going to suggest that too but other replacing the hatch glass with a radiator and vents I couldn't figure out a way to air to it there either
Had a great chat about this with Tekky earlier this week. Apparently he at one pouint designed something very similar for his race car. The issue regarding flow through the radiator at speed comes down to the pressure behind the radiator. It doesn't matter how strong the fans are - if the pressure behind the radiator is higher than in front, they'll cavitate and nothing will pass through the fins. The trick seems to be to create a negative pressure underneath the front of the car with the likes of a big splitter or similar. Unfortunately I don't really want to run small enough ground clearance at the front (think ~20mm) for this to be effective (and I don't like the look of them anyway). Not all hope is lost though, still reading...
The extra 27% frontal area doesn't really mean much when the air is running over the radiator at 75degrees angle. The conventional radiator is designed for air to hit it dead straight on and you'll see that the air passages are parallel to the airflow (or perpendicular to the frontal face of the rad as the air hits it) If you run the rad at 75degrees angle then you have air trying to make a sharp turn to go down through the cooling passages. You get a pressure build up here and just think of air as a fluid - it follows path of last resistance so will go through the intercooler. Nice for your charge air temp but your car will overheat.
Cavitation is the formation of voids in a liquid as a result of forces applied to it. Don't think that is what is going to be happening here. All that is going to happen is you're not going to get a lack of cooling because convection is reduced because of the lack of flow. Your design may possibly work at idle but I think it's likely going to run hot or overheat at cruise speeds. I've never really thought the Z had an issue with turbo lag (but then again I run stock turbos) so it does seem like a lot of effort / money to go this route for questionable gains. Am interested to see how it comes out though. Gl.
Honestly I'm not sure 100℅ of anti s build is about the gains. Its about the uniqueness and the the awesome factor of doing something different and the final look will be sick. On topic any way to mock this up on a smaller scale?
That's fine, but I'm sure he would prefer a car that's vaguely functional and can drive for 10 minutes without melting a head......hence the discussion above
I win I was thinking for that, cars with a focus on drag coefficient use a rubber front lip with like 5mm clearance that just folds over if you go over bumps or whatever, if you tuck it back at the rear of the front bar you might not see it but should help reduce underbody air pressure a lot.
