heatercore sandwich (will it work?)

[Marlowe]

I'm in the planning stage of a new case/watercooling setup, and got most of it figured out already. However I want you guys' opinion on a idea I have on the mounting of two dual heatercores like this:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v205/graastein/raddiser2.png
You see I think it will fit in the case I have in mind. I want the best cooling possible, but still get everything integrated inside the case. The guys on my irc hangout channel ( #ocshoot.no ) totally slaughtered my idea and said there would not be very little to nothing benefit from doing this. Someone even said the heated air going through the second rad would heat up the water and make the setup even less effective than just having one rad.

What I'm thinking is that these heatercore radiators have fairly little air resistance, so they are not heating the air going through very much..?

Please tell me what you think! :D

[MaxxxRacer]

no it wont work well. stacking radiators does NOT work well. especially not with ones as thick as heatercores

[Marlowe]

Hmf.. then what to do!? :shrug: :dammit: :bounce:

One rad is just so.. simple :P I want the best integrated watercooling possible!

[MaxxxRacer]

oh and btw heatercores have incredibly HIGH air resistance. its their waterflow resistance thats low.

one heatercore may be simple but its effective. if u want to use two rads, then keep them away from eachother and make sure they have a good supply of cool air. side by side would work..

[Marlowe]

But that is close to impossible if you don't have a stacker or something like that. But you are right of course..

Well back to the designing board.. I might have another plan that just might work.. Thanks a lot for your feedback!

I will return ;)

[Weapon]

oh and btw heatercores have incredibly HIGH air resistance. its their waterflow resistance thats low.

one heatercore may be simple but its effective. if u want to use two rads, then keep them away from eachother and make sure they have a good supply of cool air. side by side would work..

well, I guess everything is relative but I wouldn't say that heater cores have incredibly high air resistance. If they did the inside of your car would never get warm in winter. ;) Back to the world of computer cooling -- heatercores have more fins per inch than some of the newer designs (hence, more air resistance) but lower FPI cores/rads are designed for low noise/quiet cooling applications. I am waiting to get my hands on one so I can test it against the 302, 199, 342, etc. with fans moving 80CFM or more - for that matter, I have never seen any solid numbers on CFM curves vs. performance curves for thinner and thicker rads/cores when tested side-by-side so that is of some interest (i.e. at what point does the airflow become too little to get effective cooling from a core and how does that line up with the newer rads that have less fin density??).

with fans like san ace 120s or M panaflos, you can get plenty of air through a heatercore.

I will have to get a picture of this up later but a BIX2 has cooling fins packed more tightly than those on a b'ville core. From what I can tell of the fins on the BIX2, they do not have the internal fins on the fins like a b'ville but they are packed more closely together. Of course, due to the size difference and the type of fins used, the b'ville still wins as far as overall surface area is concerned.

with all of that out of the way, I wouldn't suggest rad stacking either. Cores produce the best performance with the coolest air possible moving through them -- the second one in a stacked setup will get slightly warmer air moved through it and will be less effective than it would be otherwise.

[MaxxxRacer]

lol weapon. alot of talk for the final two sentances reagarding the post.

but i will digress somre more here too. I will be testing such factors as when the fans airflow becomes a negative effect on the heatercores and rads. I want to see what the best combo is here.

I much agree the BIX2 has fins that are WAY more tightly packed BUT you can see through a BIX much easier than a heatercore. the air has to take a less direct path through the core to get through. the BIX it goes straight through. the two are trade off of eachother, but they both work pretty well.