Car radiator setup

[Konny]

Hello guys, I want to make a watercooling setup based on a car radiator just because I dont mind the space required, because they are too cheap in ebay to pass up, and because it can be very silent (due to the huge area you can cool with very low rpm fans) without compomising cooling. I'd like to achieve as close to ambient temps as possible. Space is not a matter, but money is! so no Iwaki pumps etc.

To give credit where it's due, Zenjirou's thread (http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=82851) is what mostly inspired me.

Looking for a copper car rad to avoid corrosion, I couldn't come up with much (most are alu) so I guess his Koyo choice is pretty good if not the best and no need to change it since it's affordable enough.

I am planning to cool a quad cpu and also 1/2 GPUs.
My biggest concern is what kind of pumping I need and generally what other stuff changes when you go to a huge radiator setup like this.
Flow rate is obviously the first that comes to mind, but what is the best logic? Do you need as much pump power as you can get to somewhat make up for the reduced flow, or it's that much reduced that you simply can't compensate it and you can go for a regular pump hoping that the rad cooling is so extreme that low flow rate wont matter much ?

Also, what else (if anything) changes compared to using a typical rad?

[Konny]

Why not just go with automobile heater cores, try the legedary '77 Boneville core...

As far as I understand, a heatercore is much smaller than the radiator in a car and thus it won't provide any additional cooling. It would be a nice cheap alternative to commercial stuff but won't offer me anything else and since I got no problem with space I wanted to go the radiator way...

[Giannis86]

just put 3 mcr320s next to each other if space isnt your concern..they are cheap as well so you will have all that surface area for a low price...

[Konny]

mcr320s are cheap sure....but 3? The car rad costs as much as only 1 MCR320 and is even bigger than all 3!
The idea is good, and if I went this way I would probably use 2x MCR320s because they should be enough, but stil cant resist the Koyo rad at its price...around 75 euros for this massive copper thing which I will never ever need more cooling is too hard to resist. I mean tomorow I might add peltiers and stuff and this thing stil wont even sweat...it's so futureproof and cheap at the same time (2 things that usually don't mix), as long as you don't mind the space...

[Konny]

a huge fan would be a good choice, provided it can go to low speeds to be silent, although I don't know if the dead spot would be too big in this case...

[Mr 326]

I work at a late model auto salvage yard so I have pretty much unlimited access to car radiators and I have considered doing the same thing with my computer. One of the biggest problems I see is reducing the inlet/outlet of a car radiator to 1/2" id or whatever you plan on using for tubing. Most automotive radiators are between 1.5" and 2.5" outlet. Otherwise I think it would be an awesome project!

[Levish]

search summit racing for copper radiator and you'll turn up a few good results, some fabrication will be needed as no car radiator has provisions for 3/8" or 1/2" tubing. most are 2.5 or 3" so you'll need to come up with some sort of reducers + a custom shroud or a universal style rad fan with built in shroud.

[Konny]

I had in mind that I would need some kind of converters for the inlet/outlet but I guessed this would be easy, also the shroud/fanage will concern me later but I dont think it will be much of a problem.
At the moment I am mostly interested on choosing the right pump on a tight budget, anc checking to see if there is a better option than the Koyo rad, but it needs to be from ebay because I don't leave in the US and if I try to find it locally it will cost A LOT as a spare part...

[Naja002]

Yes, Another Car Radiator Thread....Major 56K Warning! (http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=189928)

Last post has a link to a lot of different copper rads....:up:

[fart_plume]

if handy can use copper sheet metal with a hole to fit brass barb's then solder then to the rad necks

There is a much easier way to fit barbs to a car radiator. measure your inlet and outlet sizes goto the hardware store buy pvc pipe in those sizes with caps. cut the pipe to the length you need and cap it drill and tap it for your barbs, then connect it to the radiator using a piece of tubing.This way you can easily make manifolds for multiple loops using one big radiator.