Dual 120 Heatercore

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Originally posted by hatemi
Only one qustion: Why the heck did you mod the fittings that way cos all you really had to do would have been cut the original pipes shorter. Too much work just to gain nothing preformance wise. Looks great tough:D

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I read your response and it is a good point...

another way to do it, is just cut the tubes coming out of the rad a little shorter and then sweat(solder) on 1/2" barb fittings

Here is what I mean (see below) I know the rad is very differnt, but it gives an idea....

http://water.thepeaks.com/rad1.jpg

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Originally posted by exeter_acres
I read your response and it is a good point...

another way to do it, is just cut the tubes coming out of the rad a little shorter and then sweat(solder) on 1/2" barb fittings

Here is what I mean (see below) I know the rad is very differnt, but it gives an idea....

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yeah, that will also work. I did that with some copper pipe extensions on a chevette core to get a little more clearance from the core and fan. I guess I need to take some pics of that one and throw them in here as well. :)

yet another way to attack the tubes is demonstrated in the core and shroud how-to that was in the link I put up a post or two back. In that article, he cut the tubes, filed down the threads on the fittings and then soldered them in place inside the tubes.

no matter what type of copper inlet and outlet tubes you get on a core, there is always some way to make it work.

I actually got enough time to make some progress on the shroud how-to today.

this one will be on a new version of the shroud that is easier to make. it should be just as strong as the first and I think it will end up looking almost identical to the first one (except it will be a different color). the top plate that the fans will be mounted on is the same dimensions: 255mm long and 130mm wide so the fan spacing will look the same.

after I found the Sun mass storage for ardawg's system and discovered how much room we were going to have left over, I picked up another bonneville core at O'Reilly's autoparts here in town (hence, I have a good excuse to make another shroud :D ).

Just in case anyone runs up to O'reilly's, this is the info they will want:
1977 Pontiac Bonneville, rear wheel drive, 350 V-8 with AC....oddly enough, autozone just asked me for the year and the with or without AC part.
Anyway, I ended up with another one with the round tubes on both sides of the top tank so the fitting swap out was just as shown in the pics at the start of this thread.

it seems that at least a couple of people have gotten a bonneville HC that is made by someone else and it uses the screwed up oval inlet tubes on the tanks. make them open the box and check the tubes before you shell out the cash if you want the round inlet and outlet.

Still following this thread. Building the box for mine now. Including a psu (200w) for now as well as a rheo for the toooo loud dual 120's and throwing some temp probes in the front of the case as well. Have to see if we have that auto parts store here in Atlanta. Then again we do have Pep Boys, Advance, etc.

I will dig up the box for the last one that I got and find the manufacturer name & the product number -- then I will post it.
that should make tracking down the right core a little easier.

shroud how-to still in the works but it is getting there.

aite - the two heatercores that I recently have gotten that have the nice round tubes in them like the ones in the pics at the start of this thread have both been the same --

Box info:

Ready-Aire
399078
FEDCO 2-302
Made in the USA

the fittings I have used on all of them are:
Milton 1/2" ID HOSE, 3/8" NPT
I would just skip the fittings but the Milton ones that I have been getting appear to be very well made and they have very clean threads.
:)

this is my heatercore radiator
this is the link i used to make mine

http://forums.overclockers.com.au/sh...threadid=49874

Wow, such a nice job on the hc Weapon. I'm jealous. That paint is killer! :D

I've been reading through this thread, and have noticed the work you had to do to remove the stock barbs on the hc, not to mention finding a 77 Bonneville hc in the first place. If I wanted to save some time and not test my meager blowtorch skills, would a solution like this
with a fan shroud give similar performance? Hope you dont mind answering this Q, and thanks much in advance!

You guys have all the luck with these heatercores. In Holland we're still stuck with overprised black ice extremes .. I want one of those dual 120mm cores :(

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Originally posted by Gogeta
Wow, such a nice job on the hc Weapon. I'm jealous. That paint is killer! :D

I've been reading through this thread, and have noticed the work you had to do to remove the stock barbs on the hc, not to mention finding a 77 Bonneville hc in the first place. If I wanted to save some time and not test my meager blowtorch skills, would a solution like this
with a fan shroud give similar performance? Hope you dont mind answering this Q, and thanks much in advance!

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weapon's response:
thanks. :)

as long as the core is roughly the same dimensions as the one I used, you shroud it and add a couple of 120mm fans, the performance should be about the same.

edit: shat -- forgot to log out the dawg before I posted from his computer.

^^dammit -- I always forget to log him out before posting from his house.

lol.

anyway, ardawg's 2 room system is just about done so I will try to get some pics up of those shenanigans as well as some pics of his new heatercore *looks over at drying paint* :)

No worries dude, just post the piccies :)

bringing this thread back from the depths once again.

please excuse the quality of some of these pics....alcohol induced vision impaired my photography skills somewhat....didn't seem to hurt my abilities at building watercooling much though. :D

http://pages.suddenlink.net/weapon/i...ARweapcore.jpg
^the new bonneville core in ardawg's multiroom h2o system. the psu was just sat on top of the res for the time being and the wiring is still a mess but we had to test this sucker. the white thing the PSU is sitting on is the res....5 gallons. muahahaha.
anyway, all of this is mounted in the base of a Sun Mass Storage tower I found for dirt cheap. lots of room left for the next stage which will be the addition of the waterchiller for summer use. In winter, this room is much cooler than dawg's computer room -- cool enough to where the size of the res + the cool air being sucked thru the core had his CPU running cooler than ambient before we started turning up the voltage and OCing it.

the bonneville core replaced this one that is going to become a gpu or northbridge cooler in the near future:
http://pages.suddenlink.net/weapon/images/arsglcore.jpg
^that is a chevette core I did a couple of years ago. it has been moved around a lot but the paint is still holding up well enough. :)

dammmmmmit. server probs - more pics in a bit.

nice work guys

Whoa thats stunning, i can't find any heatercores at that size!

I've seen this multiple times but every time it never ceases to amaze me. Good job!

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Originally posted by DaveX
I've seen this multiple times but every time it never ceases to amaze me. Good job!

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thanks. :)

the new one is going to be even a bit better I believe. I took some more time to tweak the angles and the measurements for the shroud and it looks like the extra time is going to pay off. :)

it is hard to tell wth is going on in this diagram but this is the end result of a decent amount of time and thought:
http://members.cox.net/weapon/images...shrd.dsgn2.jpg

I am rewriting the shroud how-to (yep - the one I still haven't posted :rolleyes: ) based upon the new tweaked measurements. Once I get the next shroud built off this design, I will post the measurements for all four sides and the top plate. that should make it fairly easy to recreate. I'll add some pics to the description to make the assembly of the shroud as easy as possible. :)

slightlty OT (as this is a dual 120 thread) but it turned out so well that I have to add a pic. :)

weaponized 6x6x2 heatercore for the smaller cases --
http://pages.suddenlink.net/weapon/images/nbdcore.jpg

it has just a bit smaller overall dimensions than the ever-so-popular '86 chevette core.

edit - this came up in another thread so I am adding it here as well:

core painting -

1. scrub down the sides, the top tank and the bottom tank with cast aluminum wheel cleaner (bascially acid) and a brass brush - rinse it off with lots of water and let it dry.
2. lightly rough the sides and tanks with 400 grit wet/dry paper, once again, rinse with lots of water and dry off with lint free paper towels or terry cloth.
3. 2 mist coats of Duplicolor adhesion promoter as per can instuctions.
4. 2 coats of Duplicolor Hi-Build sandable primer, lightly sand between coats with 400 grit wet - if you sand thru the primer and hit metal, add another primer coat.
5. 2 coats Duplicolor Primer Sealer
6. 2-4 coats of Duplicolor Enamel paint
7. 2 coats Duplicolor clearcoat.

let dry for about 5 days minimum if you go with the above painting scheme.

how to speed up the process.
1. steps 1-4 as above.
2. skip step 5 from above.
3. 2 coats of Duplicolor Truck and Van paint in whatever color you like.
4. 2 clear coats.

bake in oven at 125 deg F for 1-2 days.

You get cores like this for $17.99 US? Holy :banana: :banana: :banana: :banana: that is cheap.

We are paying like 60-70 US for comparable cores.

Very nice work.

Also how do you mount the shroud on the radiator? Is it just glue?

I'm trying to work out a decent removable solution, but it isn't that easy, as the rads either have weird sized mounting holes, or none like on your's.

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Originally posted by pippin88
You get cores like this for $17.99 US? Holy :banana: :banana: :banana: :banana: that is cheap.

We are paying like 60-70 US for comparable cores.

Very nice work.

Also how do you mount the shroud on the radiator? Is it just glue?

I'm trying to work out a decent removable solution, but it isn't that easy, as the rads either have weird sized mounting holes, or none like on your's.

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$60 - $70 US for a core. ouch.
that would cover the core, the material for the shroud, paint, cork tape and enough beer to do the job right :D

quick fedex check...ouch $90usd to ship a 77 bonneville core to melbourne or sydney. wonder if anyone else is cheaper...UPS says $99. hmmm....time to check the slow boat to china rate...the USPS says they can get one to you insured for a much better rate.

3 - 5 Days $45ish after insurance
4 - 10 Days $40 or thereabout w/insurance
4 - 6 Weeks $26 w/insurance.
cost of bare core...say $20 to cover US tax on this end.
if you could wait 4-6 weeks, $46 would get a bonneville core to australia. that would be an unmodded one straight from the local autoparts store. adding 1/2" barbs would be about another $6, brass side panels =another $15,

those are rough guestimates but they are pretty close.

on to the mounting question.
I use threaded rods, 6x32 thread, 6" long. they go thru the fans and shroud and then I carefully thread them thru the fins in the core and put #6 washers and #6 nuts on the backside of the core and on top of the grills on the fans. that leaves about an inch of thread for running thru the case to bolt it down (that depends on how tall of a shroud I build for the core). Once the core is in place, I cut the threaded rods to where there is just about 1mm or so excess threaded rod on each side.

I use cork tape to seal the shroud to the core so no air is lost between them. I use the same as a gasket between the fans and the shroud. 1/8" neoprene would also work.

Neat mounting, I Could adapt it to my situation easily enough.

$60-70 USD was a bit of an over-estimate, but it depends on the exact core and whether it's new or not. People are now sourcing them for a fair bit cheaper than at first, but still looking at $50 USD for a dual fan core.

http://www.employees.org/~slf/ba/bba-raw1.jpg
That's an image of the cores typically used by aussies. First really introduced by Cathar (His image too), it comes from a late 80's model Camry. Pricing originally started at about 70USD, but has got cheaper as I mentioned. Unfortunately the holes on the sides are bloody hard to find decent screws for. Most people use self tapers, as not bolts/machine screws seem to fit :(

All figures converted from AUD to USD at 1 USD = 1.34734 AUD

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Originally posted by pippin88
Neat mounting, I Could adapt it to my situation easily enough.

$60-70 USD was a bit of an over-estimate, but it depends on the exact core and whether it's new or not. People are now sourcing them for a fair bit cheaper than at first, but still looking at $50 USD for a dual fan core.

http://www.employees.org/~slf/ba/bba-raw1.jpg
That's an image of the cores typically used by aussies. First really introduced by Cathar (His image too), it comes from a late 80's model Camry. Pricing originally started at about 70USD, but has got cheaper as I mentioned. Unfortunately the holes on the sides are bloody hard to find decent screws for. Most people use self tapers, as not bolts/machine screws seem to fit :(

All figures converted from AUD to USD at 1 USD = 1.34734 AUD

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the camry core doesnt look too bad - I'd like it better with a hair less fin density(might be the pic) and a slightly larger bottom tank but it clearly has serious potential. what are the dimensions on that one?


back to the dual 120mm '77 bonneville core project.
I came up with a new mod for the top tanks with the hope that it would squeeze some more cooling out of this core and I bolted on the latest rev of the shroud design onto it. The weapon core rev. whatever-in-the-hell-rev-I'm-on-now (yep, that is the official title for this one) is being tested at the moment. I looks like it worked - temps are at least 3-4 C lower than what they were with the old design. I will have to swap out the shroud designs to see what is primarily responsible for the increase in cooling but I think it is pretty much a mixture of the 2 mods. :D

it isn't that hard of a mod (although it does require a little torch action as there are some fairly close dimensions involved) - it adds maybe 5-10minutes to the mod time and prolly $5 to the cost of the finished core. I am going to mod another core (hopefully this weekend if the monster core doesn't lure me into finishing it) and I will get some pics of the changes.

Approx dimentions of the camry core are: 26cm x 14.5cm

The fin density looks greater in the that picture. It's more like: http://users.bigpond.net.au/pippin88...ad/radback.jpg Pretty much the same as that density. I agree about the bottom tank, less than optimal for flow.

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Originally posted by pippin88
Approx dimentions of the camry core are: 26cm x 14.5cm

The fin density looks greater in the that picture. It's more like: http://users.bigpond.net.au/pippin88...ad/radback.jpg Pretty much the same as that density. I agree about the bottom tank, less than optimal for flow.

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iirc it's only 1.5" deep also. one potential + is that the bars with holes on the side make it easy to fix a shroud, and are also perfect for mounting it in a 5.25" bay, which it's just the right width for....

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Originally posted by pauldenton
iirc it's only 1.5" deep also. one potential + is that the bars with holes on the side make it easy to fix a shroud, and are also perfect for mounting it in a 5.25" bay, which it's just the right width for....

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All correct, it's very commonly mounted in CD bays.

However the mounting holes are not bloody suitable for machine screws or anything, have to use self tapers :(