2 radiators ... crazy idea?

[Fatty]

i'll probably get laughed out of town for this question but has anybody ever experimented with fitting a second radiator somewhere else... like for example i know many of the race cars have no passenger seat, or you could use the boot, or the space under the boot.

i remember seeing a datto 1600 at a phillip island sprint day that had the radiator at the back.

i'm just thinking of this coz having the weight of that big alloy rad , plus all the extra water, right out in the front of the car in front of the wheels would affect handling, maybe not a lot, but a little bit at least.

this is probably a stupid idea but thought i'd mention it to see if it's been done at all. so you'd have the standard rad which feeds the engine, then the water goes to the other rad, then back to the standard rad. the other rad could be a small motorbike rad or something like that.

[SuperMazdaKart]

it's not a Veyron. doesn't make enough heat to make use of it.& might not even get hot enough for the engine with such a setup in an mx5?

[fattima]

Would be a complex system and the added weight with piping etc would probably cancel out any possible gains.

[Fatty]

this would be for a turbo setup. they get hot enough, trust me! a couple of laps at winton on a mild day is enough to bump the temp gauge out of it's comfort zone.

[Babalouie]

Fitting a huge oil cooler would be a lot less hassle and cool down that hawt moter even better. The oil gets heated up because it has to go thru the turbo, so why not fix the prob at the source?

[Fatty]

complex why? the second rad would just be plumbed in without a thermostat or anything, just like a pipe... straight thru.

i was thinking of tapping from the heater in / out but i don't think all the water flows thru there anyway. i need to see a diagram of the coolant system.

too hard / dumb idea / just stick with tried and true methods.

just thinking out loud, and trying to save money

[Fatty]

yep oil cooler is also on the \"to do\" list, before any radiator upgrades. i guess i'm trying to solve problems before they actually exist... just trying to plan ahead.

[Steampunk]

This may not be of much help, but I read a thread on one of the main Miata forums in the US where they were bitching about overheating, especially those who live in the desert areas; Arizona, Las Vegas etc.
I didn't go so far as to find out how some fixed the problem as it was of no interest to me.
Alot of these guys track theirs regularly and many have turbos.

Do a search and see what the guys stateside do.

Nitrous cools things down .... and speeds things up too

[fattima]

Complex cause you need to run pipes all over your car and mount another radiator.

[adamjp]

I've been researching the whole - MX5 overheat problem a bit of late.

First, I fitted an oil cooler nearly 2 years back. Worth every cent.

Second, in lieu of MX5 Mania being able to supply NA6 radiators that fit (their supplier - JustJap is jerking them around) I have ordered a Godspeed radiator off eBay US. I'll let you know what it's like when it gets here, but the basic specs seem good 52mm, triple core. I expect it to be similar to, but not as good as the big PWR model.

Third, I have built a duct to force all air coming in through the nose of the car into the radiator. Pictures, sizes, etc. to follow when I take it out of the car to fit the new radiator.

Fourth on the list has been the double radiator fan conversion. It works well so far.

Finally, I am considering a coolant re-route to remove the crap design compromise that Mazda did with the B6/BP into the North-South configuration. Not locked on this yet, I intend to see how my other changes go.

I would think that if you did all of these things another remotely mounted radiator would be worthless. Not to mention the issues with actually finding somewhere to mount it in a normal road-going car. For a radiator to work it must have good airflow, our cars only really get that in the nose.

I normally only overheat coming up the Clyde mountain from Batemans Bay to Braidwood (although there were some overheats in May/June due to radiator cracks - and I live near Canberra, it's cold here in May/June ). If I drove sedately, all would be good, but who drives a mountain road sedately???? Since I do it at least 5 times over the summer season (taking kids to and from their grandparents and me to and from fishing) I want more capacity for keeping the engine operating.
It really is not 'cool' to have passed everything on your way up the mountain to be passed by everything near the top of the mountain because you're sitting on the side, waiting for the engine to cool down

[Fatty]

yep coolant reroute seems like a good idea, , then wiring up the second fan, and of course, an oil cooler.


if my car still overheats after that i guess i will look at mounting a second radiator onto the windscreen or in some other sensible place.........

[manga_blue]

Wasn't there a Datto at PI that had one slung under the floor?

Could be messy on the ripple strips.

[CapitalF]

I used to race a Nissan 4WD which was diesel and a number of the guys running utes would run their intercooler radiators/fans on the back (not the radiator). They were moving slowly a lot of the time and airflow was poor. Diesels can run extremely hot when fueled up and this was usually only done after double core, double pass custom radiators and oil coolers were all added. We used to often clog up the radiators at the front with mud etc too.

I dont think its very practical on the MX5s though and Im sure the turbo race guys will tell us how its done.

See what I mean here: http://www.xtreme4x4sport.com.au/xtreme-4x4/60.JPG which is my old cab and roll cage chopped and completely rebuilt on a new truck.

[Okibi]

Your MX-5 should already have a second radiator, attached to the hottest outlet on the engine and carefully hidden up under the dash.

I've often looked at the \"coolant reroute\" solutions and wondered if a small radiator about 20cm x 20cm mounted to the firewall might help instead.

How about a \"group buy\" to commission an aluminium baffled sump with cooling fins (like a PC heatsink).

Or just glue some jaycar heatsinks to your sump.

[Juffa]

When I started to have overheat problems last summer I wired the two fans together, so that the air cond fan would come on at the same time as the primary fan. It didn't help. I found that I had to turn the air cond off to keep the coolant temps with in reason. Since then I have fitted a smaller intercooler (thanks fatty) and refitted the under engine tray. I tried her out on some of the hot days we have had down here over the past few weeks and she has not overheated yet. The real test will be a track day or a long run in the country on a hot day. I have also recently discovered a mod where I can run the fan relay to my ECU and controll when the fans kick in, which I will keep up my sleeve if the other fixs haven't helped.
What size intercooler are you running Fatty?
I have also seen on the miata turbo website where are number of people are using a 'scooper' similar to the Bell Engineering design. The scooper is a piece of aluminum that is attached to the bottom of the intercooler and scoops air into the intercooler and then the radiator. Looks simple and cheap to make.
J