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General Liquid/Water Cooling Discussion For discussion about Full Cooling System kits, or general cooling topics. Keep specific cooling items like pumps, radiators, etc... in their specific forums. |
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10-22-2005, 09:13 AM | #1 |
Cooling Savant
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Granite Bay, CA
Posts: 105
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Radiator straight-in fitting flow Mod
Hello everybody. I didn't like using a 90 degree elbow to route the tubing in and out of my radiator. I also didn't like the idea of coolant flowing into the radiator header tank, then making an abrupt 90 degree turn. To minimize this disruption to flow I decided to drill the end of the header tank and solder in place bung fittings. Trying to get the max flow in and out I wanted to use the least restrictive fittings. The DD 9/16-18 1/2" barbs are the most open I have come across. Here is where I ran into a problem. Most radiator inlet and outlet bungs are 1/4 NPT(some use 3/8 NPT). I started a thread asking for help in locating 9/16-18 bungs. No one knew any sources. All of the radiator shops I contacted only had 1/4 NPT and 1/8 NPT. So I decided to machine my own. Starting with 3/8 outside, 1/4 inside brass adapters I drilled out the center with a 33/64 bit, then ran a 9/16-18 tap through. Next I cut off the bulk of the length of the fitting so as little as possible would protrude into the header tank. I found that drilling the header tank turned out to be a real touchy operation. As I gradually increased the diameter of the drill bits at 1/2" the flutes on the bit started to rip and twist the thin copper of the header tank. I then took the rad to a large radiator shop in Nevada that said they were a full service facility and they weren't kidding. They said they could finish opening up the bung hole (I can see the flood of jokes coming now), by using a die grinder and then soldering the bung in place. They placed the rad in a hot chemical bath to remove the existing finish, ran it through the cleaning tank, then pressure tested it to 10 PSI. The guys at A-1 Radiator had a great "can do attitude". I then sprayed the exterior with a high-solids enamel. The fin area was left unpainted to ensure max heat transfer to air. I was willing to live with the funky look of the fins as the chemical bath only partially removed the factory finish. Here is a few photos along the way. I am making a few (hopefully for the better)modifications to the design of my external cooling unit and will post more pics when completed.
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10-22-2005, 12:55 PM | #2 |
Put up or Shut Up
Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: Spokane WA
Posts: 6,506
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Nice work.
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10-22-2005, 03:00 PM | #3 |
Cooling Savant
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: Sydney, Oz
Posts: 336
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Hopefully you measured the flow rate for your radiator prior to starting?
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10-23-2005, 01:53 AM | #4 |
Cooling Savant
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Granite Bay, CA
Posts: 105
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As I don't have a test set-up, I record ambient vs cpu and gpu temps at idle and after gaming. I am installing a pressure gauge in one of the extra outlet side radiator bungs, so going forward I will have some more performance data.
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