Thread: My radiator thread. Project Tight Fit complete!

I'm not trying to increase the cooling efficiency as much as increase the cooling capacity. I can have the strongest fans in the world, but I'd rather put my money into a larger radiator. Radiator fans fail, fuses blow, or they get so hot they start to melt lol.

I had a ceramic coating on my old dp but when I wrapped it with header wrap, it still rusted through, but it lasted a couple years.

I'm still going through my options right now. We'll see what happens.

What's under the hood?



before

after








Let me know what you guys think. My friend Eric and I made the custom mounts up top, and drilled some holes in the lower support for the Koyo's lower mount tabs. This did require some modification to the condenser mount points, and I re-routed the wire harness underneath as well. It is wrapped with some DEI foil tape to prevent heat from melting the wire.

Then we laid down some foam insulation tape for the radiator to sit on and cushion it. And we modified some Silicon radiator hoses. The radiator sits rock solid. There is a full 1" from the fairly large exhaust manifold to the big beefy Koyo.

It fits, barely.

Let me know what you guys think!

Also, the radiator is just slightly tilted toward the firewall up top. But it is sick!

All I need now is hood pins.

Over 50 views since last night, and no comments on the route I took? I hope this inspires others to go big. no half-width radiator here!

Cannot wait to drive again. Perhaps I should post some pics of my Brembo rotors which have turned blue from the heat of beating it.

I'm surprised you even had to cut the radiator support, the B13/B14 radiator sits under the support thus you have a lot more room then what the P11 has.

B14 with stock radiator:



On p11 you have the AC condenser chilling in there (sorry couldn't find a better pic)


With a Koyo it's a very tight squeeze.

Looks good coheed. Im sure people will chime in about why did you cut the support and blah blah blah. But really all that support is is just looks. You could make yourself a nice cooling plate that goes from each side of the support and over the grill and headlights that incorporates the mounts for the radiator in it.

I did mine with my half width, yours would look soo much cleaner with the grille being there and so on. Basicly I just took a piece of cardboard, traced it out and cut it, took it to a metal works shop and had one made from 1/8 aluminum plate. I cut a slit on each side of the support for the edge to slide under, drilled it and tapped it for a bolt. Im gonna redo another one that goes over the headlights as well and also have a custom intake channel made into it to take the opening of the grill and route air to the front of the turbo.

looks good to me

Try mounting a long-runner tubular manifold in there with that fat 1.06 housing.

That's pretty much why I had to remove the upper radiator support. IF the koyo were placed in the factory mounts, it would interfere with the manifold by a lot. This would require a new manifold. By moving the radiator forward, it sits atop the condenser support. Problem here, is that you are pushing the radiator approx 2" higher overall.

The P11 and B14 have similar room, but the P11 just moves the radiator support slightly in front of the radiator.

I had to move the Koyo 2-3 inches forward to get the clearance I have.

I will be getting some Foam insulation padding to put around the edges of the radiator to improve airflow through it. But removing the radiator now takes about 10min, instead of 3 hours. Before, I had to remove the whole turbo/manifold to get the radiator out!

From this pic here you can see the tabs for the factory radiator mounts. And you can see why even a stock-sized radiator has trouble fitting.


If you look closely at this pic, you can see that my NX radiator was just barely clearing the manifold.


The koyo was the biggest option I had, and I really wanted to make it work. I would say it was pretty successful, and the same thing could be done with any P11/B14/B15 that has little room to work with.

Here's a kind-of walk-thru on how I did the whole thing.

Here you can see the difference between mounting on the lower radiator mount-tabs, and mounting on the frame rail. See how much lower the koyo sits in the first pic?