I'm getting a jump on planning this before summer hits and it's 95 degrees out. My car does just ok when it's hot out, it's not great. When it's 90+ temps get well over 215/220, even on the highway, so I end up turning the heat on to bring coolant temps down. I've been living with that, but I'm old now and I want my AC.

And AC would make those temps even worse since the issue is that the air going through the FMIC isn't ducted and most of it isn't going through the radiator. Does anyone have any picture examples of ducting a 1g FMIC and radiator together with a stock bumper? I've seen some really good 2g threads here on tuners but no good 1g examples with a stock bumper.

What I need to do is seal up this area, between the FMIC and the AC condensor so the air literally has no where else to go. Right now I suspect it's mostly spilling out the sides, bottom, etc.




Also, I have 2 puller slim fans on the car right now. Would adding a pusher fan WITH the 2 pullers help?

Thanks!

Sealing that area up should help tremendously with your cruise temps. I recently built some comparable ducting for my 2g and coolant temp dropped more than 20* from where it was @ 70mph. I had to get a warmer thermostat.

It didn't help much at idle maybe a 2-4* difference in the same amount of idle time I attribute to the fans now drawing air in from outside the bumper.

The fans do all the work at idle and low speed, the more cfm the better. Not sure what type of fans you have, but make sure they're of good quality. An 8in PermaCool fan flows more than a 14in AutoZone special.

If you can fit a pusher between the radiator and the front mount it should help a good bit.
Are your current fans shrouded? That helps a great deal as well.

Pretty much the same concept you would follow on the 2gs. I have ducting and ac as well works flawless. I have one pusher and one puller SPAL fans

I found an old post I did a while back on codsm. I went to the extreme, but it might give you a few ideas. I did ducting like you describe where I sealed as much as I could so air would go through the radiator. I believe I ended up using foam strips to seal the FMIC to the radiator support area so air wouldn't go around the radiator. I also ended up putting a plastic scoop that draws air from below the FMIC and routes it to the radiator. These things combined with a half size condensor all work in conjunction to keep temps down in the summer while still being able to enjoy A/C.

Here's the post:
http://codsm.org/forums/showthread.php?t=6814

Bert

yokotabrat said:

I found an old post I did a while back on codsm. I went to the extreme, but it might give you a few ideas. I did ducting like you describe where I sealed as much as I could so air would go through the radiator. I believe I ended up using foam strips to seal the FMIC to the radiator support area so air wouldn't go around the radiator. I also ended up putting a plastic scoop that draws air from below the FMIC and routes it to the radiator. These things combined with a half size condensor all work in conjunction to keep temps down in the summer while still being able to enjoy A/C.

Here's the post:
http://codsm.org/forums/showthread.php?t=6814

Bert

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I love what you did with the aftermarket condenser and hoses. Do you have a link for that condensor and hoses? Great idea! Nice work

I went through the same issues when I installed my FMIC a few years back. Putting around town the car's temps never went over 206/210° but this was not the case when I got on the highway. Temps slowly crept up to 215, 220, 225.... I had to blast the heat every once in a while to bring down temps. You have A/C, which I never did, but maybe my story will help.

I spent the entire summer combating this overheating. I had already ditched the A/C condenser, so that wasn't an option. I put heat blankets on the O2 housing and the manifold, got an Evo rad cap, new thermostat, new 60/40 water/coolant plus WaterWetter (later research indicated that WaterWetter wouldn't help this situation anyway). None of this helped.

So using the OE plastic shroud pictured below I fashioned ducting from the FMIC onto the radiator. I sealed up the edges with cut up milk carton (ghetto) and commercial grade ducting tape (expensive). This actually did help a little, but temps would still eventually creep upwards given enough highway driving. I even drove around with the hood off for a week or two, but that didn't make a difference.



Barring the water pump being a dud, I finally bought a new OE style radiator. When I flushed the coolant I used a friend's pressure washer to blast water through the coolant system for 30 minutes. A lot of brown water came out of the cooling system but no huge clumps of gunk like I was hoping. Regardless, this last step did help a lot. Coolant temps still rose but it took a lot of hard driving in the 90°+ heat; calm cruising was now okay.
If I could go back, I'd do everything above along with adding another ducted puller fan (likely a SPAL rated at 1,600cfm or more) on the radiator.

Add'l info.....years later I hacked up a front bumper to make room for a push bar. But now there was no longer any space for the ducting I had made. However the big gap allowed air to bypass the FMIC and hit the radiator directly. This alleviated any overheating despite no shroud.

ceedawg said:

I love what you did with the aftermarket condenser and hoses. Do you have a link for that condensor and hoses? Great idea! Nice work

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Thanks. Here is the condenser I have: http://www.ackits.com/12-0651c-parallel-flow-condenser-12-x-14-33323?search=12-0651C

The lines were Eaton/Aeroquip EZ clip lines. Looks like you can pick these up under the name Vintage air also at Summit/Jegs now. I think they are just using the Eaton parts and relabeling them.

I have ice cold ac in my 91 talon.

I have a griffin radiator, 2 spal fans (most important), an ets race fmic, stock front bumper, and a piece of sheet metal around 6" wide and 20+ inches long bolted to the radiator support bottom. It pulls air up and straight into the radiator. Although I don't need the splitter until it gets to around 110*.

Oh, and I should mention the AC doesn't work currently. The previous owner cut a couple lines and I haven't fixed it yet.

I'm now running an twin scroll HX35 and I can only fit 1 puller fan. Can I add a pusher fan on the AC condensor? And once I get my cooling and ducting figured out, if I can keep temps below 220 on a hot day (90+ degrees) do you think I'll be able to run the AC? Just trying to figure out what my temp goal should be before commiting to the expensive AC repair. Should I aim for 210?

Thanks!

I have ducting.. But something to maybe consider is adding oil coolers and using them as auxillary radiators..

I run two pushers and one puller (passenger's side) on my 2g with A/C. They are 12" and seem to do the job well enough. I intend to add some ducting for additional air flow at highway speed. The driver's side pusher is still on the A/C circuity.



It worked well enough that when I started my second project, a 1g, I decided to sandwich a push-pull setup in again. I don't recall what size fans I used unfortunately.





Now this 1g car was a bullshit project I threw together using spare parts I had around. It turned out pretty darn nice, but I was trying to spend as little money as possible. I did flush the radiator and I'd eliminated the non-functioning A/C, but the car would run in the 219°-225° range on the freeway. The FMIC wasn't helping. I decided to seal everything up with some aluminum tape from Home Depot. It help tremendously, but didn't look pretty. Luckily, my ducting couldn't be seen when the bumper was installed, but it did the trick and lowered my highway temps by almost 20°.

My advice would be to get some cardboard and make your templates, then trace them onto some thin gauge aluminum. Attach you ducting with aluminum tape and it'll be sealed off near perfectly.

Cox Abele said:

I run two pushers and one puller (passenger's side) on my 2g with A/C. They are 12" and seem to do the job well enough. I intend to add some ducting for additional air flow at highway speed. The driver's side pusher is still on the A/C circuity.

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Good info, thanks! So those two pushers are attached to the AC condensor, right?

I attached the driver's pusher through the condenser and secured it on the back side of the radiator. I may re-think this now that I have the radiator out. The passenger's side push/pull setup attached as a sandwich where both fans use the same zip-tie type hardware so they perfectly face each other.

The biggest concern is making sure that you not only have the fan blades flipped correctly to act as a pusher, but to also ensure you have the polarity correct. Always test to ensure you have the polarity correct.

donniekak said:

I have ice cold ac in my 91 talon.

I have a griffin radiator, 2 spal fans (most important), an ets race fmic, stock front bumper, and a piece of sheet metal around 6" wide and 20+ inches long bolted to the radiator support bottom. It pulls air up and straight into the radiator. Although I don't need the splitter until it gets to around 110*.

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Erik, i did a similar thing as Donnie. I have a mid 80's Camaro air dam mounted under my radiator to pull air up. You have to trim it to your height but it pulls air in pretty dam good in addition to what ever else you may want to do and is just about perfect width to bolt right up. Some thoughts.

I saw higher temps with pusher's and pullers than with pullers and shroud a alone.

miliman13 said:

I saw higher temps with pusher's and pullers than with pullers and shroud a alone.

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Yeah, I just made a shroud. I can only fit 1 puller with my setup so I made the shroud and it's sealed up TIGHT, so we'll see how it performs.

Let us know how that works Erik, I am limited in room for my 1 puller too and 2 pushers really obstruct more air than they want to push in my case so I am going to remove them. Thought about mounting a little 8" on the Drivers side but I don't know how much that would help my temps.

Having clearance issues myself.. I used a honda half rad with shroud and fan.. Then a shroud and fan on the condensor side.

ErikTande said:

Yeah, I just made a shroud. I can only fit 1 puller with my setup so I made the shroud and it's sealed up TIGHT, so we'll see how it performs.

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Not sure how that will work out. But I know where I live that wouldn't cut the mustard.

I'm not sure what your setup is but I have an equal length t3 tubular mani, fp 3586, room for two spal fans mounted directly to the radiator, and cold ac.

I'm on a Redjack divided manifold and HX35 with the 12cm housing and 2 external wastegates (twinscroll). Drove it 40 miles to work this morning and never saw temps over 195, seems to be working great so far. Although it's only 50 degrees outside so we'll see.

I was surprised, it pulls a TON of air being completely sealed up like that, it can literally only get air from through the radiator, so I'm hopeful.

1990TSIAWDTALON said:

I have a mid 80's Camaro air dam mounted under my radiator to pull air up.

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This. My 83 with a high compression 350 in it was having overheating issues even with a monster 4 core radiator, fresh 70/30 mix and additives, I forgot to put the air dam underneath. Replaced the airdam and all was well again.

IIRC Saturns also use a similar air dam design and might be less cutting/fabricating to get to work. If you're still having issues after testing the shroud design that would be my recommendation.

@ErikTande How's the spool on that twinscroll hx35!? That setup looks amazing.

19gsx91 said:

@ErikTande How's the spool on that twinscroll hx35!? That setup looks amazing.

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Ridiculous. I start building boost at 2600 rpm. I'm seeing 22 psi by 3500.

Logs when you're feeling like sharing!? I'd really like to see the spool characteristics through link, you are using an omin 4 bar right? (sorry to detract, after this post I'll get back on track)

The biggest difference I noticed with my setup was to
1)Use the stock ac fan if you have space
2) get rid of crappy slim fans for proper Spal ones
3) extend your ducting below the FMIC to grab air passing under the car to redirect it to the radiator

I can now sit in south Florida traffic with the ac blasting all day.