The radiator is in
Just a short little mid-week (well, late mid-week now..) update to show what I’ve done in my evenings after work. Above is the previously mentioned radiator I had custom made for this car. It’s based on the original plastic tanked TBI radiator. But it’s triple core, all brass, and frankly built like a freakin tank. I think it weighs about 30lbs. It’s insane. And I paid a small fortune for it. And I just paid a ton more to have it modified to work better with this engine. As you can see, the top inlet, I had it moved from the front of the passenger side tank to the side of the tank. It was about an inch or less from the intake manifold before. I had them remove the fill spout as well, since the new engine has one. The one on the engine was also higher than the one on the radiator, so I was concerned about the one on the radiator getting opened and pretty much draining the system down to it’s level. The whole radiator is below the fill spout on the engine, no worries about air pockets.
The radiator is in
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Here’s the radiator bolted into the car, got a good inch and a half, maybe 2 inches between the radiator and the intake. No room for the radiator fan, as I already knew. What I didn’t realize was that the space in front of the radiator is 1” too small for that fan. It’s a 16” aftermarket fan. I have about 15” of space. So I got on Ebay and bought a 10” aftermarket fan. It was the cheapest one I could find. I should be able to drive the car just fine without it, this radiator is very potent.
I have about 8 Turbo Dodge radiators out in my shed.. And I had about that many lower radiator hoses out there too. Rather than rushing out to buy some radiator hose at the parts store, I decided to try and use this old stuff. It’s still flexible and not oil soaked, so I think it’ll work. I’m really happy with how the hoses turned out. They both have room to flex. They have no kinks. The lower one might have a rub point on the radiator. But I have some good ideas on how to give that hose some extra protection right there.
This is the temp sender for the dash temp gauge. The gauge in the factory instrument cluster. I’d like to have this gauge working. I know it’s not the most accurate thing in the world, but it’s convenient and gives a good idea of where the engine normally runs at.
Before.. This looked like a good safe spot to put the sensor. I removed the thermostat to be able to vacuum out the metal shavings, as well as to make sure there was room back there for the sensor.
I bought a 1/8” NPT tap and the proper drill to go with it. Here’s the hole tapped. I had to run the tap in a little bit, try the sensor, run it in some more, try again. Etc etc, until the sensor fit properly. NPT is a tapered thread, and if you run the tap all the way in, the hole is way too large. Found that out when tapping an intake for a IAT sensor a couple years ago. Oops!
And here is the sensor installed. Guess I’ll be taping up the harness again to add this wire to it. Ooops.
I also drilled a hole in my downpipe for the wideband oxygen sensor. I wanted to put it in the manifold, but for the life of me, I cannot get the narrowband out of the exhaust manifold. Crazyness! So finally I said screw it and drilled a hole. The O2 sensor came with a shiny new bung, so I busted out the welder and welded that to downpipe. I don’t have any pictures, the welds are UGLY.. Not interested in showing it off on here.
Tomorrow.. I get the front struts. I’ll finally find out if Daytona struts fit into Omni strut mounts. If they do, I’ll be dancin all night. That and I found out I have to work Saturday, so I’ll be trying to get as much done as possible Friday night. Don’t hold your breath for an update till I get home from work Saturday. hehe.
