So I'm nearing the end of my project, and I realized 2 things.

1) Front mount intercoolers are stupid. They catch rocks easily, they block airflow, and they ruin my sleeper persona.
2) The aluminum radiator I bought prior to my last deployment won't fit without modification, and the ebay *** I bought it from is, well, it's ebay. You know how they are.

So, I decided I want to convert it to vmount, but I REALLY want to keep the air conditioner. It's a convertible, so it's pretty important to have AC in one of those in my opinion. It's not a going to be strictly a track car, so I want to keep it somewhat nice.

I searched around and all I could find was pictures of people's completed engine bays, which doesn't really help alot. I also found that there's a company that'll be selling a kit for over $2k. Let's be honest now- yeah, I'm interested in it, but I'm not dropping 2k on something I can do myself.

What I'm looking for is input. Detailed input.

Now, one way would be to leave the condenser where it is, and mount the radiator pretty much vertically, with the intercooler on top. This would be great because I can add an extra fan for added airflow when sitting at a traffic light. Bad still though, because I'm really not sure the radiator I have will fit like that.

The other way would be to evacuate the system, mount the radiator at an angle, mount the condenser in front of it, and route custom made A/C lines. This would take alot of fabrication (which I'm cool with) and alot more money (which I'm not cool with). Also, I'd loose that sweet R-12 charge in the system.

Any ideas would be awesome.

 

take a look at rotaryworks v-mount kit and see how its done. it allows you to keep P/s and A/c.

 

That was one of the kits I was looking at before posting. From the looks of it, it requires some chopping of the frame, and you'd have to custom fab some AC lines, so it's pretty much like my option 2 as posted above.

http://www.rotary-works.com/mm5/merc...gory_Code=INCK

 

really?

could swore it was a bolt in kit.

https://www.rx7club.com/2nd-generation-non-technical-pictures-198/rotary-works-vmount-inetcooler-896391/

 

a trick that ive seen in a japanese magazine, is shave every other cooling fin row on the condenser, it sacrifices some cooling area for better flowing air passages.

Another trick was going to a smaller condenser with a fan mounted on it.

 

whatever you do, without the top mount IC, you will have to have the condenser modified as well as the lines.

 

ok, so what about that. I don't see any reason to modify the condenser itself if this ^ will work. On top of that, I'm pretty sure that I won't need to modify the ac lines.

I sort of got a little impatient and started chopping the frame up anyways. I figure I'll never know unless I get my hands dirty, right?

 

^I've seen an FD running it like that, seems like a good idea. *******************************/rotary_forum/showthread.php?t=5734&page=2 (posts #44 and #47)

EDIT: replace the asterisks with 'rotary car club .com' with no spaces

 

if you feel comfortable bending the **** out of the lines to clear things then it may work..

 

Aww... sad face. I don't have a login for ********.... but I REALLY want to see. Time to register.

Karack, I actually don't think I'm going to have to bend very much at all. We'll see how this all goes. All I know is that it's going to take alot of welding to get the frame sturdy again. The big pipe that the oil cooler mounts to is now gone. I have my work cut out

 

I wanted to do a V-mount setup, but this is exactly why I went w/ a front mount similar to the corksport kit instead. Unless some custom brackets and lines are made to relocate the condenser it posses quite a problem. Not to mention that if you don't relocate it, it is now pre-heating the air for both the radiator and the IC. -- At least w/ a front mont (properly ducted) the IC and Oil cooler see fresh air. And a decent efan will pull enough air to keep things cool.

Since my condenser is out for cleaning, I may try that shaving the fins idea...

 

custom ac lines are really no big deal, in the grand scheme of the project it would be the least of my worries

from what I can gather ducting is the main thing here, without it I don't know how successful the plan will work out

 

Excellent point. I did not think of that really. I started by mounting the condenser in a "V" position, and I'm going to be mounting the radiator behind it like the shitty mspaint drawing shows. So far things seem to be going well. I did have to bend the everlovin hell out of the refrigerant lines though, but I know how to bend lines without causing a kink

I think that for ducting I'll be making some fiberglass panels to seal off the sides, and another one to replace the under tray. I've also got an air dam in the works as well to make air go THROUGH the grill, and not under. I'll post some pictures soon of what I've done. This should be interesting.

 

if you have a local hose shop they can make the lines, its a "while you wait" service at my local hose shop.

The only thing you may have to do is snip your current lines and have AN fittings welded to them so that you can use custom lines, they can put bends in them if you really need them, but the hoses are pretty flexible.

Another thing is you will need a REALLY good fan, when I did get my ac to work the temp gauge climbed pretty easily with my "advertised" 3800CFM fan.

I am STILL trying to get my AC working properly, think I have a electrical issue in the logicon, but here are my custom lines.

 

Nice! I do have a "local" hose shop (about 45min, but that's as local as it gets here) I won't need them for AC lines, but I'll probably be hitting them up to extend my oil cooler lines.

I'm thinking of trying 2 fans, one push one pull. It really shouldn't be that big of a deal with the FD alternator, but just to be safe I'll probably run 2 separate relays so the current draw doesn't melt wires..

Pics, as promised.



I had to relocate the dryer a few inches back:


Welded up bracket with that bigass pipe gone.


Same thing on the passenger's side.


Little bit of a mock-up of how the cxracing intercooler will fit. Almost like that damn thing was MADE to fit there!!!

 

Lookin good! I'll keep an eye on this

 

I may have to drive to Jax to meet you one day so you can see it in person.... when it finally gets finished

I think I'm going to have to change my status to baller. This went pretty well actually. I think the hard part's over with now, I just have to clean it up and button up the loose ends. Seeing as the condenser was a limiting factor on getting a good angle, I couldn't quite get the radiator laid down like I wanted. I figure that I can use a nice fiberglass panel to seal the area between the radiator and intercooler, then do the same for the gaps on the sides.

Anyways, it's all bolted in and secured down now.



Ok, a little bit of bending happened on the condenser, and there is some welding still required..





Now, this pic shows that if I place a fiberglass panel on top, then air can still easily reach the top rows of the radiator. Aw ****. I just realized I have to cut up a hood.... dammit! At least I have a spare.



I'm really glad my wife is patient with me

 

was this car previously running with a FMIC or has not run with the swap for the first time yet?

 

It had a fmic, but would overheat with the stock radiator. That's why I bought the aluminum one, but it was shaped so retarded that I had to go with this. I don't have a tig welder to modify the radiator, but my mig does steel just fine. So instead I modified the car around it

 

If you are going custom and build lines anyway, go ahead and get a parallel flow condenser. You will be able to get more capacity for heat rejection in a smaller area. ACkits.com or there are a couple of ebay sellers that have very reasonable prices.

Additionally you won't have to miss that R12-you will be able to use R134a or Freeze12 with great results.

 

Impressive; I thought this was gonna make me feel bad (for not going vmount) but I see your core is shorter than mine, so theres no way I'd be able to pull this off w/ a stock sized rad.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but won't you still need to modifiy the rad....the hose you would need to mate it to the w/p would be pretty crazy as it currently sits...

 

That kick-back looks good!

Have you checked to make sure that the top of the rad isn't higher than the filler cap? It would make it HELLA difficult to bleed the system, if it were.

 

Eventually I will go for a new condenser and custom lines. I need to get this project going though

Sharingan, the core is actually longer than stock. That's partially why I had to vmount this thing. And I will have to cut the angle off the top of the radiator to prevent that crazy angle, but luckily there's enough meat there to where I can roll a bead on the straight pipe coming out the top to hook up the radiator hose. The top of the radiator is actually below the fill pipe, and it has a bleed port on the top of the radiator anyways.

The only problem I see with this is the fact that there's now NO way to hook up an overflow tank. I need some input on this, because I've been searching for the answer and can't find anything! I'm thinking that I'm going to have to drill and tap a hole at the fill port and stick in a pipe nipple to accomodate an overflow bottle. Unless there's some kind of aftermarket support for this?

 

Nope. I think that's about the way to do it. though you're only going to want to do it from the radiator, due to pressure equalization.

I would recommend something like the vac nipple on a BOV. That'd be pretty good... Maybe larger in diameter, though.

 

One problem though; the radiator doesn't have a cap.