DIY radiator water sprayer

[Bill in Houston]

Kind of interesting - use a windshield washer pump, or something like that? Puts out quite a good flow of water.

[khafra]

Originally Posted by RobertSmalls

It might be helpful in a few situations, but:

*a variable grille block would be simpler, lighter, and more effective. It's the holy grail of grille blocks, and I think a simple, universal, easily duplicated automatic variable grille block should be our focus.
*you'd need a large, heavy reservoir for continuous operation of a water sprayer
*if you really need cooling in a hurry, the small amount of heat an ecomodder's engine produces can be easily dissipated by the heater core
*dropping a few mph is usually adequate to bring me back to nice and cool operation

A racer on another forum said they had variable grille blocks, but didn't offer many details. Do you have any ideas on where to buy or how to build one? Here in Florida, I definitely couldn't do a full-time radiator block of any appreciable size.

[khafra]

Oh, and if you want to make a radiator water sprayer--whether the idea is practical or not--you probably can't do much better than the autospeed intercooler sprayer--search their site for "World's Best Intercooler Water Spray"

[GrapeApe]

i'm a cheep ba5+ard & i'm unemployed at the moment. so i can not afford the systems on the market. i fashioned a spray system from a chrome water fire extinguisher i had, and 4 of nozzles from a patio mister set up & a few fittings & hoses from a box store. just 10 psi and it starts to mist. it works best at 40 psi so i only full the tank to 50psi. i used an old lawn mower throttle cable to pull on the squeeze valve. i can then cool my truck pulling the hills outside of los angeles. This is on my 64 Chevy pu with the old inline six. the temp rises just a tad over my comfort range when pulling my trailers. i pull the Castaic grade in second gear and that slows the speed so i'm not getting very much air through the grill.

the system works to my satisfaction and brings the gauge down to just over level driving range. remember, the factory gages have no numbers, just a cold; hot; and a "normal range" painted line... C |______| H so i'm just eyeballing it

[slowmover]

There was a similar item sold through the late 1980's (prior to the advent of FI) where the radiator temps would spike on hill-climbs for tow vehicles [RV's]. Severe heat spike. It used a windshield washer pump, that reservoir made common (and/or enlarged) and distilled water recommended (for reasons above: corrosion and mineral build). IIRC it was four spray heads mounted so as to cover the entirety of the first heat exchanger (generally the A/C condenser).

By report this worked best -- the temporary increase in surface area -- in dry, hot, higher altitude climbs.

.

[mort]

Hi GrapeApe,
Excellent, how much water do you use per trip?
-mort

[drv2die]

yea it would be nice to live in a place where i could do some kind of grill block, here in central arkansas we push into the 100-110 range. any kind of block in the front will instantly lead to a rising temp gauge. im still trying to figure out if i cover the front of the car under the engine if it will affect cooling. air is coming in it has to go somewhere there will have to be an outlet. this belongs in a different thread so im gonna shut up now.

[Hubert Farnsworth]

Originally Posted by slowmover

There was a similar item sold through the late 1980's (prior to the advent of FI) where the radiator temps would spike on hill-climbs for tow vehicles [RV's]. Severe heat spike. It used a windshield washer pump, that reservoir made common (and/or enlarged) and distilled water recommended (for reasons above: corrosion and mineral build). IIRC it was four spray heads mounted so as to cover the entirety of the first heat exchanger (generally the A/C condenser).

By report this worked best -- the temporary increase in surface area -- in dry, hot, higher altitude climbs.

.

You mean prior to the return to forced induction. There had been supercharged road cars dating back to at least the 1920s, and turbocharging first was utilized in mass production in the early 60s at General Motors, ex the Corvair Monza flat six turbo, and the turbocharged version of the Buick 3500 V8 as installed in the Oldsmobile Cutlass Jetfire variant of the Buick Special/ GM Y-body in 1962

[albyneau]

The variable grille block to which you're referring is called a shutterstat~ been used on bigrigs for quite some time. This combined with extra thermostatically controlled fans is the best option, BUT is designed for HUGE cooling systems. As previously stated to hose the rad core you'd have to carry so much waterweight that it is impractical. If emergency cooling is in order enough to warrant such concern, then modifying driving conditions and increasing cooling capacity is in order.

At the risk of getting flamed, you're overthinking this. The reason newer cars run so hot's because they're designed to~ it increases the thermal efficiency of the motor. Every pound of pressure held by that fancy rad cap increases the boil point 3 degrees, raising the overall to 240-270 degrees running temps. If modifying driving conditions isn't in the plan, go for as big a radiator as you can fit, add thermo-fans set at different temps, and then MAYBE add that shutterstat if you can add enough capacity to the system.

[slowmover]

Originally Posted by Hubert Farnsworth

You mean prior to the return to forced induction. There had been supercharged road cars dating back to at least the 1920s, and turbocharging first was utilized in mass production in the early 60s at General Motors, ex the Corvair Monza flat six turbo, and the turbocharged version of the Buick 3500 V8 as installed in the Oldsmobile Cutlass Jetfire variant of the Buick Special/ GM Y-body in 1962

No, sorry, I meant Fuel Injection, or, more carefully, digital engine controls. It became much harder for a car to go "out of tune" on top of problems with towing and altitude changes that made carburetors hard put.