Hey, let's put the radiator in the rear!

carl

carl

True Classic
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Since you guys are more prone to seriously messing with your Fiats than most folks, let's try moving the radiator to the rear trunk. The benefit is much much shorter run length making the water pump more effective. Or in my case, I just needed someplace to store it while I work on the nose of the car. If you tilt it, the radiator does sort of fit but as of yet, after many many threads we don't really understand the air flow back there.
 
OK, I see the serious techo guys are not coming to play in this thread. I'm not aware of any production cars that have the radiator in the rear although I'm sure there must be some high-end cars that do. Air cooled cars don't count.
 
carl said:
OK, I see the serious techo guys are not coming to play in this thread. I'm not aware of any production cars that have the radiator in the rear although I'm sure there must be some high-end cars that do. Air cooled cars don't count.
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I am not that serious one and still can’t give useful feedback about my rear radiator. For 10km in slow city traffic +1C it worked excellent. Radiator was from VW passast B3 with 2 fans..
 
carl said:
OK, II'm not aware of any production cars that have the radiator in the rear although I'm sure there must be some high-end cars that do.
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Ferrari 348 and 355 have their radiators in the side vents. Not the trunk, but behind the driver . . .
 
carl said:
View attachment 13033 View attachment 13034 Since you guys are more prone to seriously messing with your Fiats than most folks, let's try moving the radiator to the rear trunk. The benefit is much much shorter run length making the water pump more effective. Or in my case, I just needed someplace to store it while I work on the nose of the car. If you tilt it, the radiator does sort of fit but as of yet, after many many threads we don't really understand the air flow back there.
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That would only work if you put the muffler up front where the rad used to be!:p Undercar rad pipes become exhaust pipes.
 
Coolers in the side (pods) are common in the modern real race car.

Porsche finally gave up on the rear engine real race car ideology due to it's inherent limitations.... resulting in the 911 RSR mid-engine .
But market inertia and moto myth persist over the "inherent superiority" of this German rear engine design resulting in Porsche continuing to produce rear engine 9xx series.

BTW, variant of the 930 turbo had a oil cooler in the "whale tail" as that flat six was mostly oil cooled, just like a Mazda rotary.


Bernice
 
Lots of vehicles have had rear located cooling systems. No reason not to really, if it is properly designed.
Having the exhaust and rad in the same vicinity does not have to be a "no-no", just needs a little engineering to manage airflow/heat control.
I believe the stock layout of the X's cooling system has some serious design shortcomings, so a rear system might be a significant upgrade. Lots of potential benefits to be had. I considered doing it on my current project, but when I decided to go with a turbo setup the plans changed (for other reasons). But I will likely go to a rear mounted rad whenever I get around to building the rack car.
As Janis stated already, his rad is rear mounted on his X. That will offer us some data as his project develops. Looking forward to learning more about the possibilities.
 
if you do some of the loovers tilted forward and then holes out the back of the car where there is surely more negative pressure than above the boot shouldnt the air flow through? another options would be to do two NACA ducts on the side and or the top with two fans on the rad it should work. I think preventing heat transfer into the area shouldn't be too hard. its only unbearably hot in there now because there is zero air flow. with a little air flow, even counting the new heat source, I think it would definitely be manageable.
 
Let’s not be overly dramatic. There is nothing so wrong with the X cooling system that an electrically driven water pump and controller won’t cure.

Nothing to see here, now move along.

Could you figure out how to get a rear positioned radiator to work, yes likely but it would require careful development. Not the kind of work we are set up to resolve.
 
[QUOTE="Dr.Jeff,

Lots of vehicles have had rear located cooling systems. No reason not to really, if it is properly designed.

*Examples of rear cooling system passenger cars in current production?

*Example and definition of properly designed?


I believe the stock layout of the X's cooling system has some serious design shortcomings, so a rear system might be a significant upgrade. Lots of potential benefits to be had.

*Explain in great technical detail what are the design defects of the current cooling system in the exxe?

*Explain what the cooling system benefits are with the cooling system in the rear of the exxe.


Bernice

-Before any attempt of modifying any item that has been in mass production and stood the test of time, better FULLY understand the design intent and nano details of a given design before trying to alter any aspect of that design.[/QUOTE]
 
Proceed to provide a proven fully functional example with complete analysis of how and why it functions.

-What needs to be known and fully appreciated, Betone and a number of highly qualified technical folks spent a LOT of time using a wind tunnel and related modeling and calculations to arrive at the components, dimensions and configurations in the current front cooler design of the exxe. This was a early design mandate, as the folks at Bertone learned the HARD way during the design of the Lambo Miura... which had severe cooling problems that was a struggle to resolve.

After that struggle and steep learning curve, much of what as learned from designing the Miura was put into the design of the exxe.

Fact is, when the cooling system in the exxe is in good and proper condition, there are NO cooling issues. This has been proven time and time again after decades of exxe ownership in road and environmental conditions of over 100 degrees F with the power train run in endurance race conditions (24 hours of LeMons) hour after hour after hour, no cooling problems, even with a uprated power train (about 110 Whp) in these conditions. Given this real world experience and data, it will not be easy to re-invent a cooling system in the exxe that offers similar performance within the design constraints of the overall chassis design.

Bernice


Dr.Jeff said:
It's not rocket science guys. Easy stuff to do. That's what customization is all about.
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I have to agree with Bernice,again.


Why I have put radiator in the rear? :
1.low cost build of what I had in the yard - Bigger radiators that fits in front secttion of x19.
2.lazy to install pipes to front and make new box.
3.keep a bit higher clearance (ok, now this doesn’t glue together with Dallara build, if only with narrow tires for gravel fun)

Will I install it back in the front? Only if will have issues, that will be easier to solve putting radiator in front.
 
I started this post as more of a talking point, just something to mentally kick around. This radiator works wonderful in my car with no overheating issues. I still say the biggest problem that Xs have with cooling is the fact that the water pump, which is really designed for the 128 has to struggle to push coolant the whole length of the car and back and further the metal pipes in the box under the car are enclosed and instead of acting like radiators, they just trap the heat in the coolant. Much like a 124 spider, if everything is functioning perfectly (rare in these old cars) then overheating should be rare.....there is just no margin for error.
 
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