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Radiator Options for 144

R

roflcopter

New member
Joined
Sep 30, 2013
Location
Lower Alabama
I've been trying to find a good setup to run in the 144 racecar and so far have not come up with much. The radiator that was in it has an angled lower outlet that forces some weird bends in the lower hose and puts it way too close to spinning objects for my comfort.

Is there an accepted solution for upgrading the radiator in a 144? I have nothing else up front so placement isn't a huge issue, and I'm running an e-fan. The dimensions I took showed that something roughly 20.5" wide by 15.5" tall will fit in the stock-ish location but I can't seem to find any universal aluminum ones close to that size.

Anyone else found something good for this?
 
I just had my stock one recored a few months back with a 3 row core. Can't get it hot if I try but I am not racing it.

Mine doesn't have any weird angle on either pipe though...
 
Part of my issue is that I don't have a stock one, or can seem to even find a stock one anywhere easily.

What is in there currently is a late 90's honda aftermarket aluminum one, does anyone know the dimensions of a stock one if I want to try and go back to OEM mounting?
 
Have you looked around and talked to race shops to see if anyone in your general area still makes radiators by hand? It won't be cheap, but it can be done "relatively" easily if you find the right place.
 
jwernerny said:
Have you looked around and talked to race shops to see if anyone in your general area still makes radiators by hand? It won't be cheap, but it can be done "relatively" easily if you find the right place.
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There is a local guy I would trust with it, but I know it would be $$$ through him.

planetman said:
A 1970 140 uses the same radiator as the later 122 and 1800.

Ebay has dozens of them.

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=m570.l1313&_nkw=volvo+amazon+radiator&_sacat=0
Click to expand...

This! Why doesn't any of this stuff come up when searching for 144 radiators? I think that is the easy button to this and should hopefully stand up at least as well as the Honda half-rad in there now.
 
roflcopter said:
There is a local guy I would trust with it, but I know it would be $$$ through him.



This! Why doesn't any of this stuff come up when searching for 144 radiators? I think that is the easy button to this and should hopefully stand up at least as well as the Honda half-rad in there now.
Click to expand...

Try searching for 140, as thats the model.
 
Starting in 1967, Volvo went to a sealed cooling system with an external expansion tank. With this system the cap on the radiator is just a fill cap and the pressure cap is now on the plastic expansion tank.

The sellers on ebay may not list them as fitting a 140 because all of the aluminum radiators appear to have what is technically the wrong radiator cap, but there is a simple work around.
 
I had planned on switching things to a 'standard' system with a traditional radiator cap and an overflow catch tank anyways. In most racing rulesets you have to have a catch can and I'd rather not have two reservoirs under the hood. After fighting brittle plastic for too long in other cars I try to stay away from all of that as much as possible, especially on a track car.
 
The 1971+ 140 x-flow stock copper brass radiator fed plenty of air from the late 1971+ air pickup front end and maybe a good chin spoiler.
Much more effective cooling than the -1970 radiator.

As to the expansion tank/bottle;
a good cool pnw weather used OE 140 plastic bottle made outta The good ole toxic 70s chlorinated plastic lasts pretty well. They don’t fail all that often compared to later models with cheap thin plastic in odd shapes. Heard of them failing in The crazy dry Mohave desert or south TX with lots of UV. Never seen a bad one up here :lol:.

Fans are a bit of a trick for 140 if you need one in traffic, not much room for a decent e-fan with some bypass flaps if you need one for some reason to idle in pits or climb hills or the like.

Flex fan is pretty efficient, but wouldn’t rev it high on a race car.
Yellow 6-blade with late water pump pedestal and clutch that’s any good is pretty effective for a daily driver but probably not for a race car.

:twocents:
 
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roflcopter said:
Is there any real advantage to keeping a pressurized bottle setup? It just seems like extra failure points to me.
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No advantage if you use a proper catch can with an overflow connection at the bottom of the catch can. That way the coolant will be sucked back into the radiator when it cools down.
 
Dang, guess I never got the update in the thread for the 140. There's a 2-speed Derale fan that fits the late 140 radiator perfectly, comes with a shroud with flaps, 1600/2100cfm, and it will clear the pump pulley if you use some pan heads on there. Thought I had some pics of it up but apparently not.

I went with a dual temp BMW switch, with 95/88 and 88/80 ranges, wired to each speed on the fan. Never had the fan kick on while moving, only kicked on a few times in traffic for long periods, but I don't have much run time on it since the heater return pipe started leaking not long after the radiator swap was done.
 
Are any of these cheap Chinese radiators any good in the long run and how well do they fit, and will they keep a B18 or B20 powered road racing engine cool?

I do now that cheap, fast and good usually are not available in one package.

Any better alternatives are out there that bolt in?
 
We haven't seen or installed an aluminum 1 in any of our customers cars.

We have seen the repro brass radiators and they can't be bolted right in as the 90? brackets that hold the rubber grommets are not made or located correctly and don't line up with the 2 threaded mounting holes in the core support.

We haven't installed a new repro brass radiator, but I'm about to that a customer supplied for his project.

We do have a couple of customers that had them installed elsewhere. And in every single 1 extra holes were drilled into the core support and the radiator was bolted to the core support without the stock rubber grommets. Functional, but ugly.

And in more than 1 case, the solder securing the mounting brackets to the upper and lower tanks has already failed, probably due to the lack of rubber mounting.
 
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