Another one of my weird questions. Is anyone aware of someone making a coolant system underneath the car? Cooled by the air between the chassis and ground? Any track cars that maybe did this? For the purpose of allowing a more aero front and better weight dispersment. I was thinking that the coolant tubes would not require cooling fins. Just a wild hair.
I know of at least one:
http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/reader-rides/528/
I've seen some can-am cars with a similar setup but I can't name any.
that one looks pretty flat. remember air needs to flow through the fins. So some scoop would be needed to catch the flow under the car. And an exit as well
The SoloSonett has it's radiator at about a 30 degree angle ( forward ) into the shallow nose.
It's ok for now, time will tell if it's enough for over 100 degree days. And WOT.
The VW bus guys that swap in subaru engines do it iirc. My 78 has an a/c condensor mounted horizontally under the floor and I think that is where the radiator sits on the swaps. Maybe check some VW boards?
I see street rodders do it but on a slippery, high speed shape the goal is to have zero air get under the car. So if the aero was done to conventional wisdom it wouldn't have enough to cool anything (this is speculation... I am not an aerodynamicist) IMO.
That made me wonder though if you couldn't use a radiator as an air straightener up on the rear decklid for a mid-engined car... to clean up the air going over the wing
walterj wrote: I see street rodders do it but on a slippery, high speed shape the goal is to have zero air get under the car. So if the aero was done to conventional wisdom it wouldn't have enough to cool anything (this is speculation... I am not an aerodynamicist) IMO. That made me wonder though if you couldn't use a radiator as an air straightener up on the rear decklid for a mid-engined car... to clean up the air going over the wing
The RUF CTR2 has intakes on rear spoiler to allow air to get to the intercooler. I dont know how this helps at all but I thought I'd throw it out there.
On most cars, ground clearance would be a problem. Air flow under the car is something that is kept to a minimum. I saw a design that had the radiator mounted flat on the hood with appropiate ducting.
I saw a TV show a few years back that talked about the Nascar radiators and how they didn't care how much the air penetrated thru the rad, all the cooling happened from the air flowing across the front of the rad.
If that is so then a rad underneath with air flowing across the top should work. Was the Nascar rad a different type of radiator? It didn't look any different.
But what about rocks, etc.? Also what would be above the radiator? You'd have a lot of heat rising.
I wonder if you could add some sort of aluminum finned heat sink to the front of the rad? By the time the coolant heated the rad metal and then heated the heat sink would that make heating and cooling reaction times be too slow?
A lot of hot rodders mount the radiator complete with fan in the rear.
V8 Corvair guys have been trying this for a long time (to avoid cutting a grill hole in the front). I don't know if any have been truely successful. I know there are some installations, but much like using electric fans to replace the Corvair belt driven fan, they do work, I suspect just not in any kind of extreme situation.
The V8 Corvair that Jay Leno bought has a mid mounted radiator, but I am not sure how robust it is and I know the builder had to do a LOT of work on it (he said he built some sort of scoop and ducting under the car)
On the Lotus Esprit the radiator is down, almost flat, in the nose. On the later model Elise, Exige variants the radiator lies flat but is up just under the nose shell. Air is forced upwards thru the radiator and out over the windshield.
I've seen radiators laid almost flat on some Formula ford cars and other spec bodied cars, but not as a rule.
What if, instead of a radiator, non finned tubes were run the needed length of the car. Insulated from the body (ceramic), perhaps a more rugged tube. Sort of like exposed floor radiated heating in a house. There should still be enough circulation in an aero efficient car with the tubes spread out.
This would allow for a much better aero front and would move a chunk of weight off of the front overhang.
???
One thing to remember is that the air right above the pavement is the hottest ambient air available. Since your heat transfer is directly dependent on the temperature delta, using hotter air to cool the car will be less effective than using cool air. Just something to think about when you're figuring efficiencies.
Hasbro wrote: What if, instead of a radiator, non finned tubes were run the needed length of the car. Insulated from the body (ceramic), perhaps a more rugged tube. Sort of like exposed floor radiated heating in a house. There should still be enough circulation in an aero efficient car with the tubes spread out. This would allow for a much better aero front and would move a chunk of weight off of the front overhang. ???
Like baseboard hotwater pipe with fins... hmmmmm....
Hasbro wrote: What if, instead of a radiator, non finned tubes were run the needed length of the car. Insulated from the body (ceramic), perhaps a more rugged tube. Sort of like exposed floor radiated heating in a house. There should still be enough circulation in an aero efficient car with the tubes spread out. This would allow for a much better aero front and would move a chunk of weight off of the front overhang. ???
If you were going to go this route why not weld the tubes to the frame and use the frame as a heatsink, weld some fins on to both the tube and the frame as added heat exchangers. Or if it is a tube framed car, make part of the frame the cooling system. some thing similar has been done on some motorcycles with oil in the frame, or in a buel in the front section of the swing arm.
What is the car in question? could a rad with electric fans be added into the back end of the car like a counsulier, or alot of off roaders?
Well the heat from the frame into the cockpit could be an issue plus corrosion. Do you want your frame becoming weaker over time?
carguy123 wrote: Well the heat from the frame into the cockpit could be an issue plus corrosion. Do you want your frame becoming weaker over time?
many industrial vehicles use thier frames as heatsinks. usualy hydraulic oil tanks are in a hollowed out area of the chassis, and hyd oil can easily get as hot as coolant in some machines; but there is not a corrosion issiue with oil.
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