Thinking of moving the radiator to the rear of a project car, and was curious what the best cheap piping would be? Does copper have any issues with corrosion in an automotive cooling system? Is there any aluminum pipe that is relatively cheap? Or should I just go with some small diameter steel exhaust pipe, or something else?
My formula car uses sweated copper for some coolant lines. No corrosion issues, it's been that way since long before my ownership.
That said, I run way lower coolant temps l, topping out at about 160* (snowmobile engine)
At some point I intend to switch to aluminum to save a couple pounds.
I've used exhaust tubing many times with no issues.
For Colin, I just bought some sticks of exhaust tubing, and a $90 bead roller to form beads on the ends. Also a $60 set of headers from Summit scratch and dent for a whole mess of mandrel bends.
That was before I found that I can't run the tubes through the rockers. The new plan is... um.. still being gestated.
The sticks were like $30 each for 10 foot lengths. Very cheap. Don't worry about internal corrosion if you are using antifreeze in the cooling system.
EMT conduit is relatively cheap. No elbows though, and I don't know how tight a radius you can bend with it.
You'll need to log in to post.
