Car radiator (not heatercore)

E

EdZ

Gawd
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Jan 28, 2008
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What are the drawbacks to using a car radiator? The huge surface area would be great for passive cooling (or using one very slow fan). Most have very large barbs, so a little modding would be needed to fit them into a standard 1/2" or 3/8" loop. Are there any specific pump characteristics required?
 
EdZ said:
What are the drawbacks to using a car radiator? The huge surface area would be great for passive cooling (or using one very slow fan). Most have very large barbs, so a little modding would be needed to fit them into a standard 1/2" or 3/8" loop. Are there any specific pump characteristics required?
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The size? The fact you'd need a big ass heavy duty pump to circulate it? I'm not even a watercooling expert and I can see those as drawback. I'm sure there are more.
 
That's what I'm asking. From what I understand, as long as the radiator isn't taller than the loop, then pump power shouldn't need be any greater then normal. The radiator has a fairly wide bore, so restriction shouldn't be an issue. What I'm interested in is if going from high-pressure-low-volume flow inside to loop, to low-pressure-high-volume flow in the radiator and back will cause problems.
 
The amount of restriction alone in a larger radiator will be far higher. Also, the volume of fluid will be much higher, which is far more mass that the pump has to move through the loop. Not a bad idea in general, but not a good idea with a typical PC water cooling pump. There are far better options for PC watercooling.
 
Size of a car radiator is probably 20? times the size of a dual rad. Your can deduce that to pump 20 times of a rad requires 20 times of a pump.
 
Long and short is you would need a larger pump. You would however, be completely heat sink limited if you did it. Physical space requirements could/would also be an issue.
 
I'm guessing that a sufficiently powerful pump would be rather noisy, negating the benefits of passive cooling.
 
EdZ said:
I'm guessing that a sufficiently powerful pump would be rather noisy, negating the benefits of passive cooling.
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and in the end you would need a custom waterblock for the CPU and/or other devices because a typical block cant handle the flow of a car radiation, too low a flow and again it would negate the advantages of having such a large radiator.
 
First and foremost what you would need if you run a car radiator is a life, beucas that would mean you've got entirely too much time on your hands.
 
Just use an oil cooler. You could probably get one the exact same size as the side of your case and use it as the side (be cool lookin mod). Their diameter isnt that big and they dont cost too much.
 
If hes gonna go for one of those it still might be cheaper in the end to just get a radiator made for pcs I would think.
 
Also, don't forget that automotive rads (most all new ones that is) are all aluminum, so you will be running dissimilar metals and increase the chance of galvanic corrosion. Also oil coolers and motorcycle rads are not cheap, nor or they set up for cooling computers, so I would be willing to bet that a good PC rad will cool better than a given auto style of the same surface area. And all that is not including the price of modding for connections.
 
BlueFireIce said:
Also, don't forget that automotive rads (most all new ones that is) are all aluminum, so you will be running dissimilar metals and increase the chance of galvanic corrosion.
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Yes, dissimilar metals could be a problem.

BlueFireIce said:
Also oil coolers and motorcycle rads are not cheap, nor or they set up for cooling computers, so I would be willing to bet that a good PC rad will cool better than a given auto style of the same surface area. And all that is not including the price of modding for connections.
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1) I would asssume he would be buying one used from a junk yard which would be cheap.
2) Umm... as long as you've got the same fluids (water and air) then it doesn't matter what your heat load is, PC, gasoline engine, nuclear power plant, heat is heat.
3) I do agree it doesn't seem practical. If your going to be running a 3 GTX 280 with a super clocked i7 then you might as well just pony up the money for a decent quad radiator. Fact is you'll be able to handle the heat load. And if that's not [H]ard enough for you, you could always try one of these: Koolance ERM-2K3U And if you need more than 2000 watts of cooling needs you need help.
 
vengence said:
Yes, dissimilar metals could be a problem.


1) I would asssume he would be buying one used from a junk yard which would be cheap.
2) Umm... as long as you've got the same fluids (water and air) then it doesn't matter what your heat load is, PC, gasoline engine, nuclear power plant, heat is heat.
3) I do agree it doesn't seem practical. If your going to be running a 3 GTX 280 with a super clocked i7 then you might as well just pony up the money for a decent quad radiator. Fact is you'll be able to handle the heat load. And if that's not [H]ard enough for you, you could always try one of these: Koolance ERM-2K3U And if you need more than 2000 watts of cooling needs you need help.
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Wait 10 years and 2000w of cooling will be what the chipset needs :p
 
OmegaAvenger said:
Wait 10 years and 2000w of cooling will be what the chipset needs :p
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I know your only joking, but seriously it won't happen. They're having trouble getting the heat off of a CPU these days with heavliy OC'ed i7s. And I mean off the CPU, not out of the heat sink. It's the heatsink/CPU boundary that is the problem atm.
 
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