Moving radiator back for over the top intercooling.
 

I'm planning on going over the top with my intercooler pipes. I need to move the radiator back. Looks pretty simple to fab up new brackets/ braces to drop it down slightly and move it back.

Trouble is my RB hollow sway bar doesn't leave much room to move the bottom back at all. How have others done this? The brackets holding the fans are what's in the way. They'll bump into the sway if I tilt the Rad back much. Do I move the bottom of the radiator forward slightly and tilt the top back further? Is there some mod available to the fan brackets?

A friend of mine had to build spacers for the sway bar mounts to lower it down. Not sure if you want to do this.....

Yes. It's the "trim the bracket" mod. Worked for me.

Why not just drop the rad down? why back?

I did this on my diy setup.

do not worry about moving the entire rad back, just extend the bottom brackets down, make new upper brackets out of plate, and tilt the top if anything back. you don't have to move the whole radiator.


check these pics:

https://www.miataturbo.net/forums/sh...ad.php?t=10574

I just lowered my rad to install over the top ic pipes.

ding ding ding

kenny do you have any good pictures to show us?

I did an over the radiator install, but the cold side looks kinda like crap and needed a small bend in it to get it over the radiator, and then back down to get to the throttle body

cueball, if you want you can come check out my install. I didn't move the radiator. I had to notch the hood, I dunno fi that's something you wanna do.

I've been working on this myself. I have left the lower brackets as is and made new brackets for the upper mounts. Here is the angled radiator. I notched the core support for the ac parts and was able to shove all the ac/radiator stuff back. With a little trimming, I should be able to squeeze the intercooler pipes in front of the radiator.
http://www.bfhgarage.com/BFH-Images/miata/gap.jpg

Here is the proposed routing of the intake pipe from the turbo to the SAAB intercooler. I will have to notch the crossmember a little bit. You can see the new bracket I made on the right side of the radiator.
http://www.bfhgarage.com/BFH-Images/...intakepipe.jpg

Did I say intercooler? Here is the SAAB intercooler in the mouth of the car. It is only hanging from a single bracket right now, I'll have to beef up the mounting so it doesn't move around. I think I'm going to offset it to the side to make pipe routing easier. The car is so low, I don't know how well you'll really see it when the car is on the ground. It is hanging pretty far back into the mouth.
http://www.bfhgarage.com/BFH-Images/...oler-front.jpg

here's how i did it...


http://s195.photobucket.com/albums/z126/s10383/

s10383, if I had the money I'd pay you to do mine. I'd need to find a new marine blue hood though, cause i already notched mine. your setup looks sweet.

and all this is great, but I looked at it last night, and it doesn't look like tilting the radiator back would do any good for me. I went through the 2" holes infront of the radiator (no AC) and the part that's in the way is the damn hose up top, so it'd only do me good to move the rad down, which requires welding and unless I bring the entire damn car into work, I dont' have access to a welder.

Thanks guys!

Curly I'll have to check out your set up. I'm wanting to drop and tilt the rad so I don't have to cut anything. (at least not much) I'm hoping I'll get to see you at the Cascade track day.

GTS - What you've done is what I had in mind.

Everyone else that suggested just dropping the rad - not tilting it- DUH. Why didn't I think of that. That's why I posted the topic. It's usually the easiest solutions to a problem that I miss.

I think I'm going to drop it and tilt the top back some to open up more space so I don't have to cut the crossmember. We'll see what's going to work best when I get there. Trying to keep this car on the road while I'm working on it is not the easiest way to go. It's my daily driver.

Loki, you're pretty in pink.

Haha thanks, you can search through the forum theres pics of my setup, which all these smart fellas are copying :)