A long time ago I did this, but I stuck the foam to the car, not the radiator since as you say it just melts off the radiator from temps. That actually lasted for a while. I used medium density foam from Lowes. It got damaged from installing/removing the radiator a lot so I removed it. This thread reminded me I need to redo it. Or use plastic sheets, that would be even better.

 

This is the stuff that's used on aircraft:

SILICONE BAFFLE SEAL - LIPSTICK RED from Aircraft Spruce

 

Yeah The adhesive exists, how else do OEM stick the foam to the radiators. Best thing is probably to go on 3m's website and pick something out. Probably going to be some flavor of silicone adhesive.

 

Try going to Mcmaster:

McMaster-Carr

I bet the high temperature aluminum foil tape (325 F) will work, but the extreme temp stuff (600F) should definately work.

The fiberglass reinforced foil tape seems like it would be good for sealing as well

 

Dustin1824 is right on. I've had some aluminum tape on my radiator for about 6 months now and it still sticks. Surface area is important. If you take your time and get a nice smooth even tape line, it will work pretty good. I didn't even use anything fancy, just the cheap home depot stuff.

 

"Extreme Temperature—This tape functions in temperatures from -65° to 600° F; apply at 0° to 200° F. It also resists moisture and dust. "

wholly crap, apply while it is 200? Flame suit required?


Bad-***.

 

I can see some guys trying to apply at 200 F. Think about what you would do between track sessions to repair an off track excursion that screwed up your ducting. If you tried to put tape on your rad, it would be about 200 F.

 

on my list of to-do's, but here's what I'm picturing in my head:

top cover out of your choice of plastic, but cut it out with "wings" to fold over the sides and cover up those two holes in the upper rad area near the headlights, if that makes sense.

 

yup. you would lower it in from the top with the wings sliding over the sides and down, with the top part looking like everything else out there. The wings could also have an angle to mate up with the edge of the rad. just before the fins start. Ideally you would mill the edge on the rad. to accept the edge of the wing.

When I did a image search for "slotted aluminum radiator end tank" I did not get anything exciting. But if you could mill in or weld on a flange the length of the radiator and then just fabricate the cover you could just trim as needed.

 

Aluminum tape. Not the shitty plasticy stuff.

 

 

I mean, that is just about as helpful

 

I sealed my radiator with Gorilla Tape across the top gap, 1/2 lowes/home depot foam on the sides, and the bottom used vinyl tub/shower liner sealed with aluminum hvac tape.

The aluminum hvac tape would get gummy by the end of a driving season but never detached. The gorilla tape never detached or got gummy.

The caveat is that I'm in the Northwest, my hottest track days were probably 85 ambient last year. In desert heat my solutions may have melted.

 

<p>Does a 20 degree ambient temperature delta&nbsp;really make that much of a difference in overall temps? Is it exponential in some way?</p>

 

No, it's linear for the most part.

 

Actual running temp is a fraction of the difference between the temp of the engine (which should stay the same) and the ambient. What the fraction is depends on the car and the cooling efficiency.

So say my engine is at 200 deg, the ambient at 100 deg then the coolant will equalise at a point say 1/4 down that line. ie 175 deg. If the engine is at 200 deg and the ambient is at 80 deg then the coolant will be around 170 deg.

So the relationship is linear, but a 20 degree drop in ambient won't bring down the running temp by 20 degree. It will be some ratio of that at a max of 1/2.

Of course in actuality it's way more complex with engine head load fluctuating but the general physics is the same.

 

In industry we correlate ambient to top tank temperatures at a 1:1 relation for coolant package size considerations with all other conditions being equal at ambients above 70 degrees.

Aka a 1 degree rise in ambient relates to a 1 degree rise in coolant temps.

Below 70 degrees the correlation becomes less linear

 

To add another data point, we ran a stock plastic end tank automatic radiator fully ducted from an airdam with a reroute and blocked open thermostat on a stock horsepower racecar for 14 hours this weekend.

Coolant temps never rose above 190 F on a 85 F ambient day.

That's about as hot as we will see here in the Midwest so we'll be putting a thermostat in now that I have a feel for how much overhead cooling capacity we have in the system. I would like to see temps in the 195-205 range on the stock ECM

 

We ran the same race with the same setup as slammed200 except we use a thermostat and our temps were 199-201 all day long. Maybe some creep to 205 while pushing hard right behind a car.

 

Andrew which thermostat are you guys running and do you have a 1/4" hole drilled at the top?

I forget if your water pump mixer is capped off, but you do run the reroute on the cold side like we do if I recall correctly.