Lay Forward Radiator

It seems to me that the only real reason to lay the rad. forward is to gain access to the back of it. This access comes in handy when connecting the water pipes to the radiator. If you add sucker fans with a high CFM rating (ie: flex-a-lite 220) you should theoretically improve your cooling. You can add the fans with the rad. in the stock position but connecting the pipes will be difficult. The hood vents are not needed and many people will tell you not to cut up your hood to add them. The airflow will still be directed under the car as is is now.
I'm in the process of doing this now and it's really a simple mod. I just need to find a decent rad. shop to flip the brackets for me, extend the in/outlet pipes, and devise a solid mounting method for the fans.

I installed the lay down kit last year. I have no hood vents. I bought a kit from Brian Graham. It was very simple and has lowered my water temp by about 10 degrees. I have a fluidyne rad with sucker fans. My theory as to why the temps went down is the air can be pulled through the rad and down more easily with the increased area behind the rad. I also have a chrome shroud/cover over the radiator opening/under the hood to help force air through the rad and direct air down under the car. When I ran without the shroud, I noticed my water temps going up, so the shroud definitely works. The shroud came with the car when I bought it, but I think Hall and maybe PI sells them. It's also true it's easier to work on. I installed stainless steel pipes, and would have had to removed the rad before. Hope this helps.

6661's sugar daddy

I had to lay mine forward about an inch and a half to get the flexalite fan assembly to fit behind the radiator. I also put a small spacer between the fan housing and the radiator as suggested by Jack DeRyke. I also have the upper shrouds covering the openings in front and back of the radiator. No overheating problems.

Unless you have the hood cutouts, laying it forward any further may be counterproductive as all you've done is reduce the frontal area for the air to blow through.

Jeff
6559

Jeff,
Do you have any pics of your installation?

quote:

Originally posted by ht4tchr:
Do you have any pics of your installation?

Strangely, no. I'll try to do some this weekend.

Here's a pic of my installation, freshly completed last weekend. Consists of Fluidyne in the full laydown position with Flexalite 210 fans. I made brackets for the rad shroud so as not to have to use the through core mountings and kept the shroud off the radiator with spacers just enough to give the fan blades an inch of free air space.

Julian

Thanks. That helps. I'm in the process of doing this myself with the stock radiator. It's amazing how much you can tell from a picture. A lot less thinking that I have to do in order to make things work.
I'm also diong the crossmember/e-brake mods. I'll post some pics of that when done.

quote:

Originally posted by jeff6559:
I had to lay mine forward about an inch and a half to get the flexalite fan assembly to fit behind the radiator. I also put a small spacer between the fan housing and the radiator as suggested by Jack DeRyke. I also have the upper shrouds covering the openings in front and back of the radiator. No overheating problems.

Unless you have the hood cutouts, laying it forward any further may be counterproductive as all you've done is reduce the frontal area for the air to blow through.

Jeff
6559

Yeah, what he said. I did exactly the same thing on my '72, with I imagine the same flex-a-lite fans. It would slowly overheat in traffic before, and it literally never overheated once after the installation.