my rb25det cooling system (pics)

[jrb92se]

whats up this is my 400th post so i made it a good one ive been having issues keeping my car (white coupe in my sig) running cool during the day (i live in fl) so ive done some research on nico and with the help of my father and all the people on the board that replied to my posts ive made some improvements to the cooling system that was in the car. below are some pics of the stuff ive done and captions to explain have fun reading hope everyone enjoys it!!!

here is a pic of the X-terra condensor fan i stuffed in front of the radiatori have it wired to run on high all the time and its hooked to a relay that turns it on whenever the car ignition is on now when i installed this i didnt want to remove my bumper and fmic so i cut one of the condensor brackets and modified the fan housing to get it in there. i dont recommend you cut your cond. bracket out but sometimes you just have to ghetto it up a bit and work with what you got!

heres a pic of my two pullers. the one you cant see is a modified s14 condensor fan wired to run as a puller dont hold me too that though thats what i was told at xat (these two fans were in the car when i got it) it could be a fan from another vehicle. the one you can see is a generic imperial fan or something ill be replacing that fan with a better f.a.l. pusher in awhile when funds are more stabile. these two fans were not operating properly and were not wired to par (think household wire nuts) so i had to completely rewire them below is a pic of the heavier wiring i used and the fuse i ran inline to the thermostatic switch for the fans. the way that they were wired before was drawing to much load and burning up the power wire and connector that ran from the battery to the thermo. also if you look closely at the thermo you will see two little screws in the bracket thats holding it , both of the two pullers were grounded with one wire to one of those little screws so i rewired them to be grounded to the battery everything is e-taped as good as possible and i put liqiud electrical tape on all the wire connectors to keep any moisture out and for a little extra insul. i know it aint perty but you gotta do what you can to make things work properly.

heres a picture of the wiring thats running the pusher fan in front of the radiator i wired it to a relay that turns it on when the car comes on and turns it off when the cars is off,it runs all the time when the cars running. the relay is a four prong ford relay my father brought home from work for me. i dont know if you can see it but i cut into a blue wire that was connected to a plug that was for something on the stock ka for the ignition power to the relay; you dont have to cut into any plugs if you can find a better ignition source (this is where a test light comes in handy) but it was the closest source of power to the relay.actually if you look closely you will see a single wire that runs behind the relay in the pic thats the ign. wire from the plug mentioned above

now the good stuff this is a pic of the cooling panel the i made from some roofing valley roll i bought at the depot the dimensions of it from front to back are 9 inches and side to side 31 inches i placed it under the car and marked it with a sharpy for the cutouts i also marked those frame pieces then measured from each mark to the end of it ,transferd the measurements on to the sheet metal and cut it ,comprende? it would be easier for you to use a piece of cardboard to make a template then trace it onto the sheet metal, but only girls do things the easy way there are some stock screw holes in the frame if you can line your holes up to them DO IT i couldnt get the holes to line up so i used self tapping metal screws to attach it to the frame



heres a pic of my father he helped out alot hes been a mech for 35 years so he knows his **** thanks alot pops !!!



this isnt over yet i still have an oil cooler that im going to be installing and ill post up pics of the process involved when its done so keep an eye out if your interested thanks for reading and thanks to all the people on nico who have helped me out with info and such you guys are sweet !!


Modified by jb96s14 at 6:38 PM 7/30/2006

[jrb92se]

forgot to mention above that i have relocated the coolant res. to the fire wall behind the pass. strut tower. to be exact there is a bracket behind the widshield wiper motor i removed then i made a custom bracket out of a hurricane strap to hold my napa coolant res. DO NOT buy a replacment res. from discout auto they are crap!! mine split open and was leaking after a week, napa is the way to go if you guys want to see of it let me know ill post em for ya thx!!

[kouki-gymkhana]

Props for the work. Looks like you've got the same tangled mess of wires at the positive battery terminal that I have since I've got so many accessories to power: HIDs, e-fans, etc. I was toying with the idea of buying one of those generic grounding kits off of ebay with the multi-connect terminals and use it on the positive terminal just to clean things up a bit. Not so sure if it's a good idea or not, that's why I haven't done it yet.

Remember that while you're installing that oil cooler, you might as well relocate the oil filter to make changing the filter easier.

Overall, great work!

[jrb92se]

thanks man sorry i didnt post again sooner i wanted to drive it for a few days and see how it ran for real. so far i havent had any boiler over whatsoever,the gauge stays in the middle and the car runs alot better i mean alot. it runs cold all the time in the 95 degree florida heat. and its got a stock radiator total out of pocket cost was $35.00 for new coolant, water wetter, e-tape , roofing valley roll and a $7.00 switch i didnt even use ( ) it would probly cost you more but i had the extra fan , fuses, wiring,etc. laying around the garage but all in all its seems to be a verrry goood budget cooling system
Modified by jb96s14 at 2:52 PM 8/1/2006

[kouki-gymkhana]

I wouldn't trust the stock temp gauge if that's what you are using. Remember i mentioned that I blew my HG...don't you want to know how?...It's because one of my heater hoses blew on the highway doing about 80mph and all the coolant was gone in like 2 seconds. I didn't realize what was happening until I noticed the steam in my rear view mirror and right as I was about to push the clutch in to coast to a stop on the side of the road, the engine overheated so badly that the ECU shut it down. Meanwhile, the POS stock temp gauge never budged from half way!!!

I know you're probably on a tight budget but I'd suggest you splurge on a nice set of gauges (I have Defi BF's and I LOVE them) so you can keep a close eye on things and know EXACTLY what the temp is. After I'd made all of my cooling mods but before I realized the HG was badly blown, I was seeing temps of 75 degrees Celcius while cruising and up to 95 with the A/C on in traffic. If I was on the stock rad, I would have toasted the engine again for sure. It just goes to show what a Koyo, 3 fans, a ****load of bumper holes, and lots of underbody ducting can do to cool an RB s13.

[jrb92se]

i am going to be ivesting in a set of autometer gauge's and just to be safe ive had my father retest for a blown h/g and got the same results i did. also its been running cold i judge the temp not by the gauage but by how much boil over im getting in the res and it hasnt boiled over at all since i did this so i think it was successful. im also eventually going to upgrade the radiator and the cheap fan but ill keep you post on how everythings working.

[Carl H]

might want to look into an uprated cap for the rad, running a 16psi one on my car vs the 13psi one made a world of diffrence.

[jrb92se]

already got one from xat i forgot to mention that. thanks for the input though
Modified by jb96s14 at 12:09 AM 8/2/2006

[blues14]

how exactly does the higher pressure radiator cap improve cooling??

[jrb92se]

it doesnt the spring in the cap is stiffer so it requires more pressure for coolant/steam to escape preventing it from going into the reserve bottle