Yes, Another Car Radiator Thread--56K Warning!

[Naja002]

After starting to get bored, I started looking for a new project--a PC cooling type of project. I was going to do the copper pipe in the crawlspace along with some other possibilities. But after reading threads about the use of car radiators--I decided to check it out for myself. My initial participation started in this thread--Post #131:

using car radiators...why not?

Seems that the biggest complaint that I found was--car radiators are made of aluminum. Ok, a lot of them are, but not all of them.....:up:

So on with the show:

The PC water cooling system is currently setup to cool 3 PCs (cpu & nb) running 100% cpu power crunching for WCG-cure cancer. At the moment, only 1 PC is connected to this system--the others will follow....

On May 20, 2008 I purchased the below Car Radiator.....with a plan:







Add a Mag Drive 9.5 pump:






Next add the Famous 55gallon Blue Barrel:



A bit of PVC--and the plan starts coming together....:up:

[Naja002]

I decided to offer each PC its own incoming water, so I figured that the easiest way to do that would be to create a manifold:

I decided to make the manifold for 3 PCs, but left the extra PVC space in order to add more later--if necessary.


The manifold is installed with 1" tubing running down through the floor into a crawlspace:

Yes, some "wire-management" is in order....


In the crawlspace it connects back to 1" PVC pipe:



I decided after-the-fact to add drains to the system at the lowest point:



It then runs a few feet up and into an Out-building:



I'll worry about covering things up later:



Once the radiator arrived, I had to check the fit of its new home:



Almost Perfect:


:up:

[Naja002]

In order to prevent the use of mixed metals (copper and aluminum) I needed a copper radiator! So, I found one! (Most are made of aluminum these days).












For excellent cooling ability and flow--I wanted a triple core (3 rows) radiator:





3 rows of nice flat tubing. (Flat tubing offers much greater surface contact and much less warm flow bypass!)


Yeah, Baby!

[Naja002]

So,......How to connect the 1 5/16" inlet and 1 9/16" outlet to my 1" PVC? Well, here ya go--1 1/4" and 1 1/2" tubing:



Next, I had to figure out how to mount it in place. So, I just attached some 1"x4" pieces to the out-building frame work:



Cut a few notches:





Then screwed the radiator to the frame work via the radiator mounting holes:





Might work ok as it is for a Passive radiator, but I wanted more options. :yepp:

[Naja002]

Power Options! With summer upon us, things are warming up and with a radiator this size--a little bit of air movement will go a long way.
So, in order to restrict air movement to only through the radiator--I needed to make a shroud and seal things up. (Please ignore the a/c filter--I didn't end up using it):



After all of these "projects" you can see that I still have all my toes......well, on one foot at least! :rofl:





Shroud built, door and radiator sealed--Time to add some Power!



The barrel/pump plumbing above has been changed.





On high these fans will use ~45 watts each. On medium= ~36 w, and on low= ~25w. Not bad at all for the cooling they will offer.






A little bit of foam insulation goes a long way.....



None needed on this one though--nice tight fit:




Next its time to finish up the plumbing and get the radiator hooked up!

[Naja002]

Plumbing to the radiator inlet:



Radiator outlet:

Man, that was E-A-S-Y!



Now the plumbing to and from the 55 gal. barrel--has to be sealed for a closed loop:

The red handled ball valve is for priming the pump:



Into the barrel from the PCs:



And then back out of the barrel to the pump:





I originally put the pump on top of the barrel. It worked that way, but made priming it a real PITA! So, I dropped it down to the floor. Now I use the ball valve to prime the pump, and once the siphon is created--gravity helps feed it.




Time to finish up the main plumbing!

[Naja002]

Plumbing comes out of the pump (pic above) up and over to the radiator inlet:





Out of the radiator outlet and down through the floor:



Time to fill'er up!



Then put on the trusty radiator cap:





Add the air filter to the outside:



Put the screen back on:



And she's ready to rip!

[Naja002]

So, I filled it up with this hard tap water and let the system flush for a few days. Ran into a few minor problems and fixed them.
Now, on June 2, 2008, I have a Q9450 OCed to 3.4 on a GA-G31M-S2L running 100% on Boinc and cpu temps of 46-50C (ambient outside is 30C/85F) and fans on low. I believe that the bottleneck to better temps are A) the current ambient and B) the Apogee GT and MCW30 water blocks.

No Problem for me though.....I will be more than happy crunching at those temps and removing all that heat--OUT--of this room. The cost savings on the A/C should help pay for the cost of running the pump and 2 fans. Good Deal!

When I replace the tap with distilled the temps should get better.

First PC hooked up to the manifold:



This PC will have an open-case home soon:


I left extra tubing in order to not waste any more than necessary when I finished and located this PC's home:










Ambient outside right now is ~67F/19.4C. The Q9450 is still @ 3.4 running 100% on Boinc and temps are: 40, 39, 39, 39. :up:


I'm curious to see what happens when I hook up the next PC. :yepp:

[Naja002]

As a comparison, here's the state of 2 PCs when I woke up today at ~9am:

E8400 @ 4.0(dual core)
P5E-VM HDMI
Swifty 120.2 w/ 74cfm push/pull fans
Apogee GT and MCW30
MCP350
Single bay res

Ambient: A/C on 23.3C/74F, Thermometer reading 25.5C/78F
43, 46C






Q9450 @ 3.4(quad core)
GA-G31M-S2L
Car Rad setup

Ambient: PC weather says ~20C/68F
39, 37, 38, 38C





Again, I'm really curious to see how things go when I hook up the next PC. Winter should be fun! :yepp:

Also, these chips/mbs will be swapped out. The Q9450 and GA-G31M-S2L are both new to me, so I figured that I would check them out together before putting the PCs in their long-term setups.

[Naja002]

The PCs are currently setup the same cpu/mb-wise. I'll swap them around later. I wanted to keep them the same while I checked out adding the second pc to the system. :yepp:

Here's a couple of screenshots--ambient temps outside are ~26C/79F, fans on high: