Is there a better than stock radiator for the Z31?

I saw one of the Z31s at the last meet. The guy had a 240SX radiator in his (don't remember from which model or year), with a couple of electric fans. He had the stock radiator fan removed, and mounted this radiator vertically, strapped to the chassis, just in front of where the stock fan used to sit.

I know the NA Z32 can use the Maxima Radiator withs some electric fans and it's bigger than stock and cheap!

The stock radiator is fine, unless you need to free up room. At which point there are quiet a few options for vertical mount radiators that will do fine. Such as:

http://www.secureperformanceorder.com/afcostore/getproduct.cfm?CategoryID=6&a...

Which is the one I'm using. It will mount below the crossmember that has the hood latch on it, and allow room for intercooloer pipes for a FMIC.

Some people expecially those in the japanese z31/200zr car clubs mount a larger radiator (taller) in FRONT of the hood latch crossmemeber rather than beneath it, and they usually install thicker rads too. I don't have a part number for ya, just will have to measure it up and go to a rad site. The link I posted above does custom rads, or you can find a pre-fabbed one that has the measurements you want.

Here is the Rad Mounted with a Permacool 14in fan.

And here is a pic with the IC mounted in front, the IC pipes (not pictures) run along the driver side of the Rad.



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Lastly with IC pipes in, my setup requires the removal of the AC though:

Drifter88zxt,

I resized your picture. It was a little too wide.

Jerry

g'day Drifter88zxt,

You took off the front face, hood, intercooler, just to show me a pic of your aftermarket radiator? That's pretty cool!

Looks like a good setup you've got there. How much did that radiator set you back? I checked the link out. I noticed in one shot you've got two fans, and in the other you have one. Are two better than one? I've a friend who raves about Spaal electric fans. Are they all much the same too? Is it better to get one with a higher cfm rating? I'm assuming so if I live in a warm climate.

I'd like to get this upgrade done before the summer comes around again.

lol, I'm just a nice guy =)

The radiator in my pic is the same one in the link I gave you. It cost me 200, and shipping was free when I bought it. But it appears their prices have gone up bout 30 bucks.

As for the fan, I was having cooling issues, and I thought maybe it was becuase I was using an unshrouded fan. So I bought the Twin Scirrico fans and put them on. My cooling issues remained, I later found out it was becuase of my heater core bypass house, I plugged up that hose and my cooling issues went away, and I went back to the unshrouded fan because it flowed more CFMs (2950 vs 2000 if I remember correctly).

Hi drifter,

Could I ask one more favour. Would you tell me, or show me how you have the piping running for the lower end of the radiator?

Also, looking at your photos (which are very helpful), I see you have two pipes, one to the air filter. Where does the other one go to? If you had an overhead shot that would be awesome.

Thanks very much.

Dave

^^^
Turbo maybe?

MmMmmmmm... Turbo's....

There are actually 3 IC pipes.

The one with the Air-Filter of course connects to the inlet of the compressor housing.

Then there is the second pipe (not pictured) that connects to the outlet of the compressor housing, which then goes to the bottom IC inlet.

Then there is the 3rd pipe which you can see, which goes from the top outlet pipe on the IC to the throttle body.

I'll see if I have a pic that shows this.

I don't have any pics that show exactly what you want at the moment:

The lower Rad piping uses the stock metal pipe then I have question (?) mark shapped hose that attaches to that metal pipe the bottom of the question mark would be attached to the metal pipe. Then the pipe proceeds out a bit then loops back around and attaches to the lower Rad inlet (the top left part of the question mark attaches to the rad inlet). Sorry thats as descriptive as I can be without a picture.

Also, feel free to read this sort of diary of progress on my car, has some pics that are not here, and some of the things I did a few years back.

http://300zxclub.com/showthread.php?t=15509

Might give you some ideas.

Drifter, thanks very much for the link. I've browsed the 300zxclub for awhile, but I must have missed that one.