Out with the old and in with the new.

By Clinton HulleyPorsche 917 Replica
917 at the workshop
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As we blew the radiators at the previous race it was obvious that the 2 radiators were too small for the 700 Hp beast. The problem we had is we could not get more air to go through the radiators. The only solution was to get some bigger radiators. I had to maintain the coolant flow rate through the system. I only had to get the coolant to spend more time in the radiators. This way more heat would be rejected by the radiator and cooler coolant will flow back to the engine.

This is 1 of the 2 old radiators on the Porsche.

After some phoning around I found a supplier that was willing to do 2 custom radiators for us. It was very pricey but it had to be done.


The new radiators

We had to change the design of the radiators as we could not change the space the coolers had to fit in. We reduce the tank size which meant the cores were about 40 mm longer. There was space to go slightly wider so there we gained about 30 mm. The area that we gained the most was the thickness of the core. We went from a 40 mm core to a 50 mm core. The 2 radiators together were substantially bigger.

New Radiator with new mountings for the Porsche 917

Fitting the radiator was the easiest bit. What was a time-consuming job was to get the new radiator cowls that I made a few weeks ago for the new fans to fit on the bigger radiators.

New cowls and fans for the old radiator.

After doing some design work, getting the parts laser cut and a lot of grinding and welding I got the new cowls constructed and fitted on the car.

New radiator fitted with cowls and fans

Everything fitted like a glove. At this stage of the fight, I fitted an extra Jabsco water pump to the system. We were running 3 pumps in parallel. I did a flow test on the engine and could not see an increase in water flow with the extra water pump. As the 3 pumps were in parallel they were fighting each other for water. I added a tank in the car so that all three pumps get an equal chance to pump water. With the 3 pumps piped up like this, I got round about 160 Liters a min. I would not be able to improve that without changing to other pumps. The cooling system was done.


Checking out the motor

Because the engine ran so hot and blew the radiators I was worried that the engine may have gotten damaged. I did a full compression check on the engine. Everything thing looked fine. I let the car idle till it was at working temp which is 85 Deg C. I redid the compression check and it was still good.

Once again we were ready for the track.


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