Group,
My limited experience with LSR cooling systems has run the gamut from
radiators to tanks.
On my first ride, Jim Lattin and Elmo Gillette's Redhead, they ran an
plain moderate capacity water tank. On my XXF/STR and my XXF/GL I ran
radiators of various sizes.
When I built my current modified roadster ride the guy who I bought the
pieces from had a 15 gallon water tank placed where the passenger would sit.
Since the primary cooling concern with the aluminum head Ardun is keeping
heat in the engine as much as transferring it to the radiator, plus the fact
that I didn't want to circulate any outside air into the body to accommodate
a radiator, I elected to stay with the tank. The problem then became how to
warm the engine and still leave some cooling capacity in the tank.
I decided to put a 160 deg thermostat in the system. Since the Ardun has
no ready-made place for a thermostat, I machined a thermostat housing out of
a piece of 3" aluminum bar stock that opens into two halves and has a cavity
in the middle for the thermostat. After drilling 4-1/8" holes in the
thermostat to allow the water to circulate a little and give the thermostat a
sense of what's happening with the engine temp I mounted the thing in the
return lines between the engine and the tank.
The theory was to have the engine warm itself quicker by trapping the
cooling water in the block until the desired heat was attained. Then, when
making a run the cooling water was still at ambient temp and the thermostat
would open as necessary. I didn't want to start a run with the entire tank of
coolant already near boiling and no air exchange (radiator) to cool it.
A secondary benefit would be driver comfort. With the driver and water
tank sharing the same cockpit, sitting in line with a tank full of 180 deg
water could be uncomfortable on a hot day.
In actual practice we found that when warming the engine we could leave
the pump off and build up some heat pretty quickly. Turning on the pump
during warmup dropped the engine temp and slowed the process.
Keep in mind that the aluminum head Ardun radiates a lot of heat, and
that we don't currently have a pan heater on our stock (wet-sump) oiling
system. Next year we will have a 110v pan heater and an external oil pump.
I tried a 1500w electric water-heater probe in the cooling tank but it
never built enough temp to be effective...........Ardun Doug in Castro's
Valley, CA
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