ok...dumb cooling question.

[canyoncarver]

getting ready to yank the stroker out of my sons e30 and swap in the m30. question being,..what have you guys been using for a radiator ?
without having a mechanical fan available..im concerned about san diegos summer days.

any thoughts ?

thanks !

[lukeADE335i]

e28 535i radiator - bolts straight up at the top,just needs some bottom mounts fabricated with a couple of pieces of angle, and you cut off the perches that the e30 radiator sits on.

I daily drive mine in Australian heat (ie. up to 110F) in traffic, and it doesn't overheat. I run an e32 aux fan as a pusher to keep everything cool and temperatures are solid. I switch it with a 82 degree thermo switch from an e28 in the thermostat housing.

Been running this setup for 4 years without issues.

[CorvallisBMW]

^What he said. You can also run a 16" Spal pusher on an e36 82C/88C dual temp switch and have it run on low/high as needed. http://www.r3vlimited.com/board/show...ht=cooling+m30

[F34R]

I'm using an e36 M3 Mishimoto and a 16" electric fan.

[Anthony B]

I'm running the e28 535i rad & 16' spal pusher fan, though I avoid traffic at any chance as I find the temp starts creeping north.

Next time I pull the front of the car apart I'm going to see what I can fabricate into the rad support area & run a puller fan, though I'm competing with the hot Australian weather.

[CorvallisBMW]

Also these cooling systems are a fucking bitch to bleed. Air WILL get trapped and it WILL make your engine run hotter. It's best to bleed with the front end raised up and the expansion tank raised higher still, above the bleed screw height.

You'd be surprised how much air can hide in these systems. I drove mine all over for several hundred miles, including a full 3-hour dyno tune session, and assumed it was fine... 3 days later it burped a huge amount of air and I had to add another ~1 liter of coolant.

[lukeADE335i]

Too true - any time I have to bleed the system, I just lift the expansion tank as high as I can above the engine and it then bleeds fairly easily. Over the next couple of weeks I keep checking the coolant as the small amount of residual air works its way out & I top it up until it settles.

Anthony - check the CFM ratings on the Spal; the e32 aux fan moves a heap of air (it's a bit noisy, but the curved blades help a bit with that) & I have no problems. Admittedly - the traffic I face in Adelaide is not as bad as you get in Sydney but sometimes with roadworks etc. it takes me 45 mins or so to travel a few blocks and it's fine.

I started out with a Davies Craig 16 inch fan and it was useless. The e32 fan on high speed moves a lot more air than the Davies Craig did - no idea about the Spal, but many of our US and European friends on here don't deal with the high ambient temps we do.

[canyoncarver]

hey guys,..thanks for all the input.
we're currently using an e28/528 e radiator with his m20 stroker. sounds like we'll use the e28/533-535 version for the m30.
since we will definitely be retaining a/c,...my biggest concerns are the san diego summer temps and traffic.
santa ana conditions easily push 100 plus degrees ,..traffic at 5mph commuter speed just compounds it.
with garagistic mounts,..i thinking ill have room for a spal puller fan to compliment the e32 pusher fan.

further words of hot climate wisdom ?

[CorvallisBMW]

I doubt you'll be able to fit anything larger than a 10" puller. M30s have their water pump nut sitting less than 0.5" from the radiator; there literally isn't a fan in the world that fits in that kind of space. But you can fit a 10" puller just in front of the alternator.

[lukeADE335i]

Corvallis has done it where few others have... the 10 inch puller would be about as big as will fit if you look though his M30 with AC thread.

To cope with the hot climate, I have 4 air conditioners in my car... I wind them down when it's hot :)

I do suffer in high temp traffic, but the car doesn't. Beginning to think I might try refitting AC to mine as a summer project this year.

[Anthony B]

Also these cooling systems are a fucking bitch to bleed. Air WILL get trapped and it WILL make your engine run hotter. It's best to bleed with the front end raised up and the expansion tank raised higher still, above the bleed screw height.

You'd be surprised how much air can hide in these systems. I drove mine all over for several hundred miles, including a full 3-hour dyno tune session, and assumed it was fine... 3 days later it burped a huge amount of air and I had to add another ~1 liter of coolant.

Thank you Corvallis for your tip, last weekend I put mine on stand & used a high stack bleeder & burped a fair amount air the car took just under 1litre of coolant, I also trimmed my grill to allow more flow. The result was in stop start traffic the heat crept to midway & barely moved which for the first time in the year & 1/2 I've had the swap was a pleasant surprise.

The Spal 16" pusher fan flows a huge amount of air(appears to no longer be on their site) dependent on static pressure it can flow between 1600-1800CFM