Calculating radiator size

[MechaniX_034]

Hi gents, am redesigning the cooling system for the club car as part of an effort to get the CG as low as humanly possible. Does anyone know anything about calculating core area VS end tank volume against a flow rating for the water pump?

Thanks for that!

[Goran Malmberg]

My answer here is not very scientific, but I hope it helps. The choice of core area is not very big, one should use (in the case of copper) something in the line of 2x12mm core with 8-9mm spacing and in line. The tanks could be pretty small, using the in-out coming tube diameter as a guideline. The water pump capacity has little to do with tank volume, the tank area will become big enough for most pump capacity. What matters is the total core area flow, and you may calculate Reynold 2000 number for water speed. But if the radiator frontal area is big enough, you can get away with much slower water speed. And in such case, water speed will be more of an engine head spot boiling issue.
Goran