Now I've finished with my transmission projects it's time to move onto he next job. After procrastinating for around 4 years it's finally time to overhaul the cooling system. I managed to pick up a used alloy 3 core radiator with au thermo fans mounted ready to rock. I've also picked up new hoses, new thermostat and gasket and I'm going to paint the overflow and water pump pulley at the same time. Hopefully this should keep it under 100 degrees on hot SA days (my old radiator and fan clutch weren't amazing). Should be more room for activities without the huge shroud.
Bit of advice for anyone thinking of making the switch to Thermos I'd highly recommend a Davies Craig fan controller over using the condenser fan wiring to the ecu. The fan controller gives much more flexibility over how they work (e.g staggered starting between fans to avoid he huge power draw) and the ability to set custom temps for the fans to kick in. Drove in some heavy traffic this afternoon on a 37 degree day to test it out and temps didn't exceed 95 with fans kicking in around 89-90 degrees.
Some goodies from Aeroflow and MACE arrived this week. After driving around with the AU fans for a while i discovered that at idle the factory 85a alternator wasn't quite able to keep up and the fan speeds were dropping, especially with lights and radio on. Rather than modifying a VT alternator to fit I went and ordered a 120a Aeroflow unit which looks pretty sexy. The next hurdle I had was the factory OTR on the stock airbox doesn't work with the AU fans (different shapes etc). So I ordered a MACE CAI (which I've been wanting to do for a while).
Are VT V8 alternators different from the VS ones? I have just mounted a VT V6 alternator on my VC, as it is 120 AMP, up from the old EL Falcon 80 AMP....
Yes. VS V8 is 85amp standard. VT is 120amp and there is possibly a 140amp model too. I put a VT alternator on my VS as well.
I have 2 vt s1 v6 wagons sitting out the back. Both have 100 amp alternators. Vt s1 v8 5 ltre 120 amp. vt s2 v8 5.7 ltre 140 amp? Are they interchangeable?
That's right. The LS V8 has the larger 140amp unit. I don't think it's a direct exchange. Maybe you can swap over the guts into the earlier case to make it work.
Is that a oiled of dry pod? I`ve got 2 pods for the VS and the VE so I can change straight away and clean when I want.
It's a dry pod, however I'll be changing it to a K&N once this one gets dirty as I've always run K&N filters.
Another modification to the cooling system, the radiator and the core support had a fair gap between it letting a lot of air out rather than directing it at the radiator core. with some spare sheet metal I made up a new shroud to fit over the top of the radiator to try and seal it up a bit better.
