So my rad gave out tonight, which is quite untimely for me, but it happens. I am getting a civic rad tomorrow and installing it in the afternoon. I plan to use the newly opened area in front of the block to allow nice clean open area for the turbo when I install it. The question, for those that have done the mod:





Has anyone swapped over the the civic AC condenser as well?

It seems like the logical option to allow a nice open path for clean air to the turbo, but iirc the civic has the Rad and AC condenser mounted each on opposite sides of the car. Does having the condenser installed restrict flow to the rad? Has anyone installed the shorter condenser to free up engine-bay real estate?

 

Be careful with the A/C brah. Once you size one thing differently, it can put the whole system out of whack - all the pressure drops and cooling rates are pretty finnicky as far as I know.



Tbh it might not be so bad, but definitely duct air into and out of the radiator. This is especially important with a half core - otherwise air just spills around the sides and it's early bedtime and no cookies for your motor.

 

I made a decision a few years ago. Either keep the a/c and radiator stock with a turbo setup small enough to get between 300-400hp, or go balls out and remove the a/c for a drag setup. There's no reason to go with a half core and mess with the a/c if you only want <400hp on a street car.

 

To be honest, the only reason I'm going with the half core is to clear up some room for the turbo. Removing the AC is not an option. I plan to use the car often, and summers w/out AC are insufferable here.

 

There should be plenty of room for a small turbo there and stock rad if I could fit a 60-1. Plenty of people have done it without going through the trouble of getting a civic rad. I don't see why you're going through the trouble? It's not a bolt on modification. You're going to have to fab up 2 of the mounts and find custom hoses.

 

Let the man put a radiator what's the problem? Hoses and mounts are easy for coolant. For A/C it's more involved. If all you want is the extra inch or two of clearance, you've got them without fooling with the condenser . . . so save a lot of headache and leave the a/c alone.

 

I would only go with a dual core, and not a stock civic rad. I wouldn't trust it to cool the motor. I'm still going to keep a careful watch on temps even with a dual core. Also, with the factory condensor behind the rad, you must go with a puller fan. This essentially takes up quite a bit of space on the driver side to run intercooler pipes and turbo intake in front of the trans. You may even find that depending on your manifold, the Civic rad will still sit in front of the compressor housing and cause you problems there also. Mine does this and barely clears. Maybe you will route piping another direction, but this is all something to ponder when doing this mod.



BTW, the mounts and hoses are NOT easy for this. I had to chop off, then weld the passenger mount to the center. Then drilled another hole for the top mount centered on the Civic rad. Hoses were a b*tch because the Civic lower outlet was so close to the turbo housing. Top outlet lines right up to the factory outlet.

 

The radiator I bought is a tri-core. Picked up this one: http://www.mishimoto.com/honda-civic...00-triple.html. Got it for $270 at Summit and got the shroud/fan assembly for an additional $130. It's really nice but... yeah, about that.... I ran into a small problem.



I keep forgetting that nothing likes the auto-tragic and my 5 speed is months away from completion. I am either staring at additional $150 for an oil cooler or just buying a 2 core civic rad for an auto and hoping the built-in oil cooler is sufficient. I have to have this running by Saturday so I'm likely going to have to bite the bullet and put a tib rad back in.



epic fail.







edit:

Because I'm not going small turbo.

I have the Accent for a DD, i want to build something fun an slightly crazy.

Did I mention I'm also 2UZ swapping the deuce? And that I have over bored and stroked my 944 out to 3.5L? Yeah, fun and crazy is the name of the game.