It’s time to upgrade my cooling. What radiator, fan and heat exchanger is everyone running?

 

What boost pressure are you running, since the LS9 TVS-2300 can be come a heat pump when pushed too much.

If the problem is the TVS becoming a heat pump when over spun (higher boost), then no different cooler needed, but instead a meth kit that will cool the compressed air into the motor isntead. Hence the Heatbeat super charger has a better inter cooler system, but can still heat pump if pushed hard enough.

As for better water cooler for the super charger, its not the problem, since the water inter cooler in the super charge is not efficient enough to cool the air off coming through the super charger itself.

As for stock boost pressure, with meth kit and still problems, time to pull the plastic cap off the top of the condenser and the radiator, and use a water wand to clean the compressor and radiator coils out from the back sides to flush out the sand/grit that has collected in the coils air flow passages.

 

@Dano523 I have a modified motor with crank, heads, cam kit, and blower ported and polished. I'm only running about 13.5lbs of boost on a 2.65 pulley and can get water temps to 220 real easy in summer or when pushed hard. I plan to go smaller on the pulley and add an E85 kit which will only make this worse. Also, I do have a brand new meth kit waiting to go in as well. So upgraded cooling is a must for the next batch of upgrades.

 

Street driven car with the little increase in boost your talking, meth kit alone will keep you cool enough for the two and few hits that you may do in a few mins.

If the car is going to be turned into a road course car with all the mods/where you will be hit after hit after hit for the entire heat, then will need to revamp the entire cooling system to hold the heat down isntead. Truth is, unless your going to run at least a 3 gallon meth tank, standard meth tank will be bone dry inside 20 mins. Plus would better off just pulling the motor to drop in a LS-7 making around 650 hp to turn the car into a N/A Z07, which is way more usable HP on a road course track (that you don't have to lean into PTM from the start).

As for boost pressure on the LS9, you can throw 26lbs at it, and it will be fine with meth kit.
So instead of all the engine mods your going to be wasting money on to gain two and few HP, jump straight to up the boost, and see if they does not resolve your desire for more HP that the car can use (without having to lean into PTM to make the power usable). Hence everyone want to play armchair racer, but put them on a road course track, and they can't even use the stock HP that most cars offer up front to begin with.

As for E85, what you get at the pump is often way less then this, and since you will be burning 30% more fuel at even cruse, would just go with Meth kit to resolve the boost problems on petrol, and still get decent gas mileage when cruising/not on the boost.

Also, you mod a ZR1 the way you are thinking, and the value of it just tanked as well.
All Stock ZR-1 will demand high resale value, while modded ZR-1, not so much since with the mods everyone know that it will be beat to death at the same time.

 

While all the info is helpful to someone, it's already known and not at all helpful to me. I don't care about having an unmodded car, not even this one. I do run her road course and .5/1 mile and plan on much more next year. The build up goal is mid 900's at boost and I tend to do mods in batches.

As originally stated, I'm looking for opinions on radiators, fans and heat exchangers.

 

Damn, I know there are upgrades available. Used to be a ZR1/Z06 page here. I'm 100% sure you're not traveling down a new road. Your issues have been addressed. Have you tried the forced induction/nitrous page? Do remember seeing some of the ZR1 guys using the EForce heat exchanger. Don't know if that was just for IAT's or whether it freed up some airflow to the radiator. Keep digging. You have the baddest or all badass C6's. Hope you get her lined out!

 

@old motorhead
I’ve not yet but probably should have. IAT’s are the devil and this is definitely part of what I’m trying to get on top of.

 

my stock cooling system runs under 200 cruising in south Florida heat .. 160 lpe tstat

with a 2.35 pulley.... e85 and 1300 injectors... max usually around 18psi

check to make sure your condenser and radiator aren't plugged up with crap....

 

forgot to mention I noticed I had air in my bricks, so I'm waiting on blocks and y adapters to wrap up the problem... broke the brittle stock connectors to the inlets on the lid

lpe intercooler brick
cpr and Kong tanks
katech hx
stock blower and lid
going to do the Edelbrock hx at a later date to improve cooling...

the radiator is a nice all aluminum...

maybe get setup with external oil coolers so the motor oil isn't adding heat to the cooling system directly...

also could setup a rear mount trans diff cooler to further pull heat out of the coolant system....

 

You should really ask in the C6 Corvette ZR1 & Z06 section.
As others have said, check to make sure your condenser & radiator aren't plugged with junk. I'm making 700whp (on E85, 635whp on 93) and don't see temps like that in the TX heat. Also, coolant temp in the radiator is completely separate from the blower intercooler system, so even if you're seeing ~220 degree radiator coolant, it may not be a big deal (i.e. if you're sitting in traffic). I don't remember the specific table for the ZR1, but the fans are variable speed and don't go to 100% (actually 90% demanded) until over 220F. 220, even 230 degrees is nothing crazy on coolant temp given an appropriate reason (hot outside temp, sitting still/in traffic, etc). A few things to check are the block on the lower air intake (ZR1s have this blocked off, if that is removed it could actually cause it to run hotter), and to make sure the fans are working (there's a known issue with the fan connector/wiring harness overheating and failing).

The temps to really watch for performance are your IATs. The ZR1 has two (IAT1 & IAT2) before and after the intercooler, and what you want is to see IAT1s reasonably close to ambient while driving (i.e. within 20-30 degrees) and IAT2 within about 15-20 degrees of IAT1 (again while cruising). IAT2 is what timing is based on, and over a certain temp the ECM will pull timing (if you have a flex fuel setup it will have a higher threshold for E85 allowing full timing at hotter temps).

As for cooling mods, most ZR1 owners focus on the intercooler system first. You should definitely upgrade your bricks as the stock ones have been known to fail under higher boost levels. I did Kong HD bricks & inlets, Edelbrock heat exchanger and Kong hidden expansion tank and it works very well for street use including repeated, long multi-gear pulls (i.e. 2nd-4th/5th). This should suffice for 1/2 mile events, and probably 1 mile events (especially if running E85 and giving time to cool off between runs).

For the radiator cooling system, the ZR1 already comes with a thicker unit than other C6s. If you do decide to go ahead and do the radiator, DeWitts is the way to go combined with the Prospeed SPAL fan setup. You could also try just the Prospeed fan setup first or adjusting the fan speed to ramp them up quicker.

 

DeWitts