Radiator and Condenser Upgrade Walkthrough

[Abazal]

Hi all,

It has been a while but thought I’d write up a little update and give some help while I wait around for a robot to finish testing.

I recently decided to redo my a/c system and after changing out all my seals I discovered my condenser was leaking. So I decided to upgrade the condenser to a parallel flow e30 condenser for an m10 so the dimensions are extremely close to our condensers.

The mounting points are different on the top of the condenser so I made a bracket from 1/8” steel that bolted to where the radiator mounts are. So no drilling is required except into the steel bracket.

Then comes the issue of the connections being different from the old condenser. They are very close but not close enough. So what you’ll need to do is order flexible rubber lines made by vintage air from summit racing. They have a kit for #6, #8 and #10 hose sizes. Depending on how you want to run your lines you may need to order a few more connections, for me I used two #6 connections and two #8 connections and this was the end result:

Then proceed with vacuuming the system, putting a new drier and charging!

After this I put the car back together and took it for a drive and this occurred:


I had mounted the condenser slightly too far forward and caused the radiator mounts to shear leading to the radiator falling backwards and then the fan chewing through it.

So back to the drawing board it was! Radiators for our cars have been hard to find so thanks to John (somjuan) he recommended and helped me swap in a e36 m42 radiator. It’s cheaper than a new one for our m10 and cools our cars easily. During this swap I decided to redo all the cooling so a new water pump and thermostat was swapped in.

In order to get the radiator in you’ll need to slightly manipulate the bottom mounts in order to fit the wider radiator. Then remember that steel bracket I used for the condenser? Well it comes in handy because we bolted the bracket to the frame and then drilled a new hole in the bracket for the radiator and used nylon spacers and bolts that went through and through so the mounts don’t shear like last time.

Then comes the challenging part, getting the right hoses for the new connections. You can mimic the connections using wire hangars. Bend them into the right shape and then go your local auto parts store till you find the hoses that best match the new shape and are the right diameter. Once those are made you’ll need to put them in which is a total blast 10/10 would recommend
Then all that’s left is the connection for the expansion tank, that you’ll need to tee into the heater core and this is honestly the easiest hose connection in the entire process.

Then bleed and enjoy the way it looks and cools!





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[AKBO]

Thanks for sharing this!

[Yonkers320is]

Very cool. Thanks

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[hotdish]

Nice write-up! The mounts for my radiator are currently sheared too, but thankfully the early M20 cars only had an e-fan so that didn't cause any major issues.