With the motor and trans back in the car, now for some custom plumbing work…
First up was the leak prone OEM power steering. I had converted the system on my E36 to AN and did the same for the E86. Braze welded the male AN fittings on the metal pipes and use braided line for the hose. For the high pressure side, I used triple braid rated for 2,200 psi.
For the radiator, I opted for the OE fitment CSF 3055 radiator. At $250 it was a steal for an all aluminum 42mm radiator. More capacity than stock and aluminum reliability. I did want to modify the mounting location and go with a custom setup to take advantage of a vented hood. Meaning, change the direction of the air flow post radiator to go up and out the hood rather than down and under the chassis. To accomplish this, I needed to move the radiator down and lean it forward as far as I could. The stock location puts the radiator at a 5 degree backward lean. I ended up tilting the radiator 15 degrees forward. This made room for a nice air box on the backside of the radiator in front of the front bulkhead. I also shaved the top of the bulkhead to make a flat, or straight, top to allow better hood venting. One nice thing about the E86 is that the front clip can be removed and you can work on all of the plumbing (water, oil, PS) on a workbench. This made fabricating the required shrouding much easier!
Repositioned the lower radiator mounts:
For oil cooling, I decided to go with an aftermarket universal cooler. A 19 row Setrab cooler. These coolers are more efficient than the wide fat under radiator coolers (and considerably less expensive). The only drawback is finding captive air for the oil cooler. If you’re going to stack your coolers, you need to shroud the front and the back of the oil cooler to allow the low pressure on the backside of the water cooler (radiator) to draw air through the oil cooler. This should still be significantly better airflow than the OEM oil cooler.
For the power steering cooling, I decided to keep the aluminum loop. Not a very effective cooler, but I’m not sure how much it needs. I’ll monitor the PS fluid and change this if needed. I’m double under driving the PS pump, so it may not be a problem. For now, I braze welded AN fittings on the aluminum tubing and moved the cooling loop to the backside of the radiator. It should get considerably more airflow than the stock set up in front of the AC exchanger and radiator stack. I mounted the loop to the Spal 14” fan in the radiator air box.
With the front clip on the workbench, I also made modifications to the front bumper for brake ducts and blanks for the stock brake vent holes (I don’t think I would call them brake ducts…) and the headlights, oh, and also removed the headlight washers. I don’t plan to run headlights. 20 lbs of unnecessary weight! So I fabricated some brake hole blanks and headlight blanks with some wet layup carbon fiber. For the brake holes, I made blanks out of aluminum and then laid up the carbon fiber over that as a mold. The headlights were a bit trickier. The headlights are actually undersized for the cutout to allow for adjustment. I wanted the blanks to be a tighter fit. So I used modeling clay to fill the gaps on the headlights and then used the headlights for the molds.
Bumper loosely installed:
With the airflow through the radiator now routed up, I needed to vent my hood. I looked at all the options that were available, including the recent trend for heater vent looking louvres. In the end I decided to give it go to make my own vent panel out of carbon fiber. For now, though, I’ve run out of time and am anxious to get the car on track to begin sorting the suspension, so a preliminary hole was cut on the hood. More to follow on this modification…
