Earl's Build

Earl Mitchell

Supporter
So I figured it was time to start a build thread being that my son had time to post pictures for me as I'm an idiot with computers. The first thing I started was the radiator shroud. After reading a bit on here about people saying that most of the time they needed both fans on I thought that doesn't sound right so I thought about this for a while. What I came up with was that the cooling air was taking the path of least resistance by being drawn through the second fan opening instead of through the restriction of the A/C and radiator coils. So right or wrong I put a baffle inside the shroud to kind of isolate the fans from each other, the baffle is welded to the shroud and about a 1/4" from the rad with some foam tape to seal. Now before I get people saying your only cooling half the radiator try this with your set up ,I tried before and after with one fan on and held a piece of paper near the second fan and sure enough the paper was drawn slightly towards the fan that was off. This convinced me that I was losing some air not being drawn through the ac and rad. Next up was the water pump I did it a little different and welded a 1 1/2" aluminum pipe to the pump housing while keeping a wet towel wrapped around it to absorb the heat. So from there I started the water lines using sanitary stainless fittings and the tube that Fran supplies. The picture with the blue tape on the pipe is how I weld the stainless with a back purge this keeps any air from being drawn into the inside of the pipe and contaminating the weld. Then onto the gas tank I made up some aluminum gusseted brackets and welded them to the tank then use some soft rubber to set tank on and drilled, installed rivet nuts. Then the fun part of building the headers I know I should of just used the corvette manifolds but that would be to easy so here's some pics of that project. The tail pipes were made from a 3" U bend that I cut and sectioned then set up in the mill to drill a 3" hole to accept the 3"pipe after the muffler. This weekend I mounted the heater but did it a little different in that I turn it 90 degrees ,drilled new holes then used the slugs from those holes to fill in the old holes. This also made it so that I had to section the anchor and widen it 3" to cover the new holes. So that's it for now hope he can load the pics.

PICTURES:
SLC - Album on Imgur
 

PeteB

GT40s Supporter
Wow, nice work on the exhaust. If you still have the fans that came with the kit, save yourself some trouble and just throw them away now.
 

Ken Roberts

Supporter
GM for example stopped running their fan setups that way back in the early 90s. Running with just one of the two fans operating most of the time was noisy and inefficient. They called this control the "two relay" architecture. One relay on/off control for each fan. They switched to a "three relay" architecture where both fans were on at a lower speed then when required they would both speed up. The three relays changed the circuit from series to a parallel current flow. This setup was quieter and more efficient. Side benefit was that the one fan wouldn't prematurely wear out. That's why you don't see a baffle in the middle of most dual fan OEM shrouds.

You have some excellent fabrication talent Earl!
 
Last edited:
Very cool progress, lots of work done already! I can see you like to fabricate, hat's off to you for tackling the tough stuff so well! Keep the updates coming, I'm always interested to see how builds progress and what order folks focus on.
 
Wow, nice work on the exhaust. If you still have the fans that came with the kit, save yourself some trouble and just throw them away now.

Why do you guys dislike the original fans so much - I've been using them for like 8 or 9 years without any issues in my cooling system (steady temps, fans only one during really hot days).
 

PeteB

GT40s Supporter
Why do you guys dislike the original fans so much - I've been using them for like 8 or 9 years without any issues in my cooling system (steady temps, fans only one during really hot days).

Well, some places that we drive SL-Cs actually have traffic and get a little warmer than then it does in the Great White North.
 
Back
Top