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RADIATOR OUTLET FABRICATION
This is one of those projects where plumbing becomes critical, as the motor has a dry sump and we're adding oil coolers for the engine, power steering, and more. When we build any race car plumbing we go to AN style (37° inverted flare) fittings and the appropriate lines for the pressure and fluid being used.
The C&R radiator we spec'd to fit the frame rail width and height we needed at the layback angle we wanted was available with a -20 AN fitting welded to the upper (inlet) hose connection. But the lower (outlet) was a normal nipple made for a clamped rubber hose fitting.
The C&R's lower hose nipple was cut off and shortened, then an additional ARP -20 AN aluminum weld bung was sourced, mocked-up, and welded in place for the lower outlet.
A billet thermostat housing was added to the water pump outlet in a matching -20 AN size. We still need to adapt the upper radiator hose mount at the water pump and the heater hoses, then all of the coolant connections can be matching AN fittings. Is this 100% necessary? No, but it is commonly done on dedicated race cars, which this car has many aspects of.
FAN BRACKETS + SPLINED FRONT SWAYBAR MOUNTING
These two items seem pretty unrelated, but the packaging of the radiator and front swaybar were actually done hand-in-hand, earlier in the build. The placement of the swaybar is limited by several things - like the approach paths for the splined "ends" that attach to endlinks and ultimately the C6 lower front control arms, and often by the crossmember or engine. We had long lost hope for an off-the-shelf one-piece swaybar solution, so as most race builds do we went with a circle-track style splined tubular bar setup.
These come in a variety of lengths, diameters, and stiffnesses - usually too stiff for street car grip levels, but with 315 Hoosier A6 tires up front this car will have plenty of grip for track use. You always hope for there to be plenty of room to mount a straight swaybar like this, and with the 18" setback of the engine we had ample space in front of the engine. But it was apparent that the ducting for the exhaust side of the radiator would be right where the anti-swaybar needed to go. We've seen some kooky placements of swaybars, like at the top of the engine bay with with 30" long endlinks, but we chose to keep the endlinks manageable and the splined ends within reason. So we mounted the swaybar to grease-able bearing mounts shown above.
So with the swaybar mounted the dual fan setup from the existing C&R "bolt-in 69 Camaro radiator/fan combo" were mounted to the
new C&R core. Ryan had mocked the fans up before the final location for the swaybar was picked. He made templates for aluminum bracketry in cardboard before transferring it to aluminum sheet.
You can see above why the fan brackets and swaybar were done at the same time - fighting for space
The aluminum sheet was cut in the sheer and bandsaw, then bent in the brake, then nut-serts were added for the fans housings to bolt to. The finished aluminum brackets were then riveted to the exposed flanges on the C&R radiator, and the fan assembly was then bolted to the new brackets. It all fits tight to the fins (but not touching), leaves little of the radiator core expose beyond the plastic shroud from the fans, and could work well for street use if needed.
With the swaybar location locked down Ryan could then specify the splined aluminum ends to order as well as pick up the end link parts needed to tie the bar into the control arms. I'll show that in a later update, as it was done a couple of weeks later than this.
CUSTOM ACCESSORY BRACKETS
Early on in this build we were all concerned with the brackets used to mount the accessories to this LS3 based dry sump engine. The alternator on the car when it came here was not the OEM LS3 unit, but a smaller aftermarket unit rated at lower amperage. Somebody had also hacked up this "smaller" aftermarket unit beyond recognition - trying to make it fit the OEM bracket and the previous front end. Ryan found a racing style, smaller diameter alternator that was rated at the appropriate amperage so this needed to be mounted to the engine. The power steering pump was mounted to the same OEM cast aluminum bracket that wasn't going to work, so this needed to be re-mounted as well.
We had narrowed the front frame rails by about 2" from the "kit" front end the car came in here with, making space for both of these accessories more of an issue. There wasn't an of off-the-shelf bracket setup we could find that would re-use the various pulleys and engine accessories - including the balancer and dry sump pump drive - without some custom bracketry. We discussed this with the customer before proceeding, and looked at all manner of off-the-shelf LS bracket options, both factory and aftermarket. None seemed to fit the confines of this frame and hood line.
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