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Water Cooling With A Car Radiator

Posted by timothy on from the then-he's-gonna-kill-us dept.

sH4RD writes "Why go out and buy a water cooling system when you can do it with an old car radiator? That's exactly what One of The Twelve figured when he used the radiator from his brother's 1979 Toyota Corolla to cool his system. His Athlon64 3000+ can hit 2.5GHz smoothly now. Check out the original forum post complete with benchmarks."

7 of 282 comments (clear)

  1. Nothing new. by Pirow · · Score: 4, Informative

    People have been using old car radiators for water cooling for ages, probably before the advent of commercial water cooling kits, so I don't see what the big deal is. A quick google search shows that people using car radiators for water cooling is nothing new so I'd hardly class this as news.

  2. Re:This sounds a little extreme by 1001010 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Porsches use aircooling, so you have to run around the block with you're PC....

  3. Heater core by anethema · · Score: 3, Informative

    What most people do with home brew water cooling is take the heater core out of a car.

    The fins are generally finer and denser, and the core itself is a much more managable size.

    Then you get a beefy aquarium pump, small resevoir...and make your own waterblock with a drill press.
    The waterblock is the one part you might want to buy.

    Throw some fans on the heater core, hook it up with clear tubing (put springs inside where the tube needs to bend to avoid kinking), install, fill, add some antifreeze to avoid growth and corrosion, and up you go.

    Its really not that hard, even for a layman.

    --


    It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
    1. Re:Heater core by Bilestoad · · Score: 3, Informative

      Five years ago you would have been right - but you're obviously not keeping up. Many mfrs now offer water cooling systems, there are even all-in-one systems from companies like Thermaltake - if you can install a conventional CPU cooler, you can install water cooling.

      When high quality reasonably priced waterblocks became available from Danger Den, Swiftech etc. it became a complete waste of time to make your own unless you're unemployed and have nothing better to do.

      Inside springs are a thing of the past (which is great, because it was hard to get the little buggers where you needed them), outside springs work very nicely - google on "coolsleeves". And if you use quality tubing, silicon or Tygon brand then they're not needed because only the most acute angles or twists will cause kinks.

      Best solution today - Innovatek, using their convection radiators that mount outside the case, no fan required, and their 12V pump that just plugs into a drive connector. Very pricey but the best always is.

  4. Re:The reason I don't use a car radiator by vasqzr · · Score: 5, Informative


    It'd probably be just as easy to use an automatic tranmission cooler. Much smaller and easier to use.

    Here's an example

    $50, and it'd be new, instead of have an old rusty car part in your house.

  5. Re:Antifreeze by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    You can never have too much cooling.

    In some tests I did some time ago, a small car radiator (used to water-cool a PC no less!) had a thermal resistance of 0.093K/W with no fan, and 0.018K/W with a fan. In the case of a 100W CPU, that means the difference between 9.3K temperature gradient compared to only 1.8K, which is very significant.

  6. Not New by heli0 · · Score: 3, Informative

    This is not something new. The 1986 Chevette radiator for $19 at Autozone is the most commonly used radiator for DIY water cooling on a budget.

    http://www.overclockers.com/tips1022/

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