I see I found this thread a few years ago and commented. I had completely forgotten about it. Thank you for reminding me. I will reach out to these guys as well.
The AFCO radiator I am using is 2 rows of 1" tubes, cross flow setup.
I have a 180 degree thermostat and the highest engine temp I saw last summer was 190 in stop and go traffic with the AC on. I have the factory radiator fan and shroud, so far so good.
I talked with them today, it was a good conversation. Calling the number you had put in your post originally the gentleman there gave me the number to US Radiators parent company down the street, CGJ.
I called there, spoke with a pleasant woman named Tina. I told her what I had and the target power, she said it would likely need to be a completely custom setup. She said they could try building their standard depth radiator (3.25") using 1.5" tubes, and they could fit 7 of those in that setup. She also said they have a 5" deep unit that has 11 tubes, but also has larger tanks.
She asked for some numbers off of the stock Fiero core, and the math ran into some issues with the size of the tanks they use in both cases.
Because of this, she asked for me to do a little sketch and some dimensions and notes - I told her it would be amateur hour, and she laughed, saying they've seen things literally drawn on napkins. As long as their engineers can read my writing, they can use it to make a proper tech drawing and send it to me for review.
She did say that the rough estimate for the 3.25" deep radiator with those 1.5" tubes would be around $1000. The larger one wouldn't have a ballpark quote until they have my sketch.
So I'm working on my terribly amateur drawing and going to organize key notes in the margins, scan it and email it off with some pictures and additional commentary. We'll see what they come up with. They also offer fans and shrouds, though the ones they list (Some are by Spal) aren't pushing as much air as the Delta PAG fans.
More puttering around today. I measured the lower quarter panel as I had an idea to save Mike a little work, and that was to get some air scoops of some kind. I found some that are 11x7x3.5 (the width of the opening is 11). They have a nice lip for riveting into place. It'll be a quick addition. We discussed doing it on both sides, and getting the biggest fluid cooler we could to fit into that new space, using the pinch-weld on the bulkhead curve of the back of the cabin as the intended mounting point.
The one I found that looks good (and has the appropriate -6 AN connectors on it already) is 11x6 and will fit in there okay. It's only 0.75" thick. I asked Mike if he wanted me to find a bigger one, and we'd have to do a reducer for the AN fitting (as the larger ones are using larger AN sizes, or other fittings entirely). He said maybe and to get some options together.
He's okay if the cooler is partially obstructed by the frame/bulkhead curve, we're going to try to position it so it extends out and fills in as much of the scoop as possible. On the passenger side will be the unit for the fuel, and on the driver side we're going to put a transmission cooler there, and take the one up front out of the 'stack' of coolers.
He said I shouldn't need to worry about getting ones with fans, since we'll have good air flow except when sitting still.
I might order the scoops now (and maybe sacrificial quarter panels from the Fiero Store), but I'll hold off on the coolers until he's done with his buddies Grand National and is able to work on my car again. I have a suspicion plans might change a little again after we get the scoop setups done. We'll see!
On the radiator side, Delta PAG is backordered on their NPT temp sender. They have a 'probe' option that would stick into the fins by the outlet tube but Mike would rather not use that style.
I need to finish up my terrible drawing and notes to send over to CGJ (US Radiator's parent company) so they can quote me on some options. This might make it work out about the fan. If the unit they make me is an 18" tall core, the 18" fan will be right at the edge of the radiator, which is both good from a coverage aspect, and not good from a mounting and shroud standpoint. So I'll wait to see what CGJ comes up with before I order the fan. They have a 16" one that also moves more CFM than Spal units I've looked at.
I swapped in my instrument cluster today, connecting just the C3 connector. Temp gauge still did nothing. Mike said "We ohm'd out the wire going to the connector." to which I replied "We ohm'd out A wire going to the connector. You had me look it up. I could have looked at the wrong diagram, who knows."
I found an article on FieroFocus on how to fix the "temp gauge needle pegging issue", and that article circled the wire position on the C3 connector for the temp gauge, so next time I'm out there, I"ll see if that's what we hooked it up to. If it is, then we must have a bad sensor. Unless there's something else that would be keeping two different gauges from working.
And I did grab the current transmission and engine tunes, just so I can look at them and try to educate myself some more and ask other people more dumb questions. lol.
I took the other gauge cluster and decided to bench test the temperature gauge.
I had a wire with a resistor in it already. Some alligator clips, paper and plastic and other things to keep things isolated, and started trying to test the gauge. Resistor is in the Negative/ground wire. I am using this diagram
It says I should be using 11 and 13. The temp gauge would not move on that. So I started touching the positive to all the other pins. Temp gauge started reacting when I touched pin 15!! That's supposed to be for illumination. And no, the lights on the cluster did not light up. So, this diagram is incorrect?
I told Mike about it, so I'll bring this cluster out with the test wire I used and show him, then when he has time we'll check that out on the cluster I swapped back into the car.
