Direction of flow through the radiator

[Arcsylver]

Those of you who may have seen my post on the full size car radiator will remember this project.

In essence it is a cooling loop to cool multiple computers using one large radiator and pump setup.

now my question is this.

Does it matter or will it hurt things to pump the water into the radiator from the bottom and then have multiple outlet connections on the top to go to each computer in the system and themrecombine the flow back just before the pump using a manifold or T/Y setup?

My logic at least is that by doing this the radiator will be removing the heat from the pump, and also that the waterblocks will be getting the cooled water directly from the radiator as well.

Also this allows for the water to perhaps spend a little more time in the radiator before exiting instead of just falling through the rad from top to bottom is a pretty fast flow through the paralell channels of this rad, this way it actually allows for the rad to use all of it's surface area to cool the water due to the pooling of the water in the rad buy having the water pumped in from the bottom.

[diehrd]

I am thinking, you are figuring the water commng out of the rad is a lot cooler then what goes in and I could be wrong but I think these temps become pretty close and that means it does not matter how you plumb the system.What matters is how much Radiator you have and the amount of air you put thriough it.

[Arcsylver]

well if that is the case then I definitely fall under the overkill department on both counts.

The Radiator is a Harrison model #3136158 out of a 1957 Chevy (as in the radiator that cools the engine)

And the airflow is provided by a dual blower rackmount fan that will be ducted to blow through the radiator.

Between the two I think I have the cooling capacity to cool quite a bit.

The main reason I am considering this configuration of waterflow through the radiato is for ease of plumbing things and also to reduce tubing length as much as possible


As for the water temps I was just curious if having the water pool in the radiator before being pumped out would have any benefit at all over having it drain down from the top.

Seems that it would spend more time in the radiator overall if it was filled from the bottm rather than the top where it woould more than likely never really get completely filled due to the huge area of water channels in this radiator I have.

[UberBlue]

Flow direction is irrelevant. Bottom to top or top to bottom. Doesn't matter.