SS33

I dunno if this is in the right forum or not, so mods feel free to move it to 2.0 if that's where it belongs.

Anyways, I finally got all my cooling goodies in so I took advantage of the long weekend to get everything done.

BIG thanks to John (SSpartan) for being a trooper and staying to the end on the install from hell, lol. Also big thanks to our girlfriends who helped out with parts/food/beer runs and painted the cobra HE for me.

On to the pics;

The parts, our cat loves projects of any kind, lol


Updated GM intake gasket


Cores swapped


Endplate installed


Plumbing


Cobra HE (w/ preformed bends) painted by our kickass girlfriends


Surge tank installed, on the bracket John made



Bleed line and fitting installed


All done, I'll probably put the SS/2.4 grill back on soon. But for a quickie paint job it's not too bad.


Feel free to comment or ask any questions on the install. It was a major pain in the ass, but mainly because of the mistakes I made during the install. And having to do things over. But I could probably do it in my sleep now, lol.

CTORANGESC

Nice job, I am slowly getting there to with my cooling mods, want to have everything before I put it all in

SS33

Thanks man.

That was my whole plan. I wanted to do them all at the same time instead of having to re-do the whole system a few times. I think it's finally done bleeding now, so hopefully I'll have come chilly IAT2's to report 2morro

RJSS

It'll be interesting to see how much that combo drops your IAT2 temp. Keep us posted.

distillion

nice bro, i have the dual pass option B as well, i coudlnt find a cobra heat exchanger in time and im running a 2.7 so i wanted it got done asap, my question is what is necessary to make the dual pass and the heat exchanger run in unison?

SS33

^^Will do man. They ran a touch hotter than normal while bleeding, but once all the air was purged it dropped from the 140's down to about 110 while sitting in my garage for 20 mins.

distillion

also i wrapped all hoses in heat wrap yesterday, i saw a 7 to 10 iat2 drop normal driving, i havnt tested it at wot yet.

SS33

If you already have the dual pass, basically you're just gonna splice the Cobra into the Line that runs from the stock HE OUT to the endplate IN

You have
stock HE OUT ---- endplate IN

You want
stock HE OUT ---- Cobra HE IN/OUT------endplate IN

What kind did you use? I really wanted to do this but couldn't find any locally on Sat.

Coblt ss super

wow i need to do some cooling mods, how difficult is it jsut to install the GM Dual pass only?

distillion

its silver reflective heat tape, its purpose it to reflect heat away from the hoses since a few of them are now closer to the engine, i tried wrapping as much as possible since i found the tape a week later after the install.
i got it at Canadian tire, you can get it at your local hardware store, its also used for other purpose plumbing and home air conditoning units, HVAC tape.
thanks for the quick answer!

SS33

Depending on your mechanical skill level, from moderate to straight up hellish. The prob is, to do the dual pass you hafta touch every part of the system that you would for the Cobra HE and the extra surge tank,,, Might as well do them all.

But the dual pass instructions can be found on the crate engine depot website. They also have the best price for the endplate I've seen $220

EDIT: also doing option 'B' makes bleeding the system MUCH MUCH easier, Well worth the price

Got ya, that was the stuff I was probably gonna use. I was trying to find some automotive stuff, but I think that'll do the trick for sure

Coblt ss super

looks like i aint doing any of the cooling mods

SS33

Lol,it's not that bad. I just screwed up and had to do alot of stuff twice because I was being a *******. But it is def. not a project to tackle without proper planning and time allowance. Feel free to ask any questions you might have. I could probably do the whole thing again in 4-6 hours now that I know what I'm doing.

Coblt ss super

hmm not sure if i wanna go through all that trouble

distillion

we screwed up aswell our first time, the way the plumbing was routed the first time coolant was not geting in the heat exchanger and was being flowed back into the surge tank causing fluid levels in the tank to be very high, we re routed the plumbing and now the heat exchanger is getting dumped with coolant, also touch to hoses to see how strong the pressure is, we hooked up the pump to a 12 volt battery to bleed most of it without driving the car, when we touched the hoses to see if coolant was flowing, all hoses connected to the endplate were flowing with a constant pressure stream of coolant, before the hoses were very weak to the feel, so we knew it was plumbed correctly this time around, the drop in iat2s were noticed instantly and got better through out the week.

a friend with the same pulley size and similar bolt ons with no cooling mods runs 140 iat2s at wot in second gear and if i can remember correctly just over 160 in 3rd.
on similar weather condtions on the street at wot i run 120 in 2nd and 150 in 3rd.
ofcourse the temps do go up after a few runs, but still stay cooler than if you didnt have this mod at all, the cobra heat exchanger should knock off another 10 degrees or so.

SS33

Yeah, my problem wasn't with the plumbing though. I actually did all of that allright, but I realised after everything was done that I swapped the cores the wrong way because I was looking at Blown-4-bangers how-to and forget he did his in reverse, lol. Luckily I also forgot to plug the pump back in that time so no damage done. Then I had to re-do it this morning, what a pain.

But it's kickin ass now and I'm hella glad it's done

distillion

we just swapped the cores the way GM said to, kept things simple, also routed the coolant to flow into the pump cold as appose to warm the way GM has it.
GM has it routed where the fluid goes in cold from the factory, so for the dual pass we kept it like that rather than running warm fluid through the pump, the results have been pretty good, its a lil chilly tonight, just took it for a spin, around this type of weather without the dual pass im in the 95s cruising along.
with the dual pass im in the low 80s, also note we added a tiny bottle of waterwetter in the surge tank aswell

SSpartan

What up SS33!!

Glad everything is running!

I'm telling you need to leave that lower grill off and blaze that SS with pride.

The install was difficult only because every single screw, bolt, and ******* piece that you have to touch is packed in so tight with everything else that you have to turn a few bolts like a 1/4 turn at a time which is maddening!!

That being said I cant think of a better way to spend a day! in the garage with a buddy our ladies and some beer.


Now you just have to help me put in my eBay intake this week.....or else.

SS33

Late last night I was seeing some really good numbers, I can't believe how quick this drops the temps once you get rolling. Lots of logging for the weeks to come. I also planon trying some waterwetter pretty soon. I kinda like the Royal Purple version,,,, what did you guys use?

distillion

ya i hear you, once you get rolling temps drop alot faster than they used to, we used standard prestone coolant(premixed)dexcool approved, with a small bottle of waterwetter

SS33

Yo YO man, what a ******* weekend eh? Thanks a million for all the help again bro, I owe you big time, and yeah we'll do your intake as soon as she comes in. I really wanna see how the fitment is on it.

I'm gonna leave the grill off for a bit for sure, but when I start seeing new dents and chips in it, I'll slap the SS/2.4 back on.

And yeah, those two bolts on the bottom of the intake had me within inches of kicking holes in everything I could see, lol.

I feel the need for speed man,,, We need to hit the track soon, get you into the 13's

RJSS

How would you feel about coming to Waterford and helping me put that setup on mine. I'll even pay for your gas!...well maybe, then again it might just be cheaper to have it put on at a shop with the way gas is now! (filled up this morning and 93 was $3.85 a gallon at shell) I'm just kidding though, my wife would kill me if I tried to do this now. My car is in the shop right now getting stage 2 and exhaust put on and you wouldn't believe how much whining and begging I had to do to get her to cave in. Anyways, a 20+ degree drop is a considerable difference, and good job on the install. This very well may be the next mod for me.

peck05

could you feel a differnce with that? of power or anything?

Cobalt_Supercharged

Great job. Finally someone shows a picture of how to hook up the resevoir and the bleeder tube.

SS33

I'd def. be down for helping ya, but I work some fairly crazy hours, so it'd be just about impossible for me to get down there for a full day. If you wanted to drive up here though it's be a bit easier for me.

If you had every part you needed ahead of time the whole install could be done in ~6 hours I'd say. I re-did about 90% of it, in 4 hours the next day because of my misinterpretation of the various how-to's. GM's stg 3 instructions aren't very thorough in some aspects. And Blown-4bangers how-to is done for reverse-flow.

But I hear ya on having to convince the old lady. I'll be kissing some ass this week to make up for the entire weekend I spent out in the garage, lol.

I think there is still a tiny bit of air left to bleed. But already I'm seeing about 15 degrees cooler IAT2's while cruising, Last night with air @~80F and fairly high humidity i was cruising at like 96-104. And after leting her sit and heatsoak for a while after a hard run the temps drop muuuuch faster than before.

Thanks, I studied the **** out of you and blown-4bangers write-ups on the cobra and the dual pass before I tackled this. So big thanks to you guys. I was gonna do a how-to on this, so we took ass-loads of pictures, but you guys pretty much have it covered

I was never sure on the whole bleeder set-up until I actually got in there. The fitting was 1/8 NPT-1/4" adaptor