I had hoped to make major progress this weekend, but sometimes the little things just take much longer than anyone would guess. Case in point would be the heat exchanger, pump, radiator fans and oil cooler. If I was inclined to put in the work it would take to shift the entire powertrain back 3", like it really should be, then all of the rest up front would be elementary. The choice was made pretty early on to not do any of that, so suffering is the word of the day. The heat exchanger was purchased in a previous parts deal, but the mounts, pump bracket, hoses and more all came from the wrecked SRT-6 that has been slowly donating itself to this project. The wrecked car took a hard hit to the front right corner, and resulted in everything up front being turned into pretzels, including the heat exchanger brackets. After spending much time with a hammer and the vise, they were straightened enough to do the job. All of the needed mounting holes were already in the 04 Crossfire.
One item of note here was the transmission cooler line that mounts to the top fitting (ie, the longer one). It is shaped different to clear this bracket. It could be bent, but in this case, I just grabbed the one from the parts car, and it fit fine.
Next up was the intercooler pump. The upper hole was in the car already, but the two lower ones were not. I chose to add them by adding nutserts, as these really make life easier when it comes to maintenance. After that, the heat exchanger was added, but then removed for access to the A/C condenser. This is where the real challenges began. Clearance between the engine and the radiator is now just about nil. Gone are the days of servicing the radiator by unclipping it, leaning it back and pulling it out easily. The solution was to cut two access notches into the upper core support. This allows the radiator to angle only slightly, but come out. Also trimmed the lower locating pegs on the radiator by about 1/4", which makes this process 10x easier in the future. Now, you're thinking, but why are you taking the radiator out? Glad you asked. Up until now, the radiator never has come out of the car - even throughout engine removal and replacement. The plan was to use some sort of OEM fan package. The extraordinarily tight clearance between the engine and radiator changed all of that, however. The new solution was to use two 12" fans out in front of the A/C condenser, and then a large oil cooler (M113K does not have an integral oil cooler), and a 14" fan next to it on the back side of the radiator. Using standard fan/cooler mounts (read: glorified zip ties), access to the condenser and the radiator separately was needed. Sparing the reader all the gory details, the zip ties would have to be cut to remove the radiator in the future. However, once those are cut, and the 14" fan and oil cooler are also removed, the radiator can be removed, without disassembling large portions of the engine. The big question will be if these three fans and the large oil cooler will be enough to keep the engine cool. Soliciting opinions from folks who have swapped V8's into their Crossfires yielded a very wide range of creative solutions for keeping the car cool. If this doesn't work, then I will look into some other way of running the oil cooler, and supplementing the 14" fan with another. The other lingering question will be if the MB PWM based fan controller will run these. I have about a 50/50 mix of results from those who messaged me on it. I'd like to use it, but if it will not keep the car cool, then an aftermarket fan controller will be added in.
Many other smaller items were also accomplished, such as swapping in the 04 V6 power steering pump and pressure line, completing the exhaust, transmission cooling lines, transmission wiring, swapping in the programmed SKREEM, TCU, and a huge list of nit-noy items. Tomorrow was supposed to be a regular work day, but as Tropical Storm Fred approaches, work has shut down, handing me some more shop time
Tomorrow the intercooler plumbing will be completed, along with all of the upper radiator plumbing, and then moving on to the wiring. At that point the car should be ready to start, save one item. The oil cooler lines. Those are -10 AN, but the vendor shipped -6 line along with all of the shiny new -10 fittings. Looks like we will be waiting a little longer to fire this thing up.