Car radiator custom water cooling project

[The_Jolly_Roger]

Hello everyone.
I have been reading toms hardware for a long time now and found a lot of useful info on this forum, but now im going into a more serious project and i would like some opinions and suggestions on a watercooling project that i am about to start.

What i want to make is a water cooling system that will cool a heavily overclocked i5-2500k and 2 asus 560ti cards, also overclocked but not a lot, these things are pretty un clockable. What i want is a "universal" water cooling system that i can put into a future pc with minimal hustle and expense.

The components i would like to use in the pc are:
-EK Supremacy Nickel or Copper CPU block
-EK Something Nickel or Copper universal VGA block
-Passive copper memory coolers, the small ones you buy anywhere and glue them to the ram chips, and 1 or two low rpm fans to push air onto the VGA boards and cool everything that the water block doesnt.
-1/2"fittings with 7/16 tubes


My first line of questions about the things in the pc:

I have read that EK-s nickel series is total crap, and then in some newer posts i have read that they fixed that corrosion or whatever problem it had. What is the truth about this, is the nickel to be avoided or is it ok? And anyway, thats not a full nickel cooler but a nickel finish on a copper block right?

I have set my mind on the universal coolers since i dont want to throw a lot of money away on hi performance full blocks for 2 gpus that are outdated and will be gone in a year or two. What i want is to eliminate the tremendous amount of noise the dual coolers of the ASUS Direct CU2 cooling solution are produceing.
I'm pretty sure that i will be able to clock the gpus at a Ghz (830stock) with a little voltage and luck and have a 25% performance increase and with it about half a year of gpu power more...
The gpu clock tough is not concerning me but the memory and other pcb elements are.
Would those small passive coolers (with fans blowin in them from the sides) be sufficient to cool the memory and should i maybe install those same passive coolers on the voltage regulators and other PCB components that run hot?


Now we come to the more interesting part of my project, the external car radiator box.

So, as any idiot i have my mind pretty set on the car rad since the huge performance and unbeliveably low cost. I dont want to thorw 200e away on 2x420 rads when i can buy the big guy for less than 50.
I have read the sticky, and a load of old car rad posts and projects.
For the corrosion problem i plan to add 3/10 of antifrezze to the distiled water coolant and take my chance with it. If things corrode, ill trash it all and get wiser, but now im up to trying it.
I may even add some zinc if i find a place for it in the system, to act as the cathode instead of the aluminium rad, thats what i read on a older topic.

The rad will be a alluminium one, from a bmw or somthing, the big one not the cabin or transmission oil babys.
The vent will be also the cars vent and it will be blowing in that rad.
The whole rad box will be extiriorly mounted , so they will be on the balcony while me and the pc sit in the living room and enjoy a cool and noise free environment
I have made a small sketch of the pc, wall and radbox setup and attached a picture of my pc interior. I am new so i cant attach pictures, just the links ... :S

http://imageshack.com/i/0495821110201172164843110j

http://imageshack.com/i/5vur0j


As you can see the case is a cheap cooler master normal tower and isnt very roomy, but i think the things i want to put in will fit.

To the sketch. As you can see (barely i guess) on the lft side my pc stands behind a tv on a tv stand 50cm high. 10cm behind it is a 25cm thick wall, and behind that is the balcony. The radbox should be mounted on the other side of the wall,at the same hight as the pc.
The plumbing would go from the rad trough the wall, to the wall side of the pc, then bend, make a loop trough the components and then back trough the wall to the rad. I guess the run wouldnt bee longer than 5m, including the 1m of rad.

Ok now come the hardcore questions (excuse the borg style questioning, there's a lot of them, its most efficient this way :

-Should i use 1 big pump on one side of the radiator, or two smallers ones on both ends?
-What kind of characteristics should these pumps have? I dont think i will have the cash for the pumps you guys use because i live in Montenegro and have hight shipping costs and taxes, and thus will go for 2 car fuel pumps or some general usage pumps i find localy. I know that car pumps opperate at 3-3.5 bar pressure, and thats if im not mistaken as some of the hi end watercooling pumps, but thats all i know for now. What kind of performance would the pumps need to have, l/h, meters, rpms, bla bla ...
-What kind of loop should i build on this kind of system. My tought on this is rad>pump>cpu>y(parallel)>GPU1&2>t>tank>rad, but i would like to hear some more expirienced opinions on this. Would it be better to go serial or full parallel?
-The 6-7 i forgot, feel fre to answer them too


Well that s about it i guess, that's the general idea, now i would like to hear some opinions and suggestions on the matter.
Btw, i have read the sticky and am no noobie in computer hardware. I've been building pcs, cooling them and clocking them for about ten years, so dont go soft on me, but im a first timer in water cooling and i would like to fool proof this plan before i set it in motion.

Thanks In forward.
Petar Lagator

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

Links have error.

 

[The_Jolly_Roger]

Fixed.

I posted this whole sausage via my phone, so i couldnt test them out.

Funny thing happened to me this morning. Ileft the house for an hour and left the AC on, witch is directly above my pc, and when i got back the AC spilled half a liter of water over my pc xD Fortunately the thing was off and not much got on the vital parts, so i managed to clean it up and it still works...

Talk about water cooling, i already had a major leak xD

 

[boiler1990]

I have read that EK-s nickel series is total crap, and then in some newer posts i have read that they fixed that corrosion or whatever problem it had. What is the truth about this, is the nickel to be avoided or is it ok? And anyway, thats not a full nickel cooler but a nickel finish on a copper block right?

I was one of the first people here to post my experiences with the newer Electroless Ni-plated EK blocks, and they're fine. The issue I had was that EK couldn't identify the problem (corrosion was occurring in distilled H2O-only setups), so they basically said that you need to use a 'market-proven premixed coolant'. Distilled water shouldn't come close to causing problems with any of this (I was extremely unhappy with the failure analysis report, since it was poorly done and is now going to be my job...). Really, we were just somewhat insulted as a community.

Anyway, all ranting aside, they are still good blocks, but the copper blocks are technically superior (Cu has better heat transfer properties than Ni). Ni is really just an aesthetic option.

I have set my mind on the universal coolers since i dont want to throw a lot of money away on hi performance full blocks for 2 gpus that are outdated and will be gone in a year or two.

Smart. That's what several of us run, and the differences aren't that great. Full cover blocks sure look nice, though.

What i want is to eliminate the tremendous amount of noise the dual coolers of the ASUS Direct CU2 cooling solution are produceing.

Seems odd to me. My experience with them has led me to believe this is the quietest cooler on the market.

Would those small passive coolers (with fans blowin in them from the sides) be sufficient to cool the memory and should i maybe install those same passive coolers on the voltage regulators and other PCB components that run hot?

As long as you have proper ventilation (maybe a case side fan?) they will be fine. Yes, you should definitely put them on the VRMs and MOSFETs if you intend to do some overclocking. A small drop of superglue works perfectly, and they come off nicely.

For the corrosion problem i plan to add 3/10 of antifrezze to the distiled water coolant and take my chance with it. If things corrode, ill trash it all and get wiser, but now im up to trying it.
I may even add some zinc if i find a place for it in the system, to act as the cathode instead of the aluminium rad, thats what i read on a older topic.

One of the users, toolmaker, uses an antifreeze mixture I believe. Otherwise I think there is tons of info out there on the net that can get you started in the right direction. At least you know you'll need to add antifreeze - most people don't.

-Should i use 1 big pump on one side of the radiator, or two smallers ones on both ends?

I think that will depend on how long the loop ends up being, and how big the rad is. Simply based on the size of the rad, I would suggest putting the pump right before the rad inlet so it has enough pressure to make it through.

I know that car pumps opperate at 3-3.5 bar pressure, and thats if im not mistaken as some of the hi end watercooling pumps, but thats all i know for now. What kind of performance would the pumps need to have, l/h, meters, rpms, bla bla ...

Pressure is really the most important metric, followed by L/H flowrating. Pressure is going to get the water through really restrictive parts (90 degree bends, some blocks and/or rads). Think of pressure like torque, and L/H as horsepower (since we're on car analogies 😉)

-What kind of loop should i build on this kind of system. My tought on this is rad>pump>cpu>y(parallel)>GPU1&2>t>tank>rad, but i would like to hear some more expirienced opinions on this. Would it be better to go serial or full parallel?

The loop order shouldn't matter too much as long as you can sustain a nearly constant flowrate.

 

[4Ryan6]

@boiler1990

Glad you covered the nickel plating issue, I was looking at a Koolance Nickel plated GPU block and they have a statement at their website regarding the Nickel plated blocks they sell, they won't even warrant the cards if you don't use their coolants.

Koolance's product warranty does not cover the use of 3rd-party coolants, coolant additives, or corrosion. Koolance LIQ-702 or LIQ-705 coolants are strongly recommended to help avoid issues with mixed metals or biological growth. Additionally, do not use aluminum with bare (unplated) copper or bare (unplated) brass in the same system. Do not use silver with nickel in the same system.

Just wanted to throw that in.

@The_Jolly_Roger

There are water cooling radiators available the size of car radiators that will be much more friendly system wise and not require all the messy additives, adapters you'll have to use to make the connections, and the mounting or stand alone nightmare you'll be getting into.

Keep in mind car radiators are designed to operate at much higher temperatures closer to controlling the boiling temperatures of the coolant heated by the cars engine, their fins and tube routing designs are designed for either direct to engine fan mounting or direct to radiator high CFM cooling fans.

You may be underestimating the kind of fan cooling required for those type of radiators, sometimes cheaper is not a better solution.

Watercool and Phobya both have massive radiators that will perform extremely well using low rpm cooling fans and can be side mounted to your case, or wall mounted, or stand mounted as a stand alone setup, I urge you to reconsider this car radiator idea.

This is the Watercool MO-RA3 w 4 180mm Silverstone fans side mounted.

Either the Watercool or Phobya line of large radiators can be purchased in a number of different cooling fan configuration options even up to 9 x 120mm, and their cooling performance is awesome.

I chose the 4 x 180mm fan configuration simply for the quiet they deliver even at their maximum rpm and cfm airflow, was previously using the 120mm fans but they're much louder.

Oh I'm also a D5 pump fan, and prefer the Swiftech MCP655 variable speed, I'm not saying it is any better than any of the other pumps it's just it's took everything I've thrown it's way even cooling all my setup in a single loop at one time with a high restriction XSPC Rasa water block included in the loop, and when something works that good for you, well you stick with it.

What i want to make is a water cooling system that will cool a heavily overclocked i5-2500k

Even if you buy a radiator large enough to cool a diesel dump truck it will still be at the mercy of ambient room temperature.

Ambient is great for cooling even multiple full faced water blocked GPUs, but not seriously overclocked 2500K CPUs, been there, done that!

Check this out.

And This.

 

[The_Jolly_Roger]

@boiler1990:

About the noise, trust me on it. 2xDirect CU2 of the 560ti is a nightmare, im running a open case behind a tv thats 2m in front of me. I have set custom fan speeds in Afterburner so the coolers dont go over 35% before the gpus get to 70C, but thats not really working. These things are pretty loud at 50%, and everything over 70 is just a vaccum cleaner. Maybe im spoiled😛, maybe its the open case, but anyway it drives me crazy. Cant play a game vithout the vaccum cleaner going on.

My tought was that the nickel would react with alluminium less then copper, but if its not the case ill put all copper blocks in the thing. Im not concerned a lot about looks, since my pc is behing a tv and cant even be seen. Thank you for your extensive answer 😉

@4Ryan6:

The problem i have, the big problem, is that i live in Montenegro and i can not buy any of these components anywhere except on the internet, so i have to do with what i have localy.

I have taken your advice and looked at all the buying and shipping opportunities to Montenegro.
The cheapest possible option i found is to buy from the Watercool site directly, and there a MO-RA3 420 Core LC that costs 140e on the page would cost me around 215e to get delivered to my adress...

The car radiator on the other hand, with the pump and everything doesnt cost more than 100e, and hell if it isnt enough ill add another rad and pump and get a monster system for the same price. The rad, vent and maybe pump will be the cars own so i cant really go wrong with any of those. Except for the corrosion fcourse, but i hope chemistry will do its work.

Thing is that i have all the best prequisites for a custom frankenstein watercooling- It doesnt have to look nice, it doesnt have to be moved, and the vent noise is not that inportant. Mounting vise, im a very handy with tools and all kinds of repairs so i wont have any problems there.

That thing will be sitting on the blacony as you have seen on that sketch, so i dont have to worry about any noise or anything.
During the summer the clocks will be down and the pc boiling, but in the other 8 months on the other hand i will have a ambient temperature of 0-18 degrees, and there i guess a serious overclock will be possible

I dont plan on breaking any phase change or liquid N scores, a little hard core clocking in the winter, but most of the time i hope i will be able to run it on some 5-5.2 Ghz, and thats what i need. My air cooler can do about 4.7, if watercooling doesnt do 5.2 ill be seriously dissapointed

 

[Buzz247]

Glycol will destroy rubber o rings and acrylic. Something to keep in mind. Nickel coated blocks are usually exterior only. That said, pull up a Galvanic scale. Nickle is just as badd as copper combined with aluminum.How do you intend to adapt hose sizes? Distance, given your description, will be a pump issue as well. Bars measures total pressure, but head measures vertcal, and distance limitations. A D5 maxes at 3-3.5m. A DDC maxes at 4-4.2m. Total distance of loop, to andd from rad, and runs in rad come into account.

During summer you will probably not be able to rely on passive cooling, even for that size of rad, so plan on some sort of fan. Suppose just getting a matching fan from the car you rip it out of work - electric version work on 12v, but make sure to mount in pull only during the winter, condensation maybe an issue. Unless 0-18 is in celcius... lol but even then, normal house interior temp is 25C-ish. So you may have condensation anyway, being that the difference inside to outside is greater than 5-10C, which is normal sub ambient limitations.

 

[The_Jolly_Roger]

Yes condesation is smething i fear pretty much. Exterior temperature in January is about 5C, someteims 0, and my interior temp is always 25 sometimes even more since i heat on lumber xD I hoped that condensation wouldnt occur under these contidions, that it needs at least 25-30C difference for that, but seems that im mistaken ...

The hoses will be adapted, thats no problem, im a expert plumber

Pump wise, ill try with a few car and general purpose pumps, and if the flow is too low with these ill buy one of those huge japanese pumps, isaki or something. I saw a guy who hooked one of those pumps to two car rads, cpu and gu and everything worked perfectly fine xD Thats the backup plan...

 

[Buzz247]

Certainly not saying cant be done. Be prepared for regular maintenance. Pulling apart system including blocks, inspecting for pitting, corrosive build up and cleaning out.

Anytime there is a sub ambient (where ambient is inside air temp delta coolant temp after outside rad) temp delta of 10C +-1 you risk condensation

 

[The_Jolly_Roger]

Thats a problem, then i can certainly forget about the balcony rad...

That condesnation **** up the whole concept, damn this is crap ...

[edited for content, please watch your language]

 

[Buzz247]

Depending on how far it is, the liquid "may" warm enough before it gets back to the cpu.

 

[The_Jolly_Roger]

The run frim the rad to the cpu wont be more than 80cm, but i wont be counting on the water warming up. I dont wanna play with condensation...

Well the problem that its not exterirorly mountable defeats the whloe idea of a custom frankenstein cooling that doesnt have to look good, now it does ...

Well i will have to retink the whole thing and i guess opt for the real copper water cooling rads ...