I've been meaning to do this for a while but haven't gotten around to it until today. I've always figured there was a more efficient way of improving cooling than just buying an off the shelf heat exchanger so after some research and digging around on the Internet I've found a solution.
I picked up two stock heater cores on ebay for about $25 each in order to mount them in line with the factory HE. After taking volume measurements, the factory HE + 2 heater cores ends up holding amount more than the largest HE on the market, not including the added volume in the additional hoses.
Unfortunately one of the heater cores I bought didn't have proper inlet and outlets so I was only able to install one of them today but it already made a huge difference in recovery time and air temps while cruising dropped by about 10* F.
Total cost from the two heater cores and extra hose is about $65 and took maybe 1 hr to reroute the hoses and get everything installed.
I hope this is helpful for someone out there,

Cheers guys

 

Dude you better check out tthat sc pulley bearing ASAP!

 

+1 on that!!

Nice job on the coolers but replace that bearing

 

I guess you could use a transmission cooler also. Cheap and small.

 

That pulley bearing is completly gone, destroyed, replace it asap.

 

I was also thinking about a trans cooler, but I think the tubing is too small as compared to the factory plumbing.

 

Thanks for noticing, it was like that when I got the car 2 months ago and I just figured thats how its supposed to be lol.


These heater cores have the same tubing diameter and the stock system and just required a little cutting to get the tubes down to the right sizes. I'll post pictures later on when I get the second cooler installed and a new fixed pulley

 

Yea. Autozone has some cheap heater cores for like 42 apiece that look easy to do

 

Nachi part no. 45BG07S5AIG-2DL or -2DST.


Start here if you are a DIY'er.


http://www.benzworld.org/forums/w211...lley-sl55.html

 

Very nice approach couple of questions though. Could you provide the dimensions without the pipe fittings (LxHxW)? Hoping I could fit at least one of these behind my custom scoops. Also, your distronic radar mount looks different from mine. Did you have to change that to fit the heater core?
+1 on the bearing though. The cover on mine came off like that on the stock pulley and a lot of the ***** flew out during a 2k mile road trip.

 

Yea, I'm ordering the FSP in the next few days and solving that issue.

As far the HE its 8.5x8.5x1.25 inches without the pipe fittings. One issue Ive encountered now, though, is the electric fan is working harder now and having to spin a lot faster to cool the engine... The up side of it running harder is that the engine coolant temps have dropped slightly at all driving situations. The downside is there is more noise in the form of air moving when parking or at low speeds. I'm not sure what I'm going to do to address this but it may involve moving the auxiliary HE.

As far as Distronic... I'm not sure, I have a cls55 so that may be it but I dont think its equipped with distronic.

Hope I answered your questions.

-RMH

 

Makes total sense now that you mention your car is a cls. It explains all that room and the different distronic mount compared to the E. Thanks for sharing the measurements too. I took some measurements on mine with my custom air scoops and determined on my car I could fit one with dimensions 8L x 9.5H x 2W so I can add one of these bad boys (3 H/E total).
With regard to the fan, I'm running the 10c fan mod so I've gotten quite used to how loud it gets when it's warm outside. Although it sounds like a damn wind tunnel sometimes tbh.

Last question for ya. I couldn't see from the pictures but how are you securing the heater core?

 

You have a pic of where u tapped into the hoses?

 

This is the best cheap solution iv seen yet!

I bet its effective aswell.

 

No tapping involved. Just re-route the hose going into the supercharger into the front of the radiator and use it as the feed into the heater core. Then run the hose leading out of the core back through and into the supercharger (you're only adding one hose to the whole system).

 

Sounds easy. Is it the lower of the two lines ?

 

You're going SC > Stock HE > Pump >Additional HE > SC ?

 

That's the way I would think you would want it. I'm not convinced by his description that the way it's routed though.

 

On my current setup, I have the fluid going through all the heat exchangers (stock and auxiliary) before going into the pump then to the SC. When I add one more of these, it will be fed before the existing units pre-pump. My rational was to have the fluid as cool as possible before it hits the pump to prolong its life.

 

That is ideal. That's why I asked where he had it inline. After the pump is for ease of installation. Problem is if you put it in the return line from sc to radiator it becomes worthless.

 

Just an update, the auxiliary HE is mounted after the pump on the line that leads back into the supercharger. Its purpose is to add more volume to the system overall and provide a small amount of extra cooling one last time before the coolant enters the supercharger.

I installed a new pulley tonight and while I was in there I noticed one of the lines was kinked so I fixed that. After doing so I no longer have the fan running on hurricane mode so I'm guessing that was the problem but I'll have to wait and see tomorrow when I drive it mid-day.

I will now be adding one more HE in the same circuit and will be mounting it in front of the factory HE. I'll update with more pics when that happens.

 

So is your cooling working? What are your mods? Is your cooling split?

I may go this route..

 

Cooling is working good, I used to monitor it a lot when I first added these but now days I just drive and dont worry. I'm running a 77mm fsp.
These things have held up to having the 77mm daily driving in FL summer btw.

No split cooling. Do it if it makes you feel good but from an engineering perspective it is not necessary. The connection is a fill point but the different circuits are not mixing while the car is running.

 

That's good news. I was looking at ones that were 6 by 8. Yours look larger than that.

 

Thats about right. I know the first one I used was a heater core from a 2005 e500 and the other was from a ford f250.
And the hose I used was goodyear heater hose from ebay.