I stopped by the storage lot today to try to start getting things ready for the next event that I’ll be able to make, in August. I managed to get all of the intercooler piping out of the engine bay, but in the process, I noticed that there was a fair amount of coolant pooled on and under the trailer. Since the trailer is, uh, air-cooled, I’m figuring that the Neon is leaking. It appears to me that whatever chewed up the cooling fan also opened up some of the coolant passages in the radiator. What I would like to do is replace the radiator with a new one that has a single large fan on it. I don’t have anything with me today that I can use to take measurements, but I’ll come back and see what kind of clearances I have to work with.
Something else that I want to do is find the wiring diagram for the car and figure out what I need to wire up so that the fan turns on when the car is host. The two fans are daisy-chained so there’s only one set of wires going to both fans, but I don’t know what that wiring is set up to do.
In the meantime, I’m going to take all of this piping back to the house so I can measure it and decide what the best route will be as far as replacing it. I can get a section of 2.5″ exhaust pipe for very little money and then prime and paint it to prevent it from getting nasty and rusty. I can either have that pipe bent to just the right shape at a muffler shop, or I can cut straight sections and manage the bends with silicone elbows and T-clamps. While I’m at it, I’m going to get a cone air filter and an intake pipe for it. That should clean things up in the engine bay a little bit.