Suggestions (warnings?) for custom radiator?

[L n L]

Greetings,

I need an efficient, rather compact radiator. I know it will most likely need to be custom made, and I really do not want to wait a month for delivery. I appreciate suggestions on my best sources.

I rolled the dice, and tried to re-use the stock radiator in my '69 Falcon station wagon project. I knew it would be marginal at best, but that was obviously optimistic. The stock rad does fine sitting in the driveway and lightly cruising around the neighborhood. I have electric fan and waterpump, and those also were totally sufficient on the stock motor. But with the new motor, after about 4 or 5 minutes at highway speed, the radiator loses control (it is a downdraft design, btw).

New motor is a 351W bored/stroked to 425, 10.7 cr, and it dyno'ed (with a sub-par carb and restrictive intake) at 557hp.

Thanks,
Lee
[email protected]

[GetMore]

Custom made and quick delivery is going to be very difficult, and probably expensive.

The first thing I'd look for is an aluminum radiator for the car. If your old, stock radiator almost worked then I assume that an aluminum radiator made for the car will be able to handle it without a problem.

I believe you should be able to find some company that makes and aluminum radiator for your car. That would mean that it's not a custom pieve and you should be able to get it within a month easily.

How does your cooling system work around town? If you only overheat on the highway you might have some other problems.

[L n L]

The complete system (fan, pump, SPAL controllers, radiator, shroud) was used on the previous motor, and kept the stock 302 at 180-degrees or less under all conditions.

New motor is is 123" larger, and has rough 3x the power. The system seems to do o.k for several minutes. The system will seem to get comfortable at 180 for a bit, then the temp shoots up. I suspect the down-flow design is a problem, and that the fact that the inlet and outlet are on the same side just aggrevates the problem.

BeCool's replacements are also downflow, and they only rate them at 350hp - making me believe that I need to go crossflow.

The current carb (found to have some shortcomings while the motor was on the dyno) may be aggravating the cooling problem. A different carb is coming, hopefully installed by the end of this week.

I've found one radiator that looks promising. It is a crossflow 2-pass. I've sent them a note, and will give them a call in the morning. http://www.mattsonsradiator.com/

The budget is not "unlimited", but I'm also not trying to cut corners here! If I find two good choices, and the better one is a couple hundred more - that is probably the one I'll use.

Lee

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I don't think downflow is a bad thing. It may not be the best arrangement, but some OEMs still use it.

[chicane67]

Both C&R and Ron Davis can do what you need as well.

Chet at C&R can build a two pass cross flow with an intergral enigne oil heat exchanger for roughly $600 to 650'ish.

Ron Davis can build ANYTHING you can possibly dream up... but with the associated cost as well.

Anyway... those are two other manufacturers that you should also consider... especially C&R. They would be my choice for keeping it simple and keeping the cost down as well.

[L n L]

Mattson - pleasant and helpful, prices seemed fair, and a nice variety of options.

Ron Davis - Website is down

C&R - talked with Devon, very helpful. Overall similar to Mattson, but prices were a bit "better".

I'll be getting some dimensions to C&R later today or early tomorrow.

Thanks for the help!
Lee Atkinson