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Aluminum Radiator question- Trying to bring down the engine temp

T

toddwallace

Member
I have done searches in all the forums and the such..and..still can't get to an honest answer. I am looking for a sub $200 radiator that works better than my cheap 4 core radiator. The car is a supercharged 1966 Mustang with a Hipo and the engine compartment is running REALLY hot alough the gauges say it is not overheating. I was considering going with a aluminum radiator, but don't want to spend $500 bucks. I see brands on ebay such as Silla, Champion, Summit, etc that all say "All Welded", "No Epoxy", "best on the market", etc...etc....etc... I see people saying that it is cheap quality without owning it, but yet the people who actually do run one, say it is decent and works. I do want to get aggressive at the temp problem I am having was considering a 2 or 3 CORE Alumimum radiator..


On the fan, I am looking to move some good air across the radiator. Currently, the car has a 6 blade aluminum fan.. I do have a low profile SPAL fan, but really wanted to stay with a non-electric fan if possible. I also have a "C" code fan laying around, but can't find the 4 bladed Hipo fan... Thoughts on a good Fan that moves a lot of air?
 
Mustang Steve sells a good quality Chinese unit for ~$175. Or, Summit has a bunch of 'universal' radiators that are pretty much a bolt in for way less than $300.

As far as the fan, are you running a shroud? We're running a big flex fan (not my first choice) with a shroud on a 5.0 Mustang and it cools great with a stock brass radiator...but it is bigger than a 65-66 rad. I'd bet an aluminum rad., shroud, and good mechanical fan would do just fine for you.
 
Todd, as per instructed by my engine builder and others, I just finished installing a Northern aluminum 2 row radiator into Shag. I paid $340+shipping. Though it was labeled as a drop in, I did have to do some modifications to the way it is held in place. Though Shag is not drivable, I did infact fire up the motor yesterday and had a heck of a time getting it to go above 180 whereas on previous fireups it went 200+.

What thermostat are you using? I also switched mine out for a Robert Shaw 333-180 stat, so that and the new radiator might have eliminated my heating issues. Won't really know until I put some road mileage on the beast.

And yes I also switched over to a mechanical fan.
 
Craig, are you running a shroud, too?

Shrouds make a huge difference in cooling, be it a mechanical or electrical fan setup. For a mechanical fan, the fan position should be half way into shroud.
 
I own a Northern 19x27.5" aluminum crossflow radiator and am definitely pleased by the quality and cooling that it provides. The Summit brand is also the Northern radiators. You can get a crossflow for around $170 last I checked. The crossflow isn't necessarily bolt in, but provides better cooling than a downflow drop-in radiator. You'd have to fabricate brackets to mount the crossflow, or use the stock 24" saddle upper and lower mustang radiator mounts (which is what I did). If you need the built-in automatic trans cooler then that will increase the price of the crossflows. I opted for the one with the cooler and it was a little over $300....almost double what the Summit ones are without the cooler.

You can also get aluminum fan shrouds for the crossflow radiators on Ebay for mechanical and electric fans. Here is an example of the one for mechanical:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ALUMINUM-FAN-SHROUD-KITS-KIT-ENGINE-DRIVEN-FANS-_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQhashZitem19b5e2c7c2QQitemZ110425720770QQptZMotorsQ5fCarQ5fTruckQ5fPartsQ5fAccessories
 
"Fast68back" said:
Ditch the aluminum fan. I would bet if you rev the engine the blades flatten out and dont really pull for $*%&.
Click to expand...

That's what they're supposed to do, freeing up HP from lack of resistance, at higher RPM's where you theoretically don't need the fan to move the air. Instead you're using air-flow from the moving vehicle.

That said, aluminum flex fans are made for performance, and are the least efficient fans on the market.

All that aside, I guess I'm questioning why the OP would be chasing a problem that his gauges say doesn't exist? Is it running hot or no? If the gauges say no, I'm guessing you're chasing ghosts. Engines put off a lot of heat. You're not going to change that.

In looking at aluminum radiators, there are incredibly few aluminum radiators out there that are not 2, 1" rows. The extremely few 3 rows out there, don't have any more surface area or cooling capacity than the 2 row radiators. They just use smaller rows to create the same sized radiator. You DO want to avoid glued/epoxied tanks, like the Griffin radiators. They're just as expensive, and will eventually leak. Definitely stay with welded tanks.
 
The problem I am chasing seems to stem from Heat, but I think that comes from a LEAN situation. The car starts, idles and drives fine. After about 30 minutes of driving, the car shuts off and won't start... It will start, but immediatly shuts off. I had a Demon on the car (it is supercharged), but everyone told me it was wrong (draw through vs Blow Through), so I went with a Holley 650 prep'd for supercharger. The car was flooding and now it is now it is not, but I believe the heat under the car is causing some other problem causing it to shut down, (coil/ignition problem, fuel boiling, etc)..

The Engine is Hipo 289 with Shelby goodies (manifold, T Pan, etc), tri-y headers that had Jet Hot coating, Pertronix with Master Blaster, Paxton SN-93 with Holley 650.
I currently don't have a fan scroud, but will add one this weekend.. I am also adding an oil cooler to my Paxton to cool it down..

My wideband says it is running lean..

1276862361-wideband.jpg
 
Last edited by a moderator:
"toddwallace" said:
My wideband says it is running lean..
Click to expand...

Those graphs don't show it as lean. If anything, 10.8:1 AFR is on the pig rich side. Your other graphs had some weird spikes going lean big-time (22:1!!), but not these.
 
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