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how many row radiator is it?? An aluminum radiator is constructed differently than an old school brass radiator and will tipically cool beter than a brass radiator of equal size, so even with it being a little smaller it is probably just as good if not better than the OEM unit and less suceptable to coroshon. here is an excerpt from an on-line hotrod article
"Copper-brass alloy isn't as strong as aluminum, so its tubes are more susceptible to blowing out under even the relatively mild pressure generated by a cooling system. Building a copper-brass radiator with a larger, more efficient 1-inch tube diameter requires thickening the tube wall to 0.015 inch-twice as thick as is necessary on a 51/48-inch-diameter tube. That means the larger tubes weigh over three times as much as the smaller tubes-not good! The compromise comes from building the tubes out of aluminum. An aluminum radiator using 1-inch-wide tubes with 0.016-inch wall thickness is 60 percent lighter than the same copper-brass radiator. The 1-inch-wide tubes increase tube-to-fin contact and cooling capacity by roughly 25 percent over a radiator built with 11/42-inch tubes. The net result? Griffin claims that a two-row aluminum radiator with 1-inch tubes will cool as well as a five-row copper-brass radiator with 11/42-inch tubes. "
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Daze wrote:
how many row radiator is it?? An aluminum radiator is constructed differently than an old school brass radiator and will tipically cool beter than a brass radiator of equal size, so even with it being a little smaller it is probably just as good if not better than the OEM unit and less suceptable to coroshon. here is an excerpt from an on-line hotrod article
"Copper-brass alloy isn't as strong as aluminum, so its tubes are more susceptible to blowing out under even the relatively mild pressure generated by a cooling system. Building a copper-brass radiator with a larger, more efficient 1-inch tube diameter requires thickening the tube wall to 0.015 inch-twice as thick as is necessary on a 51/48-inch-diameter tube. That means the larger tubes weigh over three times as much as the smaller tubes-not good! The compromise comes from building the tubes out of aluminum. An aluminum radiator using 1-inch-wide tubes with 0.016-inch wall thickness is 60 percent lighter than the same copper-brass radiator. The 1-inch-wide tubes increase tube-to-fin contact and cooling capacity by roughly 25 percent over a radiator built with 11/42-inch tubes. The net result? Griffin claims that a two-row aluminum radiator with 1-inch tubes will cool as well as a five-row copper-brass radiator with 11/42-inch tubes. "
Interesting. I know nothing about aluminum radiators. My thinking is surface area cooling. I'm not sure how many rows it is. How do you tell? Look down the radiator fill and count the openings front to back?
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If you look closly at the radiator you should be able to tell. Some times you can look intop the fins and see how many rows there are and some times you can look down the side of the tank and see. If the Previous Owner was setting it up as a drag car you would think they would have put in a radiator with plenty of cooling, but than again POs don't always do things the way they should, I know I have fixed my fare share of mistakes made by POs 
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Looks like a 3 row radiator. (I see 3 rows front to back of verticle tubes inside). It measures 19 w X 17.5 H where the air passes through it not including the top and bottom tank. I am going to get a set of guages. All the lights have been cut on the dash so I can't tell if it's getting hot until it spews steam or shuts off. Thanks for the advice on the radiator.
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In thiory, that should be enough radiator, the only factor that might make a difference would be if you have a fan shroud for it.
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In thiory, that should be enough radiator, the only factor that might make a difference would be if you have a fan shroud for it.
No shroud. It has an electric fan that runs all the time. The thermstat switch isnt' wired in right. One of the things I gotta fix hehehe.... :-)
Last edited by k4apy (April 30, 2015 6:01 am)
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so I can't tell if it's getting hot until it spews steam or shuts off.
So you are saying that with the aluminum radiator and the electric fan running all the time it is over heating??
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so I can't tell if it's getting hot until it spews steam or shuts off.
So you are saying that with the aluminum radiator and the electric fan running all the time it is over heating??
No, I dont' think its overheating. I don't have a guage or instrumentation to tell me if it is overheating yet. I haven't driven it either, but I am not happy with the installation of this radiater and it looks much too small jsut by eyeing it. They discarded the lower and upper radiator mounting brackets and rubber insulators that should be there. The previous owner bent some of the radiator support sheet metal to give them something to bolt it to. I'm hoping to find them to remount this radiator or find an OEM size for a big block Ford to make it look more like a professional installation. Overheating is just a concern right now.
Thanks!!
Last edited by k4apy (May 1, 2015 6:04 am)
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