#21  
Old 06-15-2019, 10:39 AM
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Originally Posted by dataway View Post
How many people out there have over heating problems with a copper recored original four core radiator?

Always wondered since most people compare a new aluminum radiator to a old OEM unit with the original core rather than a quality recored piece.
That is a good question. After restoring my 67 GTO, I installed a brand new Desert cooler 4 row radiator which was bigger than the original 4 row OEM that came with my car. I could not keep the car cool in traffic with the 462 stroker motor in it.

I upgraded to a dual 1" Rodney Red radiator and it ran better but I would still have to pull over if stuck in traffic for more than 30 minutes.

Next upgrade was a dual 1 1/4" unit from a no name company in Michigan. $800 plus a very expensive pair of Spal fans and a custom fan shroud and Problem solved!

Last year just to be safe, we installed our SD/HO radiator kit just to see how it stacked up to my previous $1500 set up.

Same exact results. 190 all day long. I can sit in traffic for 2 hours and not get any hotter.

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  #22  
Old 06-15-2019, 11:40 AM
78w72 78w72 is online now
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Originally Posted by Ccass View Post
That is a good question. After restoring my 67 GTO, I installed a brand new Desert cooler 4 row radiator which was bigger than the original 4 row OEM that came with my car. I could not keep the car cool in traffic with the 462 stroker motor in it.

I upgraded to a dual 1" Rodney Red radiator and it ran better but I would still have to pull over if stuck in traffic for more than 30 minutes.

Next upgrade was a dual 1 1/4" unit from a no name company in Michigan. $800 plus a very expensive pair of Spal fans and a custom fan shroud and Problem solved!

Last year just to be safe, we installed our SD/HO radiator kit just to see how it stacked up to my previous $1500 set up.

Same exact results. 190 all day long. I can sit in traffic for 2 hours and not get any hotter.
first off, thanks for the informative replies & keeping this a contructive conversation as opposed to some threads that turn into bickering matches & arguments.

i'm curious what the specs of your 462 are? & why its so hard to cool? unless this is a ragged edge, ultra high compression, hard block filled, all out race engine, im confused why it runs so hot. i'm sure you have looked into the other common factors that could make it run that hot. i recall some details of your engine & it sounds like a popular combo of pretty basic parts, it should not be so difficult to keep cool.

for comparison, i have a .060 400 block stroker 467, 10.75:1 with e-heads & old faithfull cam. cliff built q-jet & ~3500 continental converter. it runs so cool its hard to get to temp in 60-70* weather, & runs right at the 180 t-stat rating in 85-90 degree temps, might creep to 190... at idle for prolonged times while tuning, city stop & go, highway, drag racing, etc.

& i use one of those "marketing gimmick" small 3 row champions! with a worn out stock clutch fan! this engine would probably cool just as well with a 4 row copper/brass radiator. im confused why many people with similar & even higher power engines dont have overheating issues, yet others with similar or less power engines do & need to buy these huge radiators with dual electric spahl fans. i realize all engines/cars are different, but its interesting why some have such a hard time with cooling pretty basic engines & some don't.

as for overheating with original copper radiators- back in the 90's, i had a 78 t/a with a mild 455, 9.5:1 6x-4 heads, comp 280 magnum cam & 3.90 gears. i was a broke teenager & had very little tuning knowledge, that car had a crappy old stock 4 row that had leaked 2 or 3 times & had solder repairs on many of the rows & all kinds of stop leak dumped into it... it was a daily driver & got raced & beat on daily & nightly... never had any overheating issues with stock clutch fan & a broken up shroud. & this was before i knew about water pump plate clearance & used a cheap no name water pump.

cooling theses cars should not be such a problem, seems most the cars i read about overheating are gto's & 1st gen firebrds or other big cars... i wonder if their radiators are not as good/big of a ddesign as 2nd gen firebirds? ive owned & built quite a few pontiac engines 2nd gen firebirds, but am just an amateur backyard mechanic & have never had the troubles i read about here. i am knocking on wood though!

  #23  
Old 06-15-2019, 12:51 PM
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Originally Posted by 78w72 View Post
first off, thanks for the informative replies & keeping this a contructive conversation as opposed to some threads that turn into bickering matches & arguments.

i'm curious what the specs of your 462 are? & why its so hard to cool? unless this is a ragged edge, ultra high compression, hard block filled, all out race engine, im confused why it runs so hot. i'm sure you have looked into the other common factors that could make it run that hot. i recall some details of your engine & it sounds like a popular combo of pretty basic parts, it should not be so difficult to keep cool.

You are correct, the motor should not run that hot. We all know there are dozens of other factors that can lead to a hot running motor but the fact that it ran hot at idle and cooled down while moving. That is traditionally an air flow problem and not a motor problem. However, sometimes it's just not practical to pull any more air through the radiator. It's also many times not practical to try and troubleshoot what could be the REAL reason for the extra heat. Hence the reason why we highly recommend getting a big radiator to 'be safe'.

& i use one of those "marketing gimmick" small 3 row champions! with a worn out stock clutch fan! this engine would probably cool just as well with a 4 row copper/brass radiator. im confused why many people with similar & even higher power engines dont have overheating issues, yet others with similar or less power engines do & need to buy these huge radiators with dual electric spahl fans. i realize all engines/cars are different, but its interesting why some have such a hard time with cooling pretty basic engines & some don't.
Yep, and a lot of other do as well. But the fact is that those 3 row units take more energy to pull the air through the core and those 3 row units don't hold as much fluid. Extra fluid and extra air flow is ALWAYS an advantage. Again why we recommend the bigger radiator to 'be safe'. After all, we all have at least $30k in our cars. The motor and trans can easily be $10k. So why take a chance for $50 or $100 is the logic. Of course that is up to the individual. Your decision paid off for you but if it didn't and you were having issues, you'd be kicking yourself for the small amount extra to have solved the problem.

as for overheating with original copper radiators- back in the 90's, i had a 78 t/a with a mild 455, 9.5:1 6x-4 heads, comp 280 magnum cam & 3.90 gears. i was a broke teenager & had very little tuning knowledge, that car had a crappy old stock 4 row that had leaked 2 or 3 times & had solder repairs on many of the rows & all kinds of stop leak dumped into it... it was a daily driver & got raced & beat on daily & nightly... never had any overheating issues with stock clutch fan & a broken up shroud. & this was before i knew about water pump plate clearance & used a cheap no name water pump.
Every car is different. You've had good luck over the years it appears. I personally have had bad luck over the years.

One nice thing about copper/brass rads is the ability to fix them. If your aluminum rad springs a leak, you are pretty much done with that unit.

One last thing about mechanical fans vs electric; We appreciate and embrace the mechanical fan, clutch and oem shroud for most situations. In our tests, they perform just as well as electric fans. Cold Case does not push electric fans and metal shrouds. We offer them because there are other reasons why they make sense for some owners.


cooling theses cars should not be such a problem, seems most the cars i read about overheating are gto's & 1st gen firebrds or other big cars... i wonder if their radiators are not as good/big of a ddesign as 2nd gen firebirds? ive owned & built quite a few pontiac engines 2nd gen firebirds, but am just an amateur backyard mechanic & have never had the troubles i read about here. i am knocking on wood though!
It is somewhat of a mystery. Pontiac motors by design have to work a little harder to make the same amount of HP. So yes, Pontiac owners seem to experience overheating more often it seems. However, we monitor the Mopar and Chevy forums as well and a LOT of owners struggle to cool their vehicles. There's no real pattern. Guys with anemic 300 hp SB motors can struggle while huge BB motors can do fine and vice versa. At the route of the mystery is that there are MANY factors that affect the cooling of a vehicle and for the most part, owners have been solving the problem by upgrading radiators with higher capacity and aluminum as an easy, inexpensive and quick way to solve the problem.

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  #24  
Old 06-15-2019, 01:04 PM
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I installed a conventional brass/copper Desert Cooler from Ames in my '67 GTO (automatic w/ air so 17-1/2" height) back in 2000, it's still in the car and working fine. I do not know that I have everything optimized for temperature (timing, water pump, etc.) but it will get up to about 205 - 210 in hot weather if idling for extended periods or driving at freeway speeds.

Based on the thread I decided to look at my old receipt - same part number sold in the Ames catalog today, P119AM. In 2000 I paid $225.00 plus $22.00 shipping. In the current Ames catalog the same P119AM radiator is $519.00 with $25.00 oversize charge in addition to standard shipping. Prices have gone up in 19 years!

  #25  
Old 06-16-2019, 04:00 PM
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Kind of meaningless I guess .... but this copper recored, four core OEM unit I have setup on the test stand with my newly rebuilt engine has a phenomenal temperature drop from inlet to outlet ... that's with no shroud and the fan about 4" away from the radiator. With an inlet temp about 160 the outlet is almost cool to the touch.

Looking down the filler neck the difference between between "before" and "after" the recore was astounding .... easily twice or three times the flow coming out of the tubes.

Admittedly it's probably more expensive to copper recore an original unit than it is to buy a new aluminum piece (cost me about $530) but the recored originals do work tremendously ... so just saying, I think probably 90+% of the people comparing OEM to aftermarket aluminum are comparing a 40 year old radiator to a new one .... not really a fair comparison.

  #26  
Old 06-16-2019, 11:18 PM
69 Limelight 69 Limelight is offline
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Dataway, you're loading your engine very little (water pump, alternator, fan, transmission in neutral or park and friction) on test stand therefore creating very little heat. When you get engine installed in car with AC condenser, front nose, and possibly auxiliary transmission cooler, in front of radiator restricting airflow, take your car out for a run in 110, 115 degree temperatures with AC on for an hour or so run at 70 mph plus and set in stop and go traffic in 95, 100 degree heat for hour or so then come back and report on the phenomenal performance of your OEM style 4 core radiator. Maybe yours will be fine but under such conditions my OEM style wouldn't hack it had to go to 2 core aluminum.

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Old 06-17-2019, 01:52 AM
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Oh I realize it's not a great test .. that's why I started the post with "King of meaningless I guess" .... and why I was talking about the delta T across the radiator, and not about engine temps.

However the OEM radiators did just fine with mostly stock engines in desert heat for many years when they were new. People were not buying GTOs in Arizona in 1968 and having them promptly overheat the first time they drove them across the desert. They worked fine for years ... because they had nice new four core copper radiators.

Aluminum radiators are great .... but I'd have to see a head to head test against a newly recored original before I'd be confident they are that much superior to the originals. And basically no one ever does that, they compare them to a 40 year old radiator that was "cleaned out" or "looks good" etc. Not many people spending the money to recore and original just to test it against an new aluminum unit.

My guess is the new large 2 core aluminum units are probably 10-15% more efficient than the OEM copper units, which is probably a big help with a high HP engine. With the same amount of frontal area as an OEM unit and the same flow rate from the pump, it comes down to transfer efficiency ... only so much to be gained there from the different materials and the tube/fin structure.

  #28  
Old 10-14-2019, 09:28 PM
avman avman is offline
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I bought 2 Cold Case radiators last week. One for the 421 in my wife's 65 GTO and a 26" unit to replace the "rode hard and put up wet" (not repaired properly) original 26" unit in my 440 6bbl 70 Roadrunner. I haven't installed either one, but I am fully confident in their ability. One of the reasons why I got one for each car is that we just got Vintage Air AC systems and we needed to upgrade.
We got Wraptor serpentine systems for both cars too.
I believe that they are going to look and work great, and we will get a LOT more enjoyment from our cars since the majority of the car show/race/event season occurs between March and October, and most of those months are BRUTALLY hot and humid here in the deep South.
The pricing for forum members and free shipping is GREATLY appreciated too!

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