[73LeMans]

Since 1997 when the car was first built to any level, I've wanted an aluminum radiator. Being 24 at the time, without a lot of extra money to spend, (plus any rad that would fit this chassis would need to be custom) I continued to go with the tried & true copper/brass 3 core from the local radiator supply house.

An opportunity presented itself in 2005 when I punched a hole in that 8 year old radiator trying to bolt it the car, but sadly, my surgery with a cutting wheel and solder proved to be too awesome and it lasted the next 11 years. (plus it was seriously hard to argue replacing a $100 part that worked with a $700 part that worked)

In addition to that ugliness, I had also picked up a 16" junkyard fan in 97, off some 4 cylinder a (Saturn I think it was) for about $15 IIRC. Believe it or not, that has been on the car the entire time. Never replaced a motor even. Fastened with zip ties, but it never let me down.

This time around, that wasn't going to cut it so C&R got the call.



I had to think about how I was going to hold on to it. (This hotrodding stuff is hard) The old radiator just used it own weight to hold the isolaters in place, then I bolted the top to the core support. You can see that in this Don Keefe kick ass pic taken at the 2006 VMP Pavement Pounders Shootout. (you can see the ziptie for the fan too, if you look closely) Man that was a great time! (dont even get me started on that hideous master cylinder)




I could use the stock rubber isolators, recage them and weld to the core support, but this radiator was so fat compared to the old one, I thought it more prudent to use a fatter type of support so I went with the one on the far left. I caged it better and lined it with 1/4" rubber mat I cut up instead of the foam you see here. I wont show you them on the car. The welds were ugly. Like real ugly.



On top had to be something better that some muffler hanger and bolts to hold it in place, so I designed these out of cardboard. They made contact with existing threaded holes in the core, and then reached out and leaned over the rad to keep it from falling over.



I scraped this idea very quickly. Way too much work, and they were so thin where the bolts were going to go, they likely wouldn't have held up to much abuse.

I say we go with something more traditional, and easier to bend -



Now doesn't that look a lot better? A couple of fancy screws and now it looks like something Chip Foose might have made...or maybe his cousin...distant, long lost cousin. Cousin's friend maybe.



I really didn't want a piece of polished aluminum in the bay to be honest. My goal was to make a lot of the shiny pieces appears like carbon fiber this time around. Since I knew I wasn't going to paint the radiator, or the heads, or the valley pan, or scuff up my brandy new valve covers for the wrap to stick, I decided I'd leave it as is.