Upgrades radiator that’s not a 3 core??

Mustang5L5 said:

The ole Pep Boys 433138 made by GDI ( Go-Dan Industries). Best deal ever for $100 in the early 2000s

They changed the construction at some point. Was originally 3-core but was later changed to 2-core and a different construction and then discontinued.

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Did they used-to call that the Be Cool radiator? I'm pretty sure that's what I did for my old '92 at some point back in the day. Worked well.

These days, both Black Jack & Snake Pit have a Ron Davis Radiator, which works perfectly fine, but are pricey. Snake Pit's has a trans cooler built in that I intend to use with its custom T56, at some point, & a sweet overflow that sits atop the radiator, which packages much better than the old Canton overflow tank. Grover has an oversized Griffin radiator that seems to work even better.

Honestly though guys, I've never had a fox with a radiator capacity problem. Have you? It's always turned out to be an airflow problem poo:ty e-fan, back fan-clutch), a water flow problem (water pump, drained coolant, etc...), both (pullies), or a stuck t-stat. Or... sigh... a combination of things that makes it harder to diagnose when I start off with a problem car, lol. Have any of you actually resolved an overheating issue specifically by upgrading from the stock radiator?

That's hard for me to know, because I just always have upgraded the radiator. Might have been wasted money, AFAIK.

So are we talking stock motor here or ??? I don't see a stock radiator keeping up with the 331 in my Coupe or the 351 in my T-Bird.

My buddy ran the stock radiator in his supercharged 93' Cobra for several years with no issues.

I think this may have to do with my location where summer is triple digits. When I lived on the Texas Gulf Coast a stock radiator would barely support a stock motor with AC. Regardless I am not going to trust a built motor or a stock motor with boost to a stock radiator where I live. If you have no issues up north then I get not spending the money on one.

But, like... when cruising a motor makes a certain amount of HP. This is calculable. I'm spit-balling, but going 70mph costs a motor ~30 rwhp. That's the hp requirement whether you have a stock engine or a supercharged, nitro-methane snuffing monster. Just wondering if someone has experienced swapping a perfectly good stock radiator for a better one and that making the difference to stop overheating?

My thought was a bigger motor will produce more heat than a smaller motor at a given rpm. This is based on my thinking that a larger motor sucks more air in due to the larger displacement so it burns more fuel which mean more heat.

I can tell you that my Coupe was running in the 205 to 210 range with the 331 in the summer with a the vaunted GoDan 3 core radiator, Mark VIII fan, and DC Controller when I lived in Houston. Got a Fluidyne radiator (changed nothing else) and it dropped to 185 to 190. Has been money ever since so my assumption was the Fluidyne was that much better with heat transfer.

I have never run the 351 in the T-Bird with anything but the Griffin radiator so I have no data there.

Isn't that interesting? A 3-core, which itself should be quite the upgrade (increase in volume of water and surface area) over a stock radiator, didn't have enough thermal transfer capacity for a 331 under normal street driving conditions... idle... cruise... occasional WOT for 10-15 seconds followed by a cool down. I have no idea why this happens, but don't deny that I also struggled on Black Jack at idle with the A/C on in summer heat, myself. I think this boils down to an airflow, water flow, or pressure issue, somehow. Do we actually hit the thermal capacity limit of a highly recommended 3-core radiator (Ron Davis in my case)? I don't understand why a motor should EVER have a problem in normal street driving conditions.

Imagine what would stress cooling systems the absolute most... Seems like the most torturous possibility is in road course racing where you'll be under full-throttle conditions generating 200-400hp for prolonged periods. This article talks about the thinking that goes into cooling systems on racetracks. That's the kind of condition where you REALLY need a radiator with serious thermal transfer. How do they get it done? If the answer is airflow (vents, ducts, etc...), water flow (bigger pumps), higher willingness to run higher temps in the 250-300* range, and higher radiator pressure as the article suggests, and NOT 10-row radiators, then the conclusion seems to me that we're doing something wrong in our cars under street conditions while putting around town. The occasional 10-15 second blast down a 1/4 mile shouldn't stress any system with enough water in the radiator to replace the water in the block.

Road racing. I helped a buddy with his 89 Coupe racing American Iron in the AI class. So no AC, no heater, a built 306, race weight of 2800ish lbs (its been over ten years so I could be off on the race weight), full cage, and an ice water cooling system for the driver. John drove the car to consecutive championships so he was not in a pack of cars but usually out front in clean air for the majority of the race but believe me that car spent every bit of 70% of the time above 5,000 rpm. You are not allowed to run any kind of glycol so the Red Line Water Wetter with deionized water was about the only thing I know of that was used.

Car constantly ran in the 220 range no matter what we did. It had some whodoneit water pump, big three core aluminum radiator, and electric fan. John installed a carbon fiber hood with two huge louvers in it to relieve the pressure under the hood for handling as the air was lifting the front of the car to the point that at TWS if he ran faster than 140 mph it was a bit hairy. In keeping the air from being stagnate under the hood we figured it had to increase air flow across the radiator and the temps came down to about 210. This was with a huge splitter up front and a belly pan under the car.

I will say that on most of our cars one of the big things that keeps them cooler is like you mentioned which is airflow. Keep the deflectors on either side of the radiator in good shape and you need the air deflector under the nose of the car installed and in good shape. I replaced mine last year and the first trip out of the driveway reminded me to trim 1/2" off (car is pretty low).

AeroCoupe said:

I think this may have to do with my location where summer is triple digits. When I lived on the Texas Gulf Coast a stock radiator would barely support a stock motor with AC. Regardless I am not going to trust a built motor or a stock motor with boost to a stock radiator where I live. If you have no issues up north then I get not spending the money on one.

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I would agree with AeroCoupes comment here about high temps making a huge difference....
Living in Oregon most of my life the temps were more moderate if not cooler year round..... I had a 69 Super Bee with a 440 tri power that I never had a problem with until we would get some freak weather ( for the area) of high 90's into the low 100's for a couple of days. The car would NOT cool down on those days... It would just kee;p climbing higher and higher until I had to pull over and let the car cool down, or pull into a Service Station ( no such thing anymore) and spray water ON to the radiator cooling it..... NEVER an overheating problem with the car except for very hot days....

For reference on the deflectors I was talking about.

Side air deflectors:


Lower air deflector:

There are also deflectors on the bottom of the frame rails behind the radiator. Ford started putting them on the 85 and newer Foxes. I'd think they're part of the whole system to help with control of the airflow through the engine compartment.