My custom 3 row double pass aluminum Fluidyne radiator started leaking like crazy for no apparent reason. I brought it to a local radiator shop and witnessed the pressure dunk test personally. It leaked profusely in about 15-20 areas on either side of the core where the tubes attach to the header of the core....on the upper half only. I'm told it's a total loss. I found a local shop that would recore it using a 2 row core...the 3 row core is extemely hard to abtain from what I've learned. The price for a 2 row recore is $680. I found a place in MI called Howe Racing and they said they'd build me a new copy of my radiator with two 1" rows double pass for $480. This is only a few bucks more than my Fluidyne from 5 years ago.

Question: Since I have a huge hole feeding air into my radiator (it is almost the size of the radiator itself.... 29.5" X 12"), do you agree that a 2 row design will probably do the job just fine? My original 3 row design kept my V-8 running below 180 degrees about 95% of the time and would only go up to 185-190 on those 100+ degree humid days. It also makes sense that airflow will be less restricted with a 2 row design over a 3 row design. I suppose I will find out exactly what the tradeoff will be shortly. I don't want to spend $1000+ on Renegade's radiator because of all the work that may be required to integrate it into my air tunnel design that flows through the hood. A close copy of what I had is my best bet....I believe. Anyone using the Rod Simpson 2 row double pass design? I'd be interested to hear how his design behaves?

Regards,

Bill

Bill, I would contact Ron Davis. I had a quote for an off-the-shelf NASCAR dual pass with twin fans and built-in shroud for $800. For just a radiator would be much cheaper. renegades is a bit of a rip.

2-row 1" cap will work more than fine - we ran these in circletrack cars I helped with for a long time and never had an issue. I have 2-core 1" cap in mine and it was running at 150deg the other day idling in the garage with the fan on (I got mine elsewhere on a good-guy deal, but Davis would be the best bet otherwise).

The more-core stuff seems to not be as efficient in my experience actually!

Hi Tim,

Thanks for the input. I think I should be ok with a 2 row double pass w/ 1" tubes. I'm glad to hear you believe it will function well. I suppose the roads of CO are being torn up on a daily basis?

Bill

I had a Rod Simpson Radiator in the Chalon and it seemed to work ok, in my opinion however, the Ron Davis from Renegade is by far the superior setup. As I recall, my RS was about the same cost as the Rengade but came with all the sheet metal prefabed up already and the RS I had to supply and make all the metal parts to go around it.

Bill, I have a Howe Double pass I got from Lou Feger Racing here in MN. The cores are wider there by equaling the three row. I gave them my specifics and they sent me the radiator in less than a week. I was stuck in construction traffic in the desert on the way to WCC 05 with no issues.

Hey,
I have a Griffin double pass, two row unit. Its about the largest unit you can fit in the front of the car. Today it was 85 or so in Ca. and I left my fans run using my bypass switch by mistake and looked down at the temp and it was under 150 degrees in city traffic. I would recommend it to anyone, I had the part number at one time but I'm not sure its around anymore. Your correct about the 3 core units, its frontal exposure that counts the most not the numbers of cores.
John P.S. I still think your 914 is the best looking one around

Hey John,

Thanks for the kind words. Your car looks pretty damn nice too! Are those specially valved Ferrari mufflers? How do they muffle the V-8? My Dynmax mufflers are too loud. Was your Griffin custom made or off the shelf?

Regards,

Bill

How is your radiator mounted? My guess would be that you had it firmly mounted to the car, and over time, the flexing of the car, and thus the radiator, has likely caused the failure.

The radiator needs to float in the mount to allow movement. Most of the early conversion kits had the radiator mounted solidly to the chassis. The 914 just flexes too much. Aluminum doesn't tolerate bending well and fatigues fairly quickly.

High density foam tape around the perimeter, in a couple layers would be a good start. You don't want it to bang around, but you should be able to move it around in the mount without too much effort.

I've got a super stiff all tube front end, and I still have it on rubber mounts to keep vibration to a minimum.

Bill,

I went with AFCO Racing for one of their aluminum dual pass ASA racing radiators (w/ filler delete).
This one: http://www.afabcorp.com/AFCO_Dynatech_USbr...ct_dbl-pass-rad

They also offer these now: http://www.afabcorp.com/AFCO_Dynatech_USbr...e=ct_o-ring-rad

I paid $239 about a year ago. It is definately worth your while to call them. These guys are real racers, know their stuff, and they will readily field your questions. Fantastic to work with. They manufacture many stock car race components (springs, shocks, radiators, etc). I think you'll find their prices much more reasonable.

Andys

My radiator has two pins that it sits on. The pins go into a generous soft rubber grommet/bushing. The upper half is rubber mounted as well. I'm thinking that some type of corrosion or other problem is to blame. All your points are quite valid and important. I will review my mounting method to make certain there is enough freedom for the radiator to move slightly.

Oh, by the way, Rod Simpson uses Fluidyne radiators, I didnt mention it in my earlier post.

I had this one made at Rays radiator in Warren, MI about 3 miles from my house. Its a 2 row 1.25inch tubes, dual pass. He said 1800 CFM through it will cool just about anything. No problems for two years.
Oh yeah, it was $275
Mark

Hey Bill, sorry I didn't catch the response earlier and wanted to wait until after the weekend... because I did rip the roads up a bit on Saturday. My car is rather obnoxious with the cam in it so anything under 3000rpm (say 30-35mph in 1st gear) is hard to drive. That said, it was clear and sunny and 80+ in the Denver area Saturday, I drove around a bit, hit it hard, you know, "a couple times" and so forth. It almost got to 180deg coming home, but mostly ran 165deg (no thermostat in the racecar of course) and sat in traffic too.

Only problem... car died about 3 blocks from my house! Apparently I just learned a tough lesson here at altitude - cars apparently vaporlock rather easy due to low pressure, so the fuel will boil easier My friend said he has had tons of vaporlock issues with cars on hot days in the past here and apparently because the fuel cell makes the pump "suck uphill" I need to probably add an in-tank helper pump to fix it.

I really like CO so far except it is absolute BS when it comes to anything performance Let's see... I vapor lock which was NEVER an issue before, I am down 100HP, the only track worth going to has a turn into the straight that is so rough only a 4x4 could love it, there are no "real" performance shops (and SoCal guys know what I mean - you can get just about anything within 30 miles of your house on a Sunday afternoon)... ugh.

But my friend's dad also called Sunday while we were grabbing lunch to inform him Sat night he was washing his car at a carwash and a car load of Cholos in a 65 Impala saw him, circled around and started harassing him and he barely got outta there. So, NO, I don't miss SoCal one bit!! Just my HP