irab88

iTrader: (4)

one thing that will help greatly are vents in the hood. they help hot air to escape and allow cooler air to be drawn in. also, opening up places in the grill that are blocked should help.

sorry, no experience with the radiator, just thought i'd chime in with some heat elimination advice

87runner_

iTrader: (1)

Followup to this thread...
I purchased a new copper radiator from Performance Radiator.
They call it a "2-Row Big." (for a V6)
IIRC... it has 2 x 5/8" tubes instead of 3 x 3/8" tubes and GREAT tube density.

Larger tubes have an increased tube/fin contact area, which is the benefit of the aluminum radiators.
Fin contact area appears to be a huge factor in cooling effectiveness. My old radiator was a V6/3 row, but they said
it was old and many of the fins were not making good contact anymore.
It wasn't overheating, but I was having cooling issues.

For an off-road rig I decided on the copper because it is more thermally efficient vs aluminum and most importantly
it can easily be repaired. If the aluminum housing cracks it's basically junk.

I'm VERY happy with it so far, but I haven't put it under any extreme testing,
being that it's September now and just got the truck running.
We here in Phoenix won't see +115*F temps (in the shade) again until next year.


COOLING SYSTEM TIP: Add a couple teaspoons of Downy fabric softener into your cooling system...like additives such as Water Wetter, el al, it reduces the surface tension of the water (this is a function of fabric softeners)...it's cheap and as a bonus it makes your cooling system smell April fresh!

JaMTek

The only good a 3 row radiator is for, is fluid capacity. It was proven by the manufactures years ago that a single row wide tube radiator was more efficient than a 3 or 4 row radiator. Now a staggered tubed 2 or 3 row radiator would be more efficient than a none staggered tube 2 or 3 row.

In a 3-4 row (none staggered) radiator, the heat from the first row is transferred to the second, then to the third, etc. By the time the super heated air gets to the third or forth row, they become less effective in removing the heat.

A nice all brass 2 row staggered tube core, where the rows don't line up, would be ideal, but I think a std 2 row linear tube radiator is about as efficient as a single row wide tube radiator.

There was a time when you could go to a radiator shop and order a dual row staggered tubed radiator core and they would solder your top and bottom tanks to the new core. Not sure if that is the case these days, but its worth looking into.

I would definitely stay with a all brass radiator. The aluminum radiators with plastic tanks are expensive and disposable, most likely the entire radiator will need to be replaced when they start to leak at the tank seals.


JaMtek