L series radiator upgrade

Subafury · Post by **Subafury** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 1:43 pm

im lookin for a way to help out my coling system. seems the biggest flaw of the L series is its single core radiator.
without going to great expense of gettina fully custom jobbie. has any one done any transplants from another car?
i was thinkin of an MY radiator. i know id prolly have to get rid of my air con but meh.

matty

BrennyV · Post by **BrennyV** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 1:52 pm

i think your best bet would be to goto the boys that did the ej to ea size cores for leone and wanky and see what they can jig.

Gannon · Post by **Gannon** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 3:52 pm

I just bought a new single core l radiator

I was gonna go custom but the radiator guy said it could cost over $600 if he had trouble making tanks for it.

So i got a new radiator and am gonna put 2 good fans on it.

BrennyV · Post by **BrennyV** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 5:14 pm

cost me all up about 550 for myne. works a treat! (ej core with jackaroo? end tanks)

timmo · Post by **timmo** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 5:45 pm

if your prepared to ditch air con a mickey mouse standard core might be ok. Although my custom alloy one cost me $700 or something it is good - towed my 12ft tinny and all the associated camping gear down to the coast friday with the A/C goin in 30+ temp & never got above half. (used a bit of fuel tho! was in a hurry to crack open a few cans) caught some nice bream too 30cms & over

Gannon · Post by **Gannon** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 5:45 pm

when looking through the catalouges for radiator cores, I noticed that liberty ones have tanks on the ends, but impreza's are top and bottom, which is the one to use?

Last summer holiday i drove over 200kms with aircon on and towing a 12ft tinny (mind you that was before the EA82T) and never overheated. That was with the stock AC fan only, no cluch fan.

If i clean the AC condensor and straighten all the fins, i cant see why the stock radiator can handle it.

BTW, i dont do much 4WDing.

timmo · Post by **timmo** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 5:48 pm

hey thought you already bought 1

Gannon · Post by **Gannon** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 6:23 pm

Yeah i did.

But i wanted to know for future reference

discopotato03 · Post by **discopotato03** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 6:27 pm

New rad and Davies Craig switch to bring the condenser fan on at a lower temp .

Fixed .

BlackMale · Post by **BlackMale** » Tue Dec 18, 2007 2:42 pm

All those prices seem to be a rip off (to me). Had my custom twin core rad made for an EA82T in an L and it cost me about $300... which equals my 2c.

YouTube · Post by **El_Freddo** » Tue Dec 18, 2007 4:50 pm

BlackMale wrote:All those prices seem to be a rip off (to me). Had my custom twin core rad made for an EA82T in an L and it cost me about $300... which equals my 2c.

yeah, i'm up for a new radiator too. got a quote for a few new jobs, I was looking at shoving an MY radiator in there but if i can get a custom job for around the same price of a new MY I'll be doing that.

A new L brass/copper single core with stupid plastic end tanks (i've blown two of these now) is $370, a new MY all brass is $330 or $340.

I'm going to check out Aussie Desert Coolers in Melbourne, apparently they're really well made and a good price - found this out from two mates that don't know eachother.

Cheers

Bennie

Subafury · Post by **Subafury** » Tue Dec 18, 2007 5:00 pm

BlackMale wrote:All those prices seem to be a rip off (to me). Had my custom twin core rad made for an EA82T in an L and it cost me about $300... which equals my 2c.

yeh this is sounding alright. do you still run air con too? and how does it go offroad?

timmo · Post by **timmo** » Tue Dec 18, 2007 5:05 pm

All those prices seem to be a rip off (to me). Had my custom twin core rad made for an EA82T in an L and it cost me about $300... which equals my 2c.

I guess you can get cheaper if you shop around, but theres only 1 radiator shop within a 2+ hour drive for me so obviously i pay the price they want not what i want & I like to support local business

Freddo i guess you hear different stories, but a friend of mine had a desert cooler in his nissan & it fell apart after not long.

Dutchy · Post by **Dutchy** » Tue Dec 18, 2007 5:32 pm

i had the same problem so many cooling problems. you probably would hav to remove the ac. the guy said a good radiator will do the exact same job as a MY radiator. just run twin electric thermos and u should hav no problems.

BlackMale · Post by **BlackMale** » Tue Dec 18, 2007 5:46 pm

Nothing but the best for my thing… Full metal tanks, still run air con, lost about 5 lines as it got punctured by a stick on a 4WD trip – yer up through the bottom missed everything except the rad and the thurmo fan, made a nice mess.

Runs viscous fan and thurmo fan (on a switch) however more often then not I just leave it switch on, runs fine, slight increase on temp gauge in soft boggy sand but no more then ½ - ¾ gauge at the most and cools ok considering the heat soak.

Subafury · Post by **Subafury** » Tue Dec 18, 2007 10:30 pm

Dutchy wrote:i had the same problem so many cooling problems. you probably would hav to remove the ac. the guy said a good radiator will do the exact same job as a MY radiator. just run twin electric thermos and u should hav no problems.

i already have twin leccy thermos. the guys at the rad shop said to get bigger ones but i reckon better rad is the answer. ill have to check out all avail space to see if i can retain aircon with a dual core

YouTube · Post by **El_Freddo** » Wed Dec 19, 2007 9:00 am

timmo wrote:Freddo i guess you hear different stories, but a friend of mine had a desert cooler in his nissan & it fell apart after not long.

This is true. Did your mate "hard mount" the radiator to the car - not use rubber mounts to hold the radiator in place? If he didn't do this its the reason why his radiator fell apart. The body flex would have ripped it apart in no time when off roading. Heard about this from my local radiator joint, they did the same thing in their toy...

Subafury wrote:ill have to check out all avail space to see if i can retain aircon with a dual core

You should beable to retain aircon with dual core. The radiator can be made to come out to the engine, thats where i'm looking at clearance issues. The MY radiator will fit with some engine bay modifications on the original MY rad rails. I'm yet to swap these rails with L series rad rails to see if it drops the overall height of the MY radiator (MY radiators are 6mm taller than the L's), I was looking at a cut and shut under the radiator to fit the my in, if you're not after tidyness, a BFH would probabily achieve the same outcome... Dunno if i'll do that now though.

Cheers

Bennie

Subafury · Post by **Subafury** » Wed Dec 19, 2007 11:44 am

bfh sounds good

might give the MY rad a shot soon.

SuBaRiNo · Post by **SuBaRiNo** » Wed Dec 19, 2007 8:24 pm

MY FTW

Dave

Ben · Post by **Ben** » Thu Dec 20, 2007 12:36 am

My first RX had a custom fat core alloy job. From memory it was around the $300 mark and used a daewoo of some description core, and custom alloy end tanks.

Went from struggling to make the top of moonbi without blowing heads to doing it full throttle on 11psi boost without moving the temp gauge. Was a brilliant rad.

Find a core, take to an alloy specialist, not a rad joint and get em to tig it up with some alloy end tanks, you'll probably be surprised at the cost.