radiator choice

[mike@thenook]

People seem to be happy with the Tony Hart 4 row radiator, with its results being proven.

ATM I run a Wards Supergill (which IIRC is either a 3 core or 4 core of a staggered construction). So far since I fitted it (last September) it has kept the car cool, even on high speed motorway runs.

Me too and the Wards price compared to an HRS one is very different......

[steve.n]

Radiator

A new rad. is needed for my mk2. What is the considered opinion . Do I go for a supergill from Tony Hart or a 4 row from rimmers ? Thanks peoples. Ian

I have had a standard Rad for 25 years, regular flush 1-2 years, never had a cooling issue (I consider myself fortunately lucky).Recently fitted an expansion tank with warning switch as a belt & braces & found the generall temp slightly lower.

[elvimto]

I have had a standard Rad for 25 years, regular flush 1-2 years, never had a cooling issue (I consider myself fortunately lucky).Recently fitted an expansion tank with warning switch as a belt & braces & found the generall temp slightly lower.

My car is a 71 MK1 the cooling system is factory I just fitted a digital temp gauge to the return top hose it reads 185 constant running goes up to 195 sitting at a light from street speed limit of 45 then drops back to 185. I have the long life coolant in it same as the past owner had he owned the car for 30 years so no cooling problems, I have a header tank waiting to be fitted but I am going to run it this year and think about it.Sorry to hear you have to pay all that tax and import duty what a lot of rubbish, thats all I am going to say about that.

cheers stuart

[tonyh]

With all this talk about radiators I thought you would like the history of my Supergill radiator. It started back in the late 70’s, most of my customers then used there Stags as everyday transport, with a large majority using them in and around central London, several customers said the Stags ran hot in London traffic on hot days. I spoke to the company that reconditioned my radiators to see if we could come up with a more efficient core, they had some cores made for me, we tried them on a few customers Stags and the results were very good, being about 20% more efficient than the standard core, they are still making the cores for me and are still out perform most other radiators. We named the cores “Supergill” this is the trade name we use, there are some radiators on the market saying they are Supergill, they are not, they do not use the cores I have made for me.
Now for some interesting facts, the late Stags used a smaller radiator with square end tanks, this radiator caused bad overheating in London traffic on a hot day, my late brother had one of the last Stags with this type of radiator and it ran very hot in London Traffic, he asked the BL dealership if he could fit one of my Supergill radiators, they said no, it would affect the warrantee, he asked what would happen if the original radiator caused it to overheated and damaged the engine, they told him “that’s ok we will fit a new engine for you”, I fitted one of my Supergill radiators anyway and all was fine.
There are some five row cores being fitted, these cores do not allow enough air flow through the radiator and can cause overheating and fitting problems, also cores with staggered cooling tubes can have the same affect. I know there has been a lot of talk about aluminium radiators, in my experience they can be less efficient as the standard radiator, aluminium does not conduct heat as well as the standard radiator, aluminium radiators were originally designed for race cars as they are much lighter than a standard construction radiator, and usually made bigger to cope with the extra cooling needed, the supercharged Stag had an aluminium radiator, it had to be removed and a Supergill radiator fitted to keep it cool, I know many of you have the aluminium radiators fitted and they are fine for normal use assuming your engine is in good working order, but I would not advise taking it on a track day.

Tony.

[singapore stag]

' they can be less efficient as the standard radiator, aluminium does not conduct heat as well as the standard radiator, aluminium radiators were originally designed for race cars as they are much lighter than a standard construction radiator, and usually made bigger to cope with the extra cooling needed '

fully agree.
Sukh.

[len]

i have a HRS supergill rad on my stag. A few years ago i decided to renew this radiator as a precautionary act, i purchased a standard rad from wards. my stag definetly ran hotter according to my temp gauge with this new rad. After scratching my head a couple of journies later , i decided to put back my old HRS supergill radiator , the result being a lower temp reading.i would only ever use a HRS rad now. i did all this messing about with rads a couple of years ago in the height of some very hot days.
Tony Harts, Supergill is the only way for me.
Len

[milothedog]

Just looked at the ebay add for this Chinese ali rad and it says it 2 core I assume that means 2 rows, how does that compare with the ones available here

One thing I did notice is they say it is braised not glued. One of the last things I did whilst at work was go on a factory tour of a major British cooling specialist in the Midlands that makes OEM equipment including Rads and intercoolers for the Heavy Vehicle and Bus industry and they made a point of telling us how cooling fins that are bonded to the tubes in an ali rad can be inefficient as the bonding agent acts as a heat barrier which is why they braise theirs.

Ian

N.b. they also said they will make one off's for a price and have done a lot of work for the Subaru boy's

Just read Tony's views on Ali Rads, and it got me thinking again about This Factory tour I went on. One of their innovations for the high efficiency rads they make is the use of tubes with an inner profile giving it a larger surface area internally to transfer heat. I doubt any of the Stag ali ones employ that idea, maybe they could

Ian

[Staggard]

"also cores with staggered cooling tubes can have the same affect". As much as I respect Tony's knoledge and vast experience for me (the proof of the pudding is in the eating) To test for overheating I think I am in one of the best testing grounds in the world. I had a 4core in line rad when I got the car and while used in the UK it was fine when I exported over to here the temp rose to past halfway on the guage and climed to the red driving up to the mountain. So I bought a 4 core staggard rad from Stagmuffin and fitted it with no other extra modifications temp now rests at 1/3 and climbes to a maximum of 1/2 . The logic for me is that, sure you want air to pass through the rad but you want it to take as much heat with as possible with inline tubes the first one recives all the cooling while the rest in line get progressivly less and less, but when they are staggard there's better airflow around all of the tubes giving them a better bite of the apple.Just my experience with my car. Graham

[Mike Stevens]

I have an earlyish Mk2 and until last year had the original radiator. In the 25 years in my ownership, it never overheated or ever indicated above half way on the gauge.

Last year the radiator started to leak from the core, just after I had fitted an extra pipe fitting to ease filling with one of Vmad's header tanks and Stagdad's external water pump. Due to this extra fitting I doubted that I could get a straight exchange unit, so I had it re-cored with a modern core.

It all looks OK, except they have fitted a different top plate with new brackets which now make it 'lean' back a bit, reducing the clearance to the fan. Everything else looks fine so it's a great shame that they re-made the top plate with different brackets!

My current plan is to 'dress' the brackets to bring the top of the radiator further forward. Having only just re-taxed the car for the summer (hopefully paying for the last time!) I don't know how efficient the cooling is, but extended static tests showed it to be OK - and it hasn't leaked any coolant - yet!

Cheers,
Mike.

[Marco Polo]

As another forum member who lives in a hot climate I thought I'd add to this thread from my experience.
I have the Wards ally rad fitted to my car, I used to have the original rad fitted, the car didn't overheat and ran at around half way up the temp gauge, however when I retrofitted an original aircon a couple of years ago I decided to use an ally rad, the condenser for the aircon system is attached directly to and in front of the rad and I have a 16 inch Davies Craig fan fitted in front of the condenser.
The car now has difficulty reaching operating temperature especially if I have the aircon on, because the electric fan switches on to cool the condenser which in turn cools the radiator! I have no engine fan fitted. Even with the aircon off which would mean that the ambient temp is around 25C the temp gauge barely reaches 1/3. I have seen the wizard rad from the USA in another car and it does look very well made.
Cheers,
Raoul

[elvimto]

Just for the heck of it when i had the car out the other day my digital gauge reading from the coolant return to radiator was 185 the outlet back to the pump at the bottom of the radiator was 125 this temp using a very good quality temp gun borrowed from work. I also noticed the cooling effect across the radiator from left to right or top to bottom 60 odd degrees reduction I think is a good working 40 year old radiator. I am using the GM long life coolant.

cheers Stuart

[wigginke]

Very interesting reading
How does one tell which sort of radiator they have fitted
Are there some idenfications that are used
The rad I have was purchased in 1987 it was used for a few months and removed an stored dry
I fitted it last week filled it with coolant and had no leaks, not sure if I want to go through the pain of removing it
I have only just enought clearance between the fan and rad to get a belt through with nothig to spare
How thick was an original rad compared to the newer 3 or 4 core rads
What rad designs were out there in 1987. Did we have Supergill or 4 core then?

Thanks

Kevin