So has anyone ever put an aluminum aftermarket radiator in a maverick that isn't for a maverick?? In other words, will an Aluminum radiator for say a mustang, camaro, or nova work? Of course with slight modifications but I'm not afraid to do some fabricating. I have a procharged EFI 408w going in my maverick and will be primarily a street car and I want it run real cool. I will have a nice set of dual electric fans and shroud on the radiator. I just need help on sizing one, 3 core, 4 core, 2 row? 3 row? I just don't know much I am aware of Griffin radiator company who makes aluminum radiators for mavericks but again, I don't know if that would hold enough to keep my power level cool. Any help appreciated.
Thanks for the reply bud. Is it made for a maverick? I was hoping to get one a bit longer and not use the stock mounting tabs.
Hi Alabama: I've run a Griffin Oversized Radiator for years now in a 408 Stroker .. I have a Pusher and Puller Fan Also and I make the HOT ROD Power Tour every chance I get .. My engine can ' idle ' for an Hour or so at some of the ' stops ' along the tour and never climbs above the 190 temperature mark with the Vintage AC cranking away . The Griffin is a little ' wider ' so we made our own mounts and installed a nice shroud that helped a lot also. Cometized (Chip)
I have an oversized Griffin cross flow in mine, only have about 1/2" clearance on either side to frame. Supposedly can keep a 600 hp motor cool. Welded some "L" brackets to the frame with rubber on top and the radiator bottom channel sits right on them. Two bolts in the top go through the radiator support.
I bought this set up on ebay for a friend of mine's 65 Galaxie 500 for $275 delivered. 3-core. It's the same size as the one I have in my 73 Maverick.
Hi again: Yep ! I'll take some pics of the setup and put them up . My car with the Griffin Radiator is a 74 Mercury COMET .. and we've done a 70 , and a 72 Maverick ,with a Pusher & Puller also on a stock 5.0 and a 331 Stroker . Both fuel injected that also run cool . I like the ' Electric Fans ' setup and it's proven to be very efficient in all cases. Cometized (Chip)
Couple of helpful suggestions and comments for you. Avoid down-flow rad designs(like the ones that originally came in model T's and our cars) at all cost, even if they're free. Not right at all for a squeezed bullet like that one. More cores helps but still poor efficiency ratings compared to same sized alternate designs. Double pass designs are among the most efficient sometimes needing only 1 thin'ish core to get the job done. Less weight with same or better efficiency is always a good thing. I ran a factory SINGLE CORE double-pass on my 500+ horse 383 Blazer motor and had no issues in summer heat with NON-SHROUDED dual e-fans. Only ever turned on during stoplights and/or very slow moving traffic. Liked it so much(ULTRA LIGHT) was thinking about using that same core in my Comet but after careful measurements it would require too much hacking to squeeze that longer 30" core in. The engines idle/light throttle cruise tuneup quality makes a HUGE difference in cooling system heat saturation levels. Rich is safe when it comes to boost but it's rarely ever good at idle on any engine, 2 stroke, 4 stroke, wankel, doesn't matter. No boost at idle/light cruise, tighten up your ignition and fuel curve calibrations and that motor will put no more heat out than any other similarly powered N/A setup would. Just simple physics based on amounts of fuel burned. In the last 30 years, aside from a few clogged systems and/or rusted impellers, I have found that most vehicles with coolant temp issues at idle have underlying tuning issues FAR more often than radiator sizing/cooling capability issues. But instead of correcting some of the underlying issues they just add more cores, more coolant volume, and unnecessary front end weight to snuff the extra wasted energy transfer out. Unfortunately, the same excessive and wasteful energy transfer is still occurring same as before the rad swap but now the gauge won't show it because it's getting spread out into greater coolant volume and wicked away quicker than it can saturate the bigger higher cored system. It's an illusion that disguises the fact that the tune is still off enough to cause that extra waste heat in the first place. As for sizing?.. maximum horsepower ratings/capability has absolutely nothing to do with anything other than all out endurance engines which see extended periods of maximum power at high rpm's. While I would certainly agree to tossing a bit of extra safety margin/insurance some added overkill(my middle name), it's like comparing your cars performance to Bonneville salt max speed runs. You'll never even get close to such extended periods of heat output. Even 1/4 mile drag racing doesn't tax small OEM systems(some are also single cores) enough to warrant an upgrade to 4 cores. Look around you, TONS of big power adder combo's running OEM cooling systems. If you can run a better rad design using a smaller/thinner size core and incorporate a flowkooler hi-flow waterpump?.. you would be amazed at how small and compact a cooling system can actually be designed when the tuneup is closer to right. You'll see this bigger than expected OEM safety margin on many boosted factory setup that are WELL over 600 horsepower. I've also seen more than a handful of twin-turbo hot street type deals with OEM systems pushing over 900 horsepower. Dozens upon dozens of them, sometimes even the "readers rides" can be found in magazines too. Lots of cone racers and even stroker big-blocks running around out there with single cores too. Point is this.. higher volume and core count is almost never a good substitute for a properly designed cooling system. Essentially, we want the water to move as fast as possible through the engine but then stay in the radiator as long as possible to shed its heat before recirculating back through the engine again. Flowkooler water pumps and double-pass designs allow that to happen. The water surfactants like "watter wetter" also work very well to compliment and add more efficiency and overall safety margin. Small internal "turbulators" also help in slowing down the coolant inside the rad so the greater internal surface area can better wick more BTU's from the coolant. On the outside, having more fins per/inch also helps cooling efficiency. Not much available room for you to work with in this engine bay but it's still worth mentioning that not all fan shrouds are created equal either. The shallower designs pinch off and reduces the volume of airflow in the very most corners of the core. This same effect is also inherent to the dual fan shrouds where the center-most portion of the core is shrouded from efficient through airflow. After passing the core, you're basically forcing the air to suddenly turn 90° to finish navigating its way through 1 large or 2 smaller openings. This obviously shrinks the exposure area and reduces airflow capabilities, ultimately reducing the existing designs effective core size. Sorry it ran so long.. was multitasking and added up into longer reply than anticipated. Hopefully its not too rambly or convoluted and gets the main points across to help you get your head wrapped around some of the factors involved here.
Why do all radiator companies have a horsepower rating on their radiators? Oh yea, I have friends making that power level on their OEM systems, however their systems are much better designed than our ancient OEM systems lol This motor is fuel injected and has the Holley HP and with their new self learning feature, with constantly getting signals O2 sensors, the AFR will be right on, so I'm not that concerned about tune up. Obviously it's inherently important. Thanks for the in depth response. My thoughts are, these cars came with a cooling system capable of cooling a very mild 302. Considering I have more cubic inches I will generate more heat, therefore I want a better design over the factory system.
Might have misinterpreted what I was getting at, wasn't trying to imply that radiator power ratings were wrong or completely useless.. only that they are often misinterpreted and ineffectually related/paired to each combination of parts specific power level. It's simple math the figure out the radiators BTU dissipation requirement based on specific horsepower production over time. Is why I made that "unless it's an endurance racing engine" remark. Also why I specifically pointed out that there are cars out there which seemingly defy the laws of physics running twin-turbo's with factory single core radiators. A radiator originally designed to cool a meager little 250 horsepower motor in rush hour traffic during the heat of summer with the A/C cranked up, can still easily handle that 1,100 horsepower BTU output without puking coolant because it occurs over such a limited amount of time before the system can completely saturate to its maximum BTU capability. 100+ MPH airflow pressuring it's way through the core never hurts efficiency either and allows greater BTU dissipation capability. Even on an airplane runway, pretty tough to control 600 horsepower, much less 1,100 horsepower for any more than 20 seconds @WOT before you'd need to get off throttle and/or slam on the brakes to make a turn. How and where YOU drive and race this car has a major impact on the amount of extra safety margin that should be considered. Like I said above, I get the overkill mentality, especially after spending big cash on a bullet, but design and careful planning could make your car even faster by lightening up the front end. Reducing nose weight almost always improves stopping and turning too. And yes.. the downflow rad designs suck. Best to improve the original design characteristics than just tossing in a larger 4 core downflow design in its place. Tons of water pump(various outlet config's) and hose options available these days if you want to fabricate mounts for non-oem rad swaps. I will dig around my other machine for links if you need more info. In the meanwhile, this is a very good one to give similar overviews to some of the things I previously pointed you towards. http://www.saldanaracingproducts.com/Cooling System Principles.pdf PS. not to go too far off topic here.. but an EFI system set to make a "magic 14.7" or any other full throttle power enrichment number is usually still far from being fully optimized. They are plug and play.. not plug and forget. At least it self learns compared to a carburetor, but it's still not quite perfect either. This is because every engines AFR sweet spot can vary throughout the entire power curve. Simply changing the engines acceleration rate, as if you swapped from a taller to shorter rear gear, or maybe installed a supercharger?.. will impact optimum AFR numbers. Unfortunately, the EFI units preset calibration numbers(self-learn included) will not allow the ECU to deviate towards a more engine specific optimized number. A good and LENGTHY dyno tune with user adjusted AFR's will suss out the hidden power potential. 14.7 stoich and 12.5/1 power enrichment are only baselines to be safe. Avoid inertia dyno's.. find a brake or eddy style to better simulate true loaded boost levels and tune for part throttle driveability. Just need to use EGT sensors or stay safer when making off the beaten path type changes.. or simply plan on leaving some extra cylinder pressure/power on the table like the guys who don't understand how to tune carburetors. Gotta have some added insurance one way or the other. EDIT; here's an excerpt from the that link. My carpal tunnel wishes I could have summed it up so well. Kidding.. just trying to help. "To calculate radiator capacity, continuous HP is used, not maximum HP. For instance, a 500 HP stock car will need more cooling capacity than an 850 HP dragster. In a ten minute segment, the stock car would generate roughly 180,000 BTU; while dragster might idle less than ten minutes and make an eight second run with a 750 HP average. At full throttle for ten seconds, the dragster would emit about 6,000 BTU. For this reason, the cooling system for the dragster must be adequate enough to prevent detonation while in full power and maintain temperatures when idling."
