cheap radiator upgrade

holy200sx · Oct 5th, 2003, 11:22 AM

well, upon removing the old headers of mine.. i bent a few fins in my radiator.. i didnt think anything of it at the time.. until i started driving one day, and my car had maximum heat.. i was quite confused.. i pull over, and see that my radiator is empty,, and it hasnt started steaming yet..

anyways, i broke my radiator and had to get a new one..

i went looking for cheap ass replacements.. and found teamradiator.com... they had a dual core nissan 200sx se-r radiator, and i was like. hell yeah.. 95$ shipped...

got it in on tuesday, and heres what i got..

as you can see, its almost 2x thicker than the stock radiator.. i installed it, filled it up, and threw the cap on, drove it around, leveled it off, then drove it to my friends house.. i noticed the temperature guage has dropped big time.. it used to be like.. directly center straight along with the picture on the guage.. now you can clearly see hte picture, and the needle is pointing down..

cheap upgrade, its clean as hell.. although it doenst stop the fact its still plastic end tanks... but.. its 1/4 the price of a koyo, and it cools it alot better than stock.

Katana200sx · Oct 5th, 2003, 11:44 AM

i might have to look into that. i never knew how thin our radiators were until i removed mine.

holy200sx · Oct 5th, 2003, 03:10 PM

lol i know.

96sentra · Oct 5th, 2003, 10:06 PM

that doesnt change how your heater works does it?

BobBitchin · Oct 7th, 2003, 06:30 PM

Does the extra width have any clearance issues, i.e: fans or AC condensor?

McLaren F1 2003 · Oct 7th, 2003, 06:48 PM

any mods needed?

whiteb14 · Oct 8th, 2003, 09:11 AM

good find holy... easy to fit/install??

niky · Oct 8th, 2003, 11:34 AM

Should be no problem... late japanese B14s come stock with dual cores... clearance difference is only a few millimeters.

holy200sx · Oct 8th, 2003, 04:36 PM

yeah.. my clearance is completly identical.. it wont affect heating difference much.. no mods were needed, it bolted in perfectly, and it has 2 bungs at the bottom where i think a coolant cooler can be attached.. or.. turbo inlet outlet.. hehe

McLaren F1 2003 · Oct 8th, 2003, 07:30 PM

hmmm...im going to have to invest in that...seeing as it requires no mods

**Asleep** · Oct 8th, 2003, 08:11 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by 96sentra
that doesnt change how your heater works does it?

it shouldnt since the heater is supplied with its heat from the heater core and the thermostat was not changed.

DanTheMan · Nov 7th, 2003, 05:37 AM

Are you running a stock cap or overpressurising it?
My stock rad developed a leak after overboost with a 1.2bar zx tt cap. Stop leak working so far but this sounds great. Plastic end tanks bite though, I think thats why mine leaked (only 4 drops) because of that and the high press. cap.
Anyone else using a TT radiator cap on a stock 1.6 ga16de radiator?

**Asleep** · Nov 8th, 2003, 12:48 AM

im using a tt cap on my altima. the thing people forget when they switch over the higher pressure cap is that the rest of your system needs to be able to handle the additional pressure. that means all hoses and clamps, gaskets, and tanks on the radiator.