Well today I noticed alot of brown crap in my over flow tank. So I drain the rad. and its orange rust color. And I look inside the rad. and its completley covered with rust all on the fins. I just flushed it 5 months ago and it was clean. Not sure how this could have happened. The car did overheat a good bit when I had a belt blow but I replaced it and been driving the car ever since perfectly fine.
Maybe the increased pressure/heat caused alot of crap buildup to come loose?
Anyways I'd like to see some aftermarket possibly aluminum radiators to go with in the case that mine is screwed.
I plan on a 3800 sc swap in the future so i'd like some good cooling.
Anybody know anything about new radiators? Maybe a newer fan to go with it?
Something other than the archie 4 core $350 radiator. Too much money.

[This message has been edited by NorthFloridaFiero (edited 04-12-2006).]

Hi, I have a 88GT 3800SC , the stock rad & fan are fine, to get a good deal on one --look in the yellow pages under parts--then under whole sale radiators--they beat the parts stores everytime.

I've heard of some people that drive 3800sc's daily and at times it runs a little hot with the stock system I'm in Fla so it will have a/c and daily driving is going to be needed.
I'm going to go ahead and upgrade while I have the chance.
I hear great things about the ron davis radiators. Just have to make sure it all fits.
Also has anybody relocated the overflow tank to the front compartment? Maybe use that worthless windshield fluid tank as one?

[This message has been edited by NorthFloridaFiero (edited 04-12-2006).]

the radiator I just put in, I got from Autozone, and it is alum - $140

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1985 Fiero SE - Plain Red V6 Coupe
3.1 Crane272 MSD 4.10-4spd DarthChip Borla
D.A.M.M. - Drunks Against Mad Mothers

I would have to check the number, but I ordered a generic from Rock Auto.
found it!
SPECTRA PREMIUM CU828 $ 102.79
alum core, plastic tanks. since it is a generic, it has the automatic tranny cooler coil in it, fine with me , cause ya never know.
For all purposes, it is an exact duplicate of the original 88 I pulled out. has no problem handling the modified 2.8, and fit in exactly. plus it is cheep.
here's a 10% discount code good til may30th: 400127373309
put it in the how you heard about us line in the order form.

Hi, I run mine with a/c and in hot wheather---when you do the conversion--you`ll probally run the fan all the time anyway, Iv`e never even came close to over heating or heard of any 3800SC with heating issues--the SBC have heating issues sometimes--but its your $$$$ Ron Davis makes great rads Good Luck....

NorthFloridaFiero...
If you have rust in the rad, it't most likely because you have to litle glychol (Antifreeze.) in the system.
The glychol beside preventing the fluid to freeze, it also prevents the metal in both engine and the rad from corroding.
If you drive places that's extreamly hot, you get better cooling with plain water in the cooling system (Glychol does not cool as well as water.)
but then you need to ad some anticorroding chemical instead. I don't recomend that though. One night with cold may crack the engine block if youre having bad luck. (Frost plugs dont always save you.)

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87-GT 2.8L 5-spd.

I do believe the flush depending on what type you use contributes to the corrosion process in the system, I experienced the same problem except my radiator tank exploded on the hot side to bring the problem to my attention after the car had sat for some time without use. I also destroyed the engine in the process, it happened at night during a test drive unbelieveably fast.

From then on I just made sure as mentioned above that I kept a little radiator fluid in to prevent corrosion. The downside to running high levels of radiator fluid is that the engine tends to run hotter and likewise for the aluminum radiator I believe, you give up a little cooling efficiency in exchange for the weight of a copper radiator.

quote Originally posted by Joseph Upson: From then on I just made sure as mentioned above that I kept a little radiator fluid in to prevent corrosion. The downside to running high levels of radiator fluid is that the engine tends to run hotter and likewise for the aluminum radiator I believe, you give up a little cooling efficiency in exchange for the weight of a copper radiator.

aluminum is a MUCH better heat conductor/disapaetor than copper is. (how ever ya spell that...ug)
alum vs copper is not even a question - alum kicks coppers butt round & round.
copper is used because of price & availability, not heat transfer.

quote Originally posted by Pyrthian: aluminum is a MUCH better heat conductor/disapaetor than copper is. (how ever ya spell that...ug) alum vs copper is not even a question - alum kicks coppers butt round & round. copper is used because of price & availability, not heat transfer.

I would have to dissagree with you there. Aluminium is used for the lack of weight, (It's very light.) copper disapaets heat duble the rate of aluminium, but it's on the other end of the weight scale. Hence VERY HEAVY! that's why aluminium is used a lot on car rad's.

A good examle of that is my CPU cooler (Zalman.) with a 92mm fan. The fins are even larger than the fan. The fins are aluminium and weigh in at less than 400g, if i would bought the copper one, it would have weight 800g. It would have provided better cooling though, but then moving the computer would been hazardous. The holders for the CPU fan are not made to take such a big load.

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87-GT 2.8L 5-spd.

i recently talked to a radiator shop that told me the same thing. i wanted to get a aluminum rad for my lotus but he said to just have the old one boiled out and re-cored(if necessary). he said that copper transfers heat MUCH better than aluminum too. im not trying to fire up an argument and im by no means a radiator expert...but thats what that shop told me too...

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Keith
Topsail Beach,NC
86&87 Fiero GT
86&96 Corvette
04 Harley Davidson Softail
73 Lotus Europa Twin Cam
86 Lotus Turbo Esprit

"He who dies with the most toys wins!!!"

hmpf...maybe y'all are right.
its just every heatsink I've ever seen was alum.
so, I assumed its much better for heat dissapating

quote Originally posted by Pyrthian: hmpf...maybe y'all are right. its just every heatsink I've ever seen was alum. so, I assumed its much better for heat dissapating

Why do you think that copper pots and pans are on the high end when it comes to cookware? <Don't ask how I know this.....>

That's the benefit of being able to run higher compression with aluminum heads with the same octane rating in fuel, the aluminum doesn't transfer heat as well so the heads don't hold as much heat as the cast iron heads do so you end up with detonation resistance as well as a huge weight saving. At one time I thought it was the other way around also.

Computer heatsinks are aluminum because it's cheaper and weighs less. All that holds them in place is a pair of brittle plastic tabs, so too much weight could snap them off. Take a look at the bottom of most heatsinks and you'll find they have a copper center that contacts the CPU, to evenly put the heat into the cheaper lighter crappier aluminum. That's because copper conducts heat better.

Now some will say that aluminum is better for cooling because it "gives up" it's heat faster. That's bull. Aluminum isnt so dense so it won't hold as much heat as copper does. That's like saying a drinking straw will flow more water than a radiator hose because it "gives up" it's contents faster.

Every heat up the corner of a large aluminum part then touch any other part of the it? Aluminum spreads the heat faster then copper. Copper will conduct the heat better but because the heat “flows” better in the aluminum it will dissipate the heat better.
I worked as a welder for years and have seen it work. CPU heat sinks use copper to pull the heat out of the CPU and the aluminum to dissipate the heat. But it wont give up its heat you have to cool it.

I highly recommend Archie's 4-core rads - got mine last year and solved all fan/cooling issues
I have the one with the auto trans cooler built in but standard versions are also available.

Ryan

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1986 Fiero2m8 (LT1 NX / 4T60 Roadster in progress)
My build thread - https://www.fiero.nl/forum/Forum2/HTML/071642.html

Actually a silver radiator would be the best.

*********************QUOTE**********************************************
Next to silver, copper is king. Silver would be the ideal material for ultra efficient heatsinks, but is cost prohibitive. Copper offers the next best solution, at a fraction of the cost. Aluminum is a far third as far as thermal conductivity goes (not including gold), but makes up for those downsides with less cost, and lighter weights. From a manufacturing perspective, aluminum is also much easier to work with.
*******************END QUOTE****************************************
If anybody really cares, this goes into the physics of thermal conductivity.
http://www.frostytech.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=233

There's actually something better than silver, and that's diamond. Diamond is the best known transmitter of heat, as far as I know. Trouble is it would cost more than your life is worth to have a diamond cooler made...

And there's something better than diamond, solid hydrogen. Diamond is like 1000 W/mK, hydrogen at about 2K conducts heat at 100,000 W/mK

quote Originally posted by ryan.hess: And there's something better than diamond, solid hydrogen. Diamond is like 1000 W/mK, hydrogen at about 2K conducts heat at 100,000 W/mK

WOW!!! A temperature of 2K and the word heat are real strange to see in one sentance.

I live in Canada. I took my regular rad into a rad shop and told them to make the same thing in 4 core. They pretty much hit it on the button except for when I asked for a custom neck put on it. I had to massage the top mount a little to make it all fit. I can't remember off hand how much it cost exactly but it was around $300 CDN. I would just take the rad down to your local rad shop and get them to give you a quote.

Also, I would take a sample of that rusty/orange fluid and take it to a lab for analysis (probably around a $30CDN cost) just to see what's in it.

First of all. Thank you all for your inputs. I love info chocked threads.

Anyways

quote Originally posted by Kristian V: NorthFloridaFiero... If you have rust in the rad, it't most likely because you have to litle glychol (Antifreeze.) in the system. The glychol beside preventing the fluid to freeze, it also prevents the metal in both engine and the rad from corroding. If you drive places that's extreamly hot, you get better cooling with plain water in the cooling system (Glychol does not cool as well as water.) but then you need to ad some anticorroding chemical instead. I don't recomend that though. One night with cold may crack the engine block if youre having bad luck. (Frost plugs dont always save you.)

Now this makes sense. I'm in florida and didn't see the need for a full 50/50 mix. I probably skimmed on the coolant when adding it to the water. I didn't know it had such a part in the anti corrosion. I'm hoping the flush will get alot of it out but I got a feeling I'm totally screwed. Its running fine right now, I've driven it everyday so lets see how the flush goes.
Sigh.

quote Originally posted by Fiero2m8: Sorry, just noticed you didn't want to hear about Archie's rad

If it didn't cost so much that I could get something better for cheaper I would consider it. That and theres no info on his site about it.

There are several radiator options available... you can get a 3 or 4" taller than stock dual row aluminum radiator (i.e. won't fit without surgery) from a place I forget the name of** for about $170ish, or a drop in dual row aluminum replacement (still need different sized rad hoses) from rondavisradiators.com for about $230(?)

There's even a single row radiator on summit for fairly cheap.

**edit: speedwaymotors.com

[This message has been edited by ryan.hess (edited 04-12-2006).]

I have the autozone radiators with the lifetime warranty in two cars and they work fine. One is in the Finale with the 4.9L and I don't have any heating problems with it.

John Stricker

quote Originally posted by Pyrthian: the radiator I just put in, I got from Autozone, and it is alum - $140

NorthFloridaFiero...
In your case, i would have a 25/75 mix. Like you stated, you livin in Florida you don't need 50/50, with less glychol in the mix you get better heat transfer out of the engine. But you need a fair amount of glychol in there to prevent it from rusting away.

Good luck!

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87-GT 2.8L 5-spd.

To those saying to go with a stock replacement radiator at a parts store, double check on what you are actually getting. At Advance Auto, the GDI (Go Dan Industries) radiator for the V6 Fieros have copper tanks, but a copper/brass core. Doesn't say how much or how little is brass in the core, but brass is a pretty low metal on the heat conductivity scale. Here are some figures from a chart I found:

Aluminum - 136 BTU/(hr-ft-F) (0.098 lbs/in^3 density)
Copper - 231 BTU/(hr-ft-F) (0.322 lbs/in^3)
Brass - 69.33 BTU/(hr-ft-F) (0.306 lbs/in^3)
Silver - 247.87 BTU/(hr-ft-F) (0.379 lbs/in^3)

With a copper 30%/brass 70% mixture it gets a 111.0 W/m-C conductivity, compare that to the range of aluminum being 121 to 220 W/m-C depending on grade and temper of aluminum used. Copper gets 388 W/m-C and for the hell of it, pure silver, 418 W/m-C.

So have your local parts store double check their catalogs to make sure you know what you are getting and then weigh, no pun intended, out your choices.

well i flushed it out today. Alot of crap came out.
I can still see some light rust powder crap on the fins inside the radiator. I flushed everything out and took out the hardline drain plugs as well.
Its pretty clean. Then I added my own concoction of 4.5 qts of coolant, and the rest water + waterwetter. Now I'm just trying to get the air out which is always a pain but seems to be working. So we'll see. Hopefully it will stay clean.
Thanks for all the input
If it comes back and its bad I will prolly spring for the ron davis unit, should be the last one i ever buy.

quote Originally posted by Kristian V: NorthFloridaFiero... If you have rust in the rad, it't most likely because you have to litle glychol (Antifreeze.) in the system. The glychol beside preventing the fluid to freeze, it also prevents the metal in both engine and the rad from corroding. If you drive places that's extreamly hot, you get better cooling with plain water in the cooling system (Glychol does not cool as well as water.) but then you need to ad some anticorroding chemical instead. I don't recomend that though. One night with cold may crack the engine block if youre having bad luck. (Frost plugs dont always save you.)

Another thing the glycol does that a lot of people don't realize is besides lowering the freeze point, is it RAISES the boiling point of water. So, if you use just water, or a very low amount of glycol in your system, you could experience a boilover. Remember, the factory set the fan to come on at 235 degrees F, water boils at 212 degrees F. Of course the radiator cap also helps raise the boil point by pressurezing the system, but it's still too close for comfort as far a I'm concerned.

Max

quote Originally posted by Max The Chainsaw: Another thing the glycol does that a lot of people don't realize is besides lowering the freeze point, is it RAISES the boiling point of water. So, if you use just water, or a very low amount of glycol in your system, you could experience a boilover. Remember, the factory set the fan to come on at 235 degrees F, water boils at 212 degrees F. Of course the radiator cap also helps raise the boil point by pressurezing the system, but it's still too close for comfort as far a I'm concerned. Max

Every lb of pressure only raises the boiling point by 3.5 degrees Farenheit.

I run a 20/80 Zerex G-05 (yellow)/water mix in my daily driver, not a Fiero, with a 17 lbs cap and I have no trouble with 30-degree winters and 90 to 100-degree summers here. Of course I also run a 160F thermostat and a 175F fan controller..

Just went out for the night.
Btw i have 180* tstat, and the lower temp fan switch rodney offers. Both of those helped a good bit before I flushed it.
Seems to have worked really well. I filled it to about 13 qts so thats really close to the 13.8 capacity. Theres always gonna be some little bit of coolant in there after draining it.
Hopefully the rust subsides, We'll see. As long as it doesnt overheat I'm happy.
Thanks all!