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radiator: do i really NEED two cores?


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Two cores would be better, of course, but I only have 1.

 

My ea-81 hatch's radiator went bad, busted along a seam. I had an extra wagon, in this case, an ea-82 so I just fabbed up some mounting and put it's rad in.

 

I have never had a cooilng issue with this rad. It is an aluminum 1 core rad.

 

Probably can get real cheap from a boneyard.

 

MD

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In my opinion going with the two core radiator is the best bet. Several write ups have been done on this engine about the internal problems with coolant flow. i.e. the passenger side gets less of the coolant from the water pump. I have seen several toasted ones and always get a double core one for these to halp overcome some of the internal problems.

 

radiator.com has them for pretty cheap and they deliver it right to your door.

 

Hush

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its summertime.

 

its the 1970's(late 70's) and your wearing Polyester slacks and shirt in the summer sun shine of say ... the southern U.S.

 

Now its the current year, same time of season, summer, same geographic location and your wearing a pair of loose jean shorts, and a long sleeve cotton shirt.

 

which will retain some heat, which will retail the most heat?

 

Now that the bad visual metaphor is done, radiators dot com have the $129 ish 2 core (ask for it) and its shippped right to ya and there is a warrantty too.

 

the one core is half as think so its half as effective and extracting heat.

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I wouldn't trust a JY radiator, I'd suspect a 10-year-old Sub radiator to be half-clogged or worse. Sure, you could get it for ~$25, then spend $50+ to get it professionally flushed, but now you're in the range for a new one.

 

My original radiator acted clogged up back in July. I went through about $20 of increasingly stronger off-the-shelf flushes which didn't work. Local shops wanted $50-$70 for an acid flush.

 

So I started shopping around. Finally settled on a Silla two-row radiator -- it's heavy-duty brass and looks bulletproof. I had ordered two previous (different brand) but they were so light-guage that they were both damaged in shipment. The Silla seems too solid to suffer that fate.

 

I think I got a great deal: $75 (included shipping). Other two-rows ranged from $110 to $150.

 

Now, the problem: construction was solid, but the holes didn't quite line up. The filler neck had to be bent back a bit for clearance. It took a couple hours of filing and tweaking to get it mounted. Shouldn't have had to do this for a "drop-in" replacement. The good news was that even with my pounding and bending, the radiator held up and didn't spring any leaks

:D

 

If I had to do it again: If I needed to save $40+ bucks, I wouldn't mind doing the Silla again. Otherwise, it would be safer to get a true drop-in.

 

I ordered the Silla from Ron at Radiator Supply House, Sweet Home, OR. 1-877-615-3002. He had it dropped-shipped from the Calif warehouse. Just a happy customer...

 

-- Mark

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I wasn't a true believer until I saw it with my own eyes :-)

 

I spent a few weeks checking/replacing everything in my cooling system: thermostat, radiator cap, etc.... Still chasing the problem. Then one day I reduced the coolant level to about halfway in the radiator. With the Subaru stock radiator, the angle of the filler neck lets you see down into the tank (with a flashlight).

 

I left the cap off, ran the engine till it was hot. Kinda scary, since I knew I had reduced its cooling capacity. Anyway, when the thermostat opened, voila!!! Looking into the radiator, I could see about 8 rows, and only 3 of them were flowing. The other 5 or so were clogged.

 

QED :-p

 

-- Mark

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I would definantly go with the 2 core because they are more eficiant than a single core as well as 2 is better for bench racing. I wouldnt trust a JY radiator because in my 84crx I put 5 radiators in in one month due to massive leaks as they dont check them at the yard. @ 50$ a radiator it would have been cheaper to order a new one.

 

Thats just my $0.02:burnout:

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