For those that are considering the Griffin, I've decided to take a lot of pics of my installation and write a step-by-step installation procedure. I haven't completely finished yet (nor have I uploaded any pics), but I've test fitted the radiator and all I have to do now is paint a few spots and have the heater core hose attachment welded to the radiator.

Anyway.. I bought the Griffin dual 1" core 19x31" radiator for $189 from Summit.

I'm going to give the play by play, but I'm assuming that anybody that is brave enough to tackle this project already has the basics covered, like knowing how to drain your coolant.

1. Drain coolant and remove old radiator.

2. Cut the lower rubber mounts off right in front of the vertical piece that separates the condenser and radiator mounting location. In my case the condenser could be easily removed so I did this on a work bench. If your air conditioning is hooked up, you obviously can't do that.

3. If you test fit the radiator, you'll see that it doesn't fit. You need to make it fit. I did this by cutting a small section of the lower radiator support with a die grinder, then hammering that area flat. I also had to hammer the tin on the sides to provide ample room for the tanks. You do not want the radiator to touch any metal! Expect to test fit it a million times.

4. Since the stock rubber mounts did not fit the bigger Griffin radiator, I made my own out of some rubber I had lieing around. I'll measure later, but I think it's between 1/4" and 3/8" thick. I'm not going to spend an hour describing the mounts. Look for the picture shortly

5. I decided to use Monkey Sh*t to hold the mounts to the bottom of the radiator.

6. With the low profile mounts I used, it helped to reduce the height differential between the stock radiator and the griffin. I've got some aluminum sheet metal that I'm going to use to make a custom upper mount/shroud, but in the meantime I modified the stock piece to fit. I removed the rubber end mounts and inserted some rubber blocks between the vertical ribs of the coil area. (The pic makes this perfectly clear). This helped again to reduce the height difference of the overall assembly enough that the stock TPI airbox fits fine.

7. The stock plastic top piece required some minor cutting to clear the tank welds. Since the area near the fan mount is in direct contact with the radiator surface, be sure to run a thin strip of rubber (an old bike tube would work great) to prevent chafing.

8. It's also necessary to slot the bolt holes 1/4" or so. Since the condenser has rubber pads to keep the radiator from hitting, your radiator should already be well positioned and not in danger of rubbing the upper support. If you don't have a condenser, you'll need to fab another rubber piece to keep the radiator back from the support bar.

This is the stage I'm at now. All I have left to do is modify the lower fan mount, and have the heater hose piece welded to the radiator. My total expenses for this project will be under $250.

I'll have pictures up tonight.

 

I just got the fan installed. That was a piece of cake and it didn't require one bit of custom fabrication. I had to shorten the bolts that attach the lower fan mount to the radiator tray. I shortened them approximately 1/4", which leaves them around 3/8" to 1/2" away from the radiator.

The upper fan bolts attached directly to the stock shroud and had plenty of clearance between them and the radiator.

With the stock radiator, the fan sits within the lip of the lower radiator tray. It sits sandwiched between that lip and the stock fan mount. When I did this the fan contacted the radiator. I moved the fan outside of the lower radiator tray. This made the fan parallel to the radiator. I got 1/2" longer bolts for the bottom and snugged them. All 4 fan bolts lined up perfectly with the nuts in the upper and lower mounts.

Overall I'm quite impressed at how well this fit. I really didn't expect it to fit so well. Now I've got it all back out so that I can prime and paint the lower support.

 

I now have the pictures and the installation procedure online. I just haven't integrated the pictures into the procedure yet.

The url is http://iroc.fbody.com/rad

 

I seem to be getting zero feedback, but considering the number of views, I guess some people are interrested in this.

I did more work on the html file. It's located at http://iroc.fbody.com/rad/rad.html

I have the thumbnails in the document, but I haven't linked to the big pics yet. I've also got to add 2 or 3 more steps after I get the radiator back from the welder.

 

All I can say is great job on the tech page. I know from experiance it's alot of work to make it look good.

Congrats on the radiator install keeping it simple.

I can tell people this, the above procedure WON'T work for the bigger Griffin with dual 1 1/4" tubes.. With that monster you will have to fab a new upper mount and lower fan mount.

 

While doing my installation, it became quite obvious that if the radiator was 1/2" thicker, this would have become a MAJOR project, especially if I wanted to keep my AC condenser.

I had the 1/8" aluminum sheet metal before I even started this project. I fully expected to fab as much as you did. I never expected the stock stuff to fit. What surprised me the most was that the fan bolted right into the stock mounts. With the Griffin being 1/2" taller than the stock radiator, I never expected to have the fan bolt in. I guess my slim mounts made up the difference in height.

 

I got the radiator back from the welder today and it looks great. It'll get installed permanently tomorrow.

I also finished the tech article. It should be complete now, barring any unnoticed errors.

 

great job. let us know how much cooler it runs now . i'll be doing this but not any time soon

 

I got it all put together tonight but it got too late so I didn't fill it yet. I should be driving it tomorrow, so we'll see how she does.

My only complaint so far is that there's no drain in the radiator, so I'm going to have to fight with the lower hose every time I need to drain my coolant.

 

LOL, monkey **** is called "dum-dum" and is commonly used in ducting to seal them. Also is used in the top corner of our cars to fill the gap around the weatherstrip seal.

Good article!

Broken link to pic #4

 

Thanks.

 

Update:
I drove the car tonight. I'm running a 180* thermostat, and my car never got over 186* when driving. Sitting idling my auto x-ray took a dump (it tends to do that a lot ), but my fan came on, ran for no more than 30 seconds then shut off. My fan turn-on temp is 211 and the turn-off temp is 206.

As soon as the thermostat opens or the fan comes on, the temp comes down FAST. This radiator has some serious cooling capacity. It's going to get hot this week so we'll see how it does in the heat.

 

Awsome work! Im doing that... likelly in a few days! my problem is with the blower, once I go into boost, it heats up quick! I go from 190 - 220* in less than 10 seconds of boost! scary huh? on the highway it hits 220 easy, and wont come back down till i shut off the car. hell the only reason it doesnt get super-hot is because I have the coolest fans I've ever seen! they are flex-a-lite Ultra low profile electric fans and have a little black box that I can set whatever temp I want them to come on at. they work great, till the car gets a little hot then they just run and run and run... I need a new radiator BAD! I'll probably buy the same one as you, it looks real good and will probly be easy for me to install because I've ripped out my A/C and just about anything I didnt need. I've got the pics in the POWER ADDER section under the post "Finnaly! Some pics of my car! 355 Roots blower!" or somthing like that. I think theres a pic of the fans but im not sure! hah. If I hit a snag installing the thing, I will prolly post here hehe but I dont have a computer where I live with internet so it prolly wont be for a while. last question, do you think that radiator can keep up with my super-heated blower engine?

 

NOT true! I have the HP Series
(1.25" dual row) installed in my car.
It's tight between the core support
and I had to trim the top mount, but
other than that, it fits fine.

http://207.53.239.181/~terry/griffin/

hth,

T.

 

Nice work Terry. How about that heater core return fitting, did you order that as an option?

 

It came as "standard". The only extra-cost
option was the tranny cooler.

So basically it's like a "direct replacement"
radiator, except it does take a shoehorn
to get it in there.

hth,

T.

 

Oh I see Terry. You bought the $$$ one. That makes my statement about the upper and lower mounts needing custom made still true. I bought the cheaper dual 1 1/4" tube UNIVERSAL radiator.

 

Mine works great, it was a little large for the stock support cover, but it still worked.

 

Did you get the $189 dual 1" tube version or the $289 dual 1 1/4" tube one?

I still conclude that with the $289 version the top and bottom mounts need to be custom fabbed.

 

yes the universal $289 griffin does take some fabricating. If you don't care about looks, just cut the factory radiator support and rivet a piece of aluminum to space it out to work. You might need to trim the lower radiator hose too.

 

I got the $180 one.

 

I just ordered one but I forgot the tranny cooler. Do I need the tranny cooler on my '91 L98 auto?

 

Do you need a cooler? Well, if you have an automatic transmission then some type of cooler is required otherwise the tranny would burn itself out in short order.

From the factory the trans cooler is part of the radiator. Griffin's universal radiator doesn't have this provision there fore you MUST run an aux tranny cooler to keep temps down. I run dual coolers just to be safe.

 

Thanks, that's what I'm doing. I didn't want to have to send this one back.

 

blown87gta What is the part # did you order and how much was it, where did you get it? I'm looking to order one asap but would like to get the added features you have.

 

looks great, i just got done putting in a radiator, a modine from advance auto parts. keeps me alittle cooler now..

 

so what was the total cost on the entire project?

 

nice.
thanks.
I Plan on doing this before next summer.
-Rich-

 

Sweet thread and good work!! I was just looking for this info and was about to post a new topic.

:lala: