I'm thinking about installing one of these in my car. I'm looking for on the road, hands on experience with this radiator. I have a built 355 that really strains my OEM radiator in warm weather; don't even mention the AC, if I try to run that I'd overheat the car.

What's your experience with the 2-core or the 3-core? What are your results in situations, like sitting in traffic on a 90 degree day with the AC running.

 

Worst case scenario for me:

Houston, TX with 100° weather, usual Houston humidity (ugly hot), stop and go traffic, long red lights at rush hour. Air conditioning on.

210° coolant temps......It's a good radiator. Most of the time at this point in the summer, it stays in the 190-195° range.

 

Do you have the 2 core or the 3 core? Any other supporting cooling mods?


Oh, and pics, if you got them! I want to see how it fits.

 

Ok, the 3 row Champion radiator cannot be compared in terms of rows of tubes to Griffin, Northern, Afco, Becool 2 row radiators. The Manufacturers standards for so long on Race type rads was the 1" tube. Then here came Champion making outrageous claims that their 3 row radiators were so wonderful and could cool 1000 hp or some high fairy tale number. Fact is, any radiator that is much of an upgrade from stock at all will not be a perfect "direct fit" radiator. Champions "3 row" radiator is really only 3rows of 1/2" tubes at best which is maybe a little bit better than the OEM hd radiator for our cars which was a single row of 1 3/8" tubing with more fins per inch than the Champion unit. Sure a new Champion unit would cool better than an old half plugged original and if your pretty much stock it will work fine I suppose, however, if you want a real upgrade, you will have to go to a 2 row 1" tube radiator or better and live with the fit problems. See, 2rows of 1" tubes requires an air space between front and rear rows, aprox. 1/8", making the core approx 2 1/8" thick. This almost always ends up with a 2 3/4" - 3" tank thickness ( 3" typical ) where tank sits on the header of the core and is welded. The OEM plastic tank radiator as well as the early CU/BR radiators all had 2 3/8" headers on the end of the cores and this is where the radiator sits in the rubber insulators in your GM product. That is why the HD 2 row after markets don't fit we'll ( 3" header vs. 2 3/8" OEM headers) . If the aftermarket Champion radiator fits well, it's probably no or next to no cooling upgrade. Remember, they are not immune to the rules of the row. Their rows have approx. 1/8" spaces front to rear so 1/2" tube x 3 + 1/8" tube space x 2 = 1 7/8" core thickness. Again, adequate for a mild ride but not much of an upgrade from OEM compared to a 2 row 1" tube Griffin, Northern, Afco, Becool, etc... With fit problems. From a radiator man's standpoint, when someone says three row aluminum radiator, I see a 3 1/4" thick core, 3 rows of 1" tubes! That's what is in my car and that's a real fit problem( LOL ). Champion's "3 row" sales pitch is actually a bogus approach to the matter and they know it. On the other hand, they are cheap!

 

So in other words, I should keep my newish Delco unit?

 

If it is a true Delco unit and clean for sure, probably not going to change much with the Champion. I would make sure fans are working properly 1st. Temp wise, these fans are factory set to come on at about 225F. You could change out the temp switch to come on at a lower temperature and would probably do you more good. If your motor is twisted up, then I would skip the Champion and move on up to one of the other brands.

 

I had a new oem style aftermarket replacement radiator, BRAND NEW.
My temps would creep up in traffic even with the fan on and a 180 thermostat.
I upgraded to a Champion 2 row, and now my temps never go over 190 even in traffic on a hot day.

 

Topradman hit it perfectly. There radiators aren't bad but they do not cool as advertised. Things that need to be remembered is that the more cores you have the less efficient it becomes, this means air needs to travel through the radiator to cool, the easier the air flows through the more can get through it and therefore enhance cooling. Other things are thickness of cores as mentioned. Champions 3 core is just as thick or thinner than my summit racing universal 2 core which has a 2 3/4" core thickness but only 2 rows. The champions is much less and has more cures which is not good.

Now my engine is a 521 BBF and on a 100*F day on the highway doing 3000 rpms at 60mph engine temps got to 190-210*F. My rads overall size is 31x19".

Summit rad is made by northern radiator and is decent but cools well. Champion rads is ok but doesn't compare to the big name
Brands. If your overheating throw in a decent 2 Core and and a hell of alot more fans! Remember that rad,coolant flow, and fans are the only things that matter below 35mph, after that fans do nothing.

 

Topradman, what EXACT rad do you have. I -make- things -work-

(don't really care about fitment)

 

a lot of guys. who have installed them. seem to like them..
when I had lingenfelter do my Z28 back in the day.
50 state smog passing 383 mech roller eng.
my stock rad always worked fine..

my stock one is still like new...
I have also picked up one of the 3 cores your talking about.
will up date to what one works best

 

Had one of these in out GTA with the 383. Probably the worst built radiator I have ever seen. A good portion of the tubes were bent closed on each end limiting flow through the radiator. A friend actually cut his open after overheating an engine and found more than half of the tubes were bent shut on at least one end.

Unless you're desperate and this is all you can afford, I wouldn't touch one. Try building a shrouded fan assembly for the stock radiator and I bet you will solve your cooling issues with just a shrouded fan setup.

 

Comparing an aftermarket 3 core to a stock 1 core is of
Course going to show an improvement. You are going to have much
More surface area with the 3 core as its no doubtly thicker than the stocker.

 

Pulling out heat with a super stout fan assembly can improve cooling on even a moderate radiator.

 

Not true. The 3 core Champion I tried to use for a few months was of such poor build quality that the car had the same and possibly worse cooling issues than it had with the stocker.

Moving to a customized Ron Davis Racing 2 core radiator and fully shrouded Spal fan setup has the car set up to where it can sit idling in grid on 100 degree days with no cooling issues between runs on the autox course in run groups that last a hour or more.

 

Remember too that it also comes down to flow.....anytime you open up the volume of coolant by means of a larger capacity radiator with no change in speed from the water pump, you have effectively reduced the pressure or speed at which the coolant moves through the radiator-this is not a bad thing since more of the coolant now has a chance to shed its heat.....the process is further amplified for the better with the use of 1 or 2 high output electric fans for low speed driving/cruising. A good radiator means the engine rarely goes too high and the measure of a quality fan setup is how little they have to remain running once activated.

 

well I can say my 11-1 383 mech roller alum head ligefelter small block
never over heated with my stock rad.. most it saw was 195. 200 on hot days at the track..and driving.... even on 300 mile drives. 185/190.

my cars fans(2) are and have been set to come on at the same time.
im only upgrading. cuzz I think I have to...and wanted better looks

they look better when you buff/polish them up..

my 2 fans kick on at the same time and off at the same time.
that's the way lingenfelter set my car up...
its a upgrade you can do also!
I have a small led that comes on at 190 deg. tells me my fans have kicked on.


you can stand 30 feet in back of my car. after I shut it down.
and the fans keep running till its down to 160 I think.
it feels like a hair dryer on your legs.. that's some CFM !
that's the stock fans.. keeping every thing the same. just uping rad size.
the one I picked up is the same out side size. diff could be 1/4 inch maby.
all tranny lines fit..not using them. this time. just capping them off and going strait to aftermarket 6AN Cooler.. looks better.

I did take and tap the plug fitting. and install a 1/8 alum plug..don't need it
and I picked up a 1/16 to 4AN fitting for the over flow.. cuzz I want ever thing AN fitting on the car.
go's to the AN fitting on the Canton over flow tank.

if it works ill have AN fitting installed on the rad inplace of the hose fitting(upper/lower)
have a alum water pump done that way now.

 

Yes....but you can run cool with aluminum heads.....that's cheating....lol. For iron heads and anything over 10:1 you are gonna have cooling issues with the stock setup. But I agree upgrading is always a good idea. From my experience, the stock electric fans are the Achilles heal when it comes to pulling a lot of heat out.....newer style fans are leaps and bounds ahead of those offerings.

 

Lets just say that the champion rad showed up undamaged and worked as it should lol humor me. The 3 core is most likely thicker than the stocker and if flow isn't hindered in the champion then it should show some improvement.

 

I went with the 3 core. Only other mods are 180° thermostat and a 200/185° fan switch. I have my transmission cooler bypassed (not hooked up to the radiator).

I fully agree with what topradman says about "real" radiators vs so so aftermarket radiators. But then again, we have to put this into perspective. If you own a '55 Chevy, a '69 Camaro, a '70 Chevelle. Or even a modern day pickup truck, you have lots of room for gigantic radiators.

On a 3rd gen F-body, it's a different story. On my car, with the Pontiac style air intake, I am out of room. A Camaro would have an easier job as the air intake is a straight design. No air conditioning would make it easier as well. See what I mean?





Look how close my A/C compressor clutch is to the air intake hose. It actually ground down a little bit of the hose. But not enough to go through. I have no idea how I would fit in a "real" radiator like the Be Cool, Griffin, etc

 

The key is location. You live in Spokane. I know the weather well, as I used to live in British Columbia. Humidity was nill. Summer weather was 75° maybe 80° during the afternoon. And rush hour (at least for me) used to be about 8 cars on the highway instead of 3. I could stop for gas on the side of the highway. And after filling up, I would see the coolant gauge go from 200 back down to 180° in the span of about 20-30 seconds (with the stock radiator)

I moved to Houston in August 6 years ago..... August......My car felt like it lost about 40 HP the first summer I was here. Because I went from no fans or 1 fan on with little to no A/C use (and 180° coolant temps), to both fans on with the A/C running all the time (and 200-230° coolant temps)

The stock radiator with dual fans worked fine if you were moving constantly. But during the peak of summertime, I would see it hit 230° during rush hour afternoon traffic. With the Champion now, it rarely goes above 200°. 210° is the highest I've seen it go. We had a heat index of 108° today. Supposed to be even hotter tomorrow.

My take on stock vs Champion is that the Champion is better. But it's not the be all end all of radiators. The only reason I bought it was because my original one started leaking on me and I wanted to get something a bit better.

My friend esc has a 4 core radiator with a flex fan on his 1982 Camaro. He said that the old dual fan setup he had wouldn't move enough air through the 4 core. (I'll see if I can get him to post some pictures). I agree with the fans not being able to keep up. Because if you look at cars today, everything from high dollar BMW's to budget Honda Civics have radiator fans that sound like jet turbines. I can never hear my radiator fans on. The only time I hear them is when I turn the car off and can hear them spin down for a brief few seconds.

 

Champion says my 3 core will cool 750 HP .....My question is where and at what temp? Phoenix at 180°? Forget about it. Anchorage at 195°? Sure.

Champion 2 core specs:

Total: 18.88" wide (20 " with cap) x 32" wide
Core: 17.25" tall x 26.25" wide x 1.75 thick
Inlet: 1.5" driver side
Outlet: 1.63" passenger side
Tanks: 2.5" thick
Tubes: 0.75" thick

Champion 3 core specs:

Total: 18.88" tall (20.13" with cap) x 31” wide
Core: 17” tall x 26.25" wide x 2" thick
Inlet: 1.5" driver side
Outlet: 1.56" passenger side
Tanks: 2.5” thick
Tubes: 0.63" thick

Champion 4 core specs:

Total: 20" tall x 32" wide
Core: 17.25" tall x 26.25" wide x 2.75" thick
Inlet: 1.38" driver side
Outlet: 1.63" pass side
Tanks: 3.13" thick
Tubes: 0.63" thick

The 4 core would have been a real problem for me. Even with the rubber half moons ground down to thin flat erasers, it still took two of us to press the upper radiator support down and pull back (like you were in a tug of war) while the other person screwed the bolts back in. We had to use zip ties to keep the other bolt openings lined up while pulling and screwing at the same time. I have no idea how one person would be able to do this alone.

I wouldn't call it a direct fit. I'd call it a shoehorn fit.

 

Mines custom built 3 rows of 1in tubes (3 3/8" core)but I have 2 Derale fans very well shrouded, 3rd pusher on trans cooler, 5" thick inner cooler that covers all of the radiator and an ac CDs in the middle. I took out the center of th nose and made an open grill to get more air ( had to cut out ctr of bumper and build tubular restructure. Lot of work.

 

your off a bit. summers run 96 to 102..like last week.
and some times rain when its 90..like today

bumper to bumper traffic.. moving at 10mph

 

My understanding with the pinched tubes on the Champion rads is it was a quality control issue on early rads and has long since been resolved.
I seem to remember a couple members got Champion to send them replacements for theirs.
I inspected the tubes on mine through the rad cap opening with a strong flash light and all the tubes looked good.

I can tell you late June through July in northern NY were some of the hottest weeks in recent years, and my car ran nice and cool. I never saw the gauge go over about 190 all summer.

 

Veer well said!

 

Well...close.

It is actually a Griffin with two 1.5" cores. I found a picture of when I first bought it in 1999, but none in the car. The tanks are a little over 4" wide.

When I ordered it from Griffin, they didn't have a part number for it, so they made one for me so I could special order it through Summit. It was $200 cheaper that way, rather than ordering direct.

They warned me that it was a core that they used for NASCAR and that at speeds below 50mph it would be hard to get enough air through the thick core to get it to work right.

I tried a 91 Z-28 dual electric fan setup, those electric fans were useless.

I put in a reverse (serpentine) flex-fan and it will sit on the thermostat on a 100 degree day in Houston when I am driving around (I run a 180 thermostat). With the AC on, sitting still on a 100 degree day with 90% humidity it will get up to 220 degrees after about 1/2 hour. If I drive 1/2 mile at 40 mph it will come right back down to 180. It almost never rises to the 1/4 mark on the gauge.

11.4:1 compression, big cam, etc.

 

Could swap that old huge 90* rubber coupler for a nice silicone 4.5" to 3" adapter, run a tight 90* bend of SS or alumnum and then just get a 3" Silicone coupler, would open that area up alot.

 

Nice, how much was it from summit?

ALso you running a mech flex fan?

 

It wasn't cheap about $500 I think (it was 14 years ago).

Yes a mechanical, reverse rotation, flex fan. I don't think that any electric fan would have the torque to pull enough air through it.