I bought an eBay 3 core welded aluminum radiator that's supposed to be for 1982-92 Camaros. It looks like a decent quality piece, but it's definitely not a drop in fit for the plastic tank stock one as the top and bottom edges of the tanks don't fit in the rubber insulators. I read an old thread on here about installing a Champion radiator, which looks similar to this one, and it talks about trimming the insulators: I don't see what difference that would make (unless you made them flat pieces of rubber) because the tanks still aren't going to fit down in the grooves of the insulators. The only thing I can think of to do is to get some flat pieces of rubber and glue them to the radiator support in place of the insulators. Then you would need to make your own piece to contain the top of the radiator with rubber glued to that and do away with the stock plastic shroud. Am I on the right track here?

The only upgraded all aluminum radiators I've found that have provisions welded on them for the factory insulators are the Wizard radiators, which are insanely expensive at almost $800 (over $1000 with fans), probably plus shipping. This is completely bonkers IMO!

 

Most aftermarket radiators are thicker than the OEM one. You'll have to trim the rubber seats. If you cut out the radius on both sides and shape the rubber into a C channel, that usually does the trick. You'll likely need to get a new radiator cover as well. Hawks makes a decent one or you can make your own.

 

Thanks for the help. What do you mean by "shape the rubber into a C channel" after you cut the radius's off of the ends?

 

The OEM rubber mounts are not molded to accept a wider radiator. So if you lay it on the new radiator you will see the larger radius of the mold prevents the mount from nesting over the radiator. I used a razor blade to "square out" those radius so that it would nest over the new radiator.