I just got finished installing a Be Cool direct fit radiator in my '86 Z28. I wanted to review the product so other potential buyers know what they are getting into.

The quality of the radiator is excellent. It is a beautiful piece of craftsmanship with excellent welds. It also works really well. I couldn't seem to sure hot running and overheating problems in my car. I installed a Painless Wiring fan control (180 on/175 off), an Edelbrock aluminum water pump, a 180 degree thermostat, and flushed the system thoroughly with distilled water only. None of this worked. The Be Cool radiator cured the problem. The car now runs a steady 180 at idle.

The problem is that direct fit is a bit of a misnomer in my opinion. I paid over $500 for it because it was a "direct fit". I could have grabbed a universal aluminum radiator for a bit more than $200. The installation required me to smash two body seams flat with a big hammer. All kinds of wrestling with the power steering lines were required. They needed to be bent in several locations. Using the factory fan was also a royal pain. Spacers had to be fabricated for the lower mounting bolts. Normal hardware store length bolts were too long and hit the cooling fins, so the bolts had to be cut to lenth. The holes in the included adapter plate for the upper radiator/fan mount had to be hogged out to get everything to line up properly. Most of this stuff was relatively minor, but it would have been nice to know up front. Every other bigger radiator I've installed in other cars have just bolted right in with no other work required. All it would take is a few tweaks to their design to get the radiator to be a true bolt in, but as it stands it certainly isn't.

 

Yep, good company but I bet you paid $200 to much just for the Be Cool name.

 

i have heard that the quality is just amazing, but (also what you said) that the "direct fit" part of the description is a joke.

but, i guess it's all part of hot rodding...just too bad (ike you said) things dont fit perfect.

-brian

 

I didn't have to go through that trouble even with my Griffin radiator... It's also an excellent bit of work That fan control, shouldn't be 185 on and 170 off? That's the one I'm running at least with a 160 stat.

 

Hmmmm... I did read the direction when I got mine and noticed that it said to smash body seems and use the adaptor plate... but I did neither, and it still fits perfectly. I didn't even know what body seems it meant at the time. And about the lower fan mounting, I reversed the bracket, and placed it on the other side of the lip and I was able to use the original bolts.

Also, why did you have to wrestle with Power Steering lines? Mine were no where near being a problem. The hardest part I had out of the project was getting the tranny oil cooling lines in straight. Since the radiator is so wide, they wanted to go in crooked. A little physical persuasion finally got them in though.

I think they should have supplied the spacers though, because I had to cut off the 'hose support' **** thingie on the lower radiator support when I reversed it.

 

First, I think you may actaully have a different radiator that I do. Be Cool has several for the F-cars, and I believe that a car as early as your '82 would be a different model, so I can't comment on the fit. Sounds like it was a lot simpler for you than it was for me.

Second, the power steering lines were a big problem for me. The return line that bolts to the lower fan mounting bracket was too close to the fan and had to be tweaked out of the way. Both the supply and return lines to the steering box were in the way of the end tank on the left side and had to be tweaked to clear, and still are too close in my opinion, so I'm running a piece of slit hose over the lines to keep them from abrading the aluminum. Again, I'm not sure that all the fan mounting brackets and power steering lines are the same on thse cars, so yours may have been different. It could also just be a different car with different tolerances deal.

I imagine that the cooler lines were a pain. They usually are, even when just replacing a radiator with a stock replacement. I used a manual trans radiator an avoided the debacle because my 700R4 is long gone in favor of a T56.

 

My Be Cool radiator dropped right in and bolted up, no problem. I also put in there dual fan unit , no problems.

 

I imagine using their fan system would have simplified the matter greatly, but I couldn't afford to pony up all that cash at once.

Reinstalling the stocker was a royal pain in the @$$.