I need to replace both my intercooler and rad on 4be,had a little "off" the other week,I had a rad made years ago with the standard plastic end tanks and a copper core,this resolved my overheating on track,but the question is do i go alloy now or spend more and retain a copper core.
There are cheap alloy rads on ebay which would be half the price of a copper core but they are designed for a cosworth 2ltr and therefore are smaller in height,my rad is 370mm in height and 40mm thick,and these are 310mm high and 50mm thick,the same company make a 24v cosworth scorpio rad but its the same size,it just has the inlet and outlets swapped round.
Has anyone had any issues with standrad size alloy rads,im sure they are ok for road use but I think maybe 15-20mins on track they may not be able to cope.

 

didn't christian have a copper cored one in his escort ? sure he did some testing and found the copper core was better. ...

 

i have a pro alloy rad and rs500 intercooler setup for sale.

if interested ill send pics.

 

copper is better at removing heat but alloy is stronger.

A big alloy one is a comprimise between colling ability and strength.

 

i had my old std rad on my saff recored with a copper core and it worked fine and now run an alloy rad and can honestly say ive noticed no difference at all..

 

copper is quicker at transfering heat but the cost at the moment makes an alloy rad worth thinking about.if you had a copper core and aluminium core of the same construction then copper would win hands down.

gibbo frst
has the car been on track for any length of time with the alloy rad?

 

I had Genuine 500 intercooler and ally rad on my 4x4 and it worked ok on track days,did get a little warm but had a fan overide switch with a dedicated power supply to it just incase..

 

must admit mine has not been on track so guess that would work it all harder... the thing that made the car run cooler was changing from an off the shelf chip where it would heat up the engine with hard use to having a proper map where ive yet to see the engine temp go up anywhere like it did..

 

Ally rad on mine..

 

boston radiators have just built my custom rad for cooling the v8, most efficient core they do is 4 row copper.