Ultimate cooling system test

[mstemp]

JWD,

Thanks for you input!
Copper, Alloy, Down vs Cross flow, all work and in fact I have done all of them now, except copper down flow.
What I can figure out is lots of guys are running the Fast Cars Inc rad, am I the only one to have developed a leak. Yes it's a few years old but no mileage, no stray current (no top rad cap to fully know), yes it's solid mounted but that how it's designed.

Dan Masters, Rob F, Terry S any comments here?

[DiDueColpi]

Hey JD,

No worries, Everyone has their own experiences.
I genuinely appreciate a success story. It makes me feel good to know that someone has a working solution to such a controversial problem.
The rest of us are actually probably kinda jealous.

Cheers
Fred

[MGBV8]

I seem to remember Dan's radiator being changed out once.  Can't speak for Rob.  Doubt Terry S. checks in here much, if at all.  I'm betting his conversion has very few miles on it.

Not sure where Fast Cars sources their radiators.  Likely has them custom made just for them.

[BlownMGB-V8]

Jim D, as much as I'd like to go along with you I just can't but it occurs to me that we are probably talking about different things. As a bit of a materials specialist though I can assure you that for a given amount of material brass is stronger. Now there are some pretty darn strong aluminum alloys but they aren't used to make radiators. In fact I was told that the reason aluminum radiators use a larger tube size is that the metal isn't as strong, odd as that sounds. It's the wall thickness that you have to look at. The walls of a 1/2' or 3/8" tube are very thin compared to the walls of a 1" tube. If you made a brass radiator using the same construction methods used for an aluminum radiator it'd be 2-3 times heavier. Which tells you something about how much lighter aluminum is as a material.

Anyway, there are countless examples available to compare the metals, from bolts to hammers to swords. No wait, they don't make aluminum swords

Jim

[roverman]

FWIW...I heard, one major reason the 917 Porsches' were so fast, they used Magnesium in their cooling systems ! Jus' sayin.