Miata Mailing List: July 1998, Message #199

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    I did the same thing cause when I run the car at the track it will run very
hot about 110 degree C. While this is not over-heating it is something that needs
to be  taken care of.  I will be going to the track tomorrow and see if it will
do the job. The car runs a little cooler on the street now and I was running a
2-row copper bass unit.
    The aluminum radiator is a single row but it setup gives you about 1/4 inch
more cooling area per row then both rows of the 2-row unit. Also Griffin Radiator
make almost the same unit Bill's it's a little cheaper. But Bill's  is a custom
job made to allow for the fitment of the FM turbo kit the Griffin Radiator will
not allow for that. Also I tried to get Griffin on the phone for 2-weeks before I
gave up on them. I also wonder how many people experience over-heating problems
with the stock radiator and forced induction when the temp's outside are above 85
degrees !!! ?  And also weather the forced induction setup is supercharger or
turbo chargers.

Frank Mowry wrote:

> After installing the FM II a couple weeks ago I found that the big
> intercooler blocked too much flow for the stock skinny '90 (5 speed) radiator
> the hard way, driving home from work in 90 degree heat with the top down.  We
> aren't talking 4th gear at 13.5 psi either, just spirited driving on I-95,
> even constant, no boost driving.  I had to blast the heater to draw the heat
> off.  Nothing like 120 degrees in the car and a nice humid Baltimore day!
>
> This was last Friday, and I knew I'd be driving up to the MMM alternate
> picnic thing at Hickory Park in PA.  2 1/2 hour drive with the heat on, no
> thanks.  So I got on the phone with Dealer Alt. and ordered their aluminum
> race radiator.  Luckily they just got 4 in from the supplier.  I had to 3 day
> ship it to get it here in time to install it.  This is a nice piece of work!
> I was surprised how light it is and the core is probably twice as thick as
> the original.  Also it would look great with a polished valve cover which I
> don't have.  The install went pretty well except the bottom right fan bolt is
> hard to remove after the I/C pipes are already installed.  I didn't want to
> loosen the I/C pipes so I was able to get to the bolt with a 10mm wobble and
> a short 10mm box wrench.  The only other problem I had was with the mounting
> brackets which must be taken off the original radiator and put on the new
> one.  The new radiator had to be filed down about 2mm because the small clips
> that the mounting bolts bolt into are slightly short when slid onto the top
> of the radiator, so the holes don't line up.  This was a really minor fix.
> Everything else went on without a problem and I was able to do the whole
> install without removing any of the I/C pipes.
>
> The radiator probably has 1/2 gallon more capacity than the original.  After
> driving the car in 88 degree heat with some full blasts from 4K to 7K at
> 13.5psi the temp needle didn't go past it's original center point.  More
> "testing" will be done on the trip to MMM-alt tomorrow.
>
> I highly recommend the FM race radiator.
>
> Frank Mowry