high performance Radiator

[Tozan]

It looks like my radiator is starting to fail..
Slight coolant leak around the tanks...

1. I do a lot of slow running off road at rock crawling speeds sometime.

2. Stock motor for now but, I am considering installing a 7.0 or 7.3

3. I live in Arizona so in the summer I drive in 115 degree weather sometime.

4. I drive at least 60 or 80 miles at high speed off pavement a week. Unmaintained dirt roads at 60+ mph.

5. I would like to keep my electric fans and everything else original.

6. Auto trans with cooler... I would consider a trans cooler outside the radiator.

7. I sometime travel up to 250 to 300 miles off pavement at a time.

8. I have 195,000 miles on it so far and hope it will go to 500,000 miles with proper maint.

I of course prefer not to break the bank but, I also understand the concept of buy once cry once... lol I just don't want to cry to hard... lol I am hoping for something under $300.00

So what do you experts think???

 

[PG01]

Mishimoto

oem delco is 275-300

mishi is about 500

 

[PG01]

https://www.tahoeyukonforum.com/threads/aftermarket-performance-radiators.117786/

 

[Seamus]

There are several comapnies that make all aluminum radiators. Thats the way i will be going when the time comes. I have good luck in 2 of my vehicles with ebay aluminum rads. Champion was the brand. Good quality all tig welded. they are in the 2-300 range and come with or without cooler fittings. Found this on a quick look:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Radiator-F...n+1500&hash=item46b76301ee:g:L94AAOSwejpfhUBF

 

[Tozan]

I have to wonder wouldn't a separate trans oil cooler be better too?

 

[kbuskill]

I have to wonder wouldn't a separate trans oil cooler be better too?

Define better.

The advantage of the transmission cooler inside the radiator is that it acts as a transmission fluid warmer to help get your transmission up to operating temperature faster. Once the transmission fluid reaches beyond 192°- 194°, which is normal operating temperature for your engines coolant system, it then starts acting as a cooler.


This is especially helpful in colder climates. But even where I live in FL it actually takes a while to get the transmission up to normal temperature and mine goes through the radiator before going through the external cooler.

Proper fluid temperature is important because it helps boil off condensation that builds up in the fluid from the heating and cooling process, be it transmission fluid or oil. That is why vehicles that only make short trips and people who don't let their vehicles warm up to operating temperature before driving should change their fluids more frequently.

My two bits.

 

[Tozan]

Define better.

The advantage of the transmission cooler inside the radiator is that it acts as a transmission fluid warmer to help get your transmission up to operating temperature faster. Once the transmission fluid reaches beyond 192°- 194°, which is normal operating temperature for your engines coolant system, it then starts acting as a cooler.


This is especially helpful in colder climates. But even where I live in FL it actually takes a while to get the transmission up to normal temperature and mine goes through the radiator before going through the external cooler.

Proper fluid temperature is important because it helps boil off condensation that builds up in the fluid from the heating and cooling process, be it transmission fluid or oil. That is why vehicles that only make short trips and people who don't let their vehicles warm up to operating temperature before driving should change their fluids more frequently.

My two bits.

Thanks, I can see where that would make sense.

Last time I pulled a trailer my trans temps went up to 270 degrees with the motor running at 225 when pulling bigger hills. I was pulling it across the high desert and it was 100+ out...

 

[kbuskill]

Thanks, I can see where that would make sense.

Last time I pulled a trailer my trans temps went up to 270 degrees with the motor running at 225 when pulling bigger hills. I was pulling it across the high desert and it was 100+ out...

The 40k transmission cooler is probably the best, most used cooler on the forum here.

If you are in colder climates it is a good idea to get the thermostatic bypass so your transmission fluid will warm up faster.

If you aren't already monitoring your engine temperature via the OBD2 port you should try it. It is well documented that the factory temperature gauge reads inaccurately by design.

It will show 210° when up to temperature but the OBD2 shows the actual temperature as 192°- 194°.

 

[Mickey_7106]

Personally, i would get an external cooler with a fan and wire it for a manual on/off switch. Crawling in that Arizona heat, im sure it doesn't take much to bring those temps up quick

 

[Monz11]

Mishimoto and externa tranny cooler

 

[MLRTYME]

I am in AZ with ya, and have a champion in my 84 K5 blazer and my sister's 2004 Escalade EXT...but for my 2007 Yukon, I went with a Cold Case radiator. They run the wider tubes like the Mish and the Be Cool...but at a smaller price than those options. Fully welded aluminum and priced below $400. Install of course does require some trimming of the brackets (in my experience, all aftermarket aluminum radiators do...to some extent) and trimming on the electric fan shroud since the one I purchased was a thicker core than stock...but a few thousand miles on it now and no leaks. Installed in the dead of 115-116 summer and even during engine break-in it worked very well.

Now, I don't do slow rock climbing but I did have to sit in traffic in those temps to/from work and such. Not exactly the same type of activity...but this is what I can report on. https://www.coldcaseradiators.com/ Also, I am not affiliated with this company in any way. I just hate the concept of a plastic tank molded to an aluminum core...a problem waiting to happen and I feel a solid solution is better, if I'm going to bother spending the time to replace anything.

YMMV

 

[Tozan]

I got the Cold case all aluminum radiator in today and installed it. The stock radiator is only a single tube and the single tube is much narrower than each of the rows in the cold case. The two tubes in the Cold case are equal to three standard tubes. With each tube being 1.25 inches wide.


This Cold Case GMT570A is a very nice looking unit it cost $406 shipped to my house. It has a nice polished tank and the overall workmanship looks good the TIG welds look a lot better than I can do...

It comes with new transmission cooler fittings. You will reuse the original rubber mounting pieces on the top and bottom. All the stock hoses and connections are there and in the right place.

I did run into a fitment issue like Dave mentioned above the top upper bracket came in slight contact with the upper radiator support. It wasn't a real hard contact but, since this will see a lot of off road use I wanted to give it a little more wiggle room so I took a few minutes to cut some extra clearance. It may be possible my stock rubber pieces were old and very hard so they didn't allow the radiator to sit lower.


The stock lower fan housing normally fits into the area where the stock radiator does not have tubes so, the fan housing will have a gap between the radiator and the housing.


For now I just pushed the bottom in enough to hold the bottom of the housing in place and decided not to worry about the gap for now. In the future if it gives me any problems I might do some trimming to fit the housing in closer.

With the additional cooling the gap between fan housing and radiator should not matter. On my first short test drive it took a little longer to heat up and the running temperature was about 15 to 20 degrees less than normal.

 

[Tozan]

So the radiator I got had a bad transmission cooler bung on it. it has a low spot on the face of it I would guess about .030

I tried a rubber washer but I didn't expect it to hold up very long. I contacted Cold Case and they gave me the option to exchange it ( I am guessing that would take a few weeks for it going back and forth. Or they send me their dual pass external cooler.

I opted for the external cooler and it mounted up pretty easy just in front of the condenser/radiator. This unit holds a lot of oil too. It is their 12 inch dual pass cooler.

I did have to drill an extra hole in the coolers mounting foot on the left side.