Another champion radiator chapter with pictures

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duster360

duster360

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I just recieved my champion radiator that I ordered through challengergary. Part # CC374, it is a 26" 3 row for an A body. First off he did do his part in placing the order. As soon as I payed him it was ordered within 5 minutes. So he is a honest dealer and will match any other dealers prices.
Haven't taken any pictures yet but I will tonight or tomorrow before the install and then more as the install goes on. First thing I saw when I opened the box was one of the mounting flanges was bent at the top corner, that was an easy 10 second fix. Another thing I noticed, which really bugs me, is that the tube coming out of the filler neck for the overflow is pointing toward the drivers side instead of the passenger. Don't know how that happen as I have never seen a mopar anything that had the overflow tank on the driver side. Guess I could drill and tap it on the other side if there is enough meat there to do it. Overall the radiator looks pretty decent. Welds look decent and core is in good shape as far as the tubes and fins, haven't checked the whole assembly for squareness yet.
 
The reason for the radiator swap is the fact that I just don't like the fact that my engine heats up to 210* in the heat. I know this is a huge discussion on here about engine temps, but this is just a personal preference for me that 195* is my limit. Had this same engine and trans in a truck at one time and it never got over 185*, always stayed right betweeb 180* and 185*. But it had a 3 row truck radiator in front of it. Heck, my '98 dodge 1500 with the 318 never ever tries to creep up towards 200* in the heat. These are some of the things that tell me that the cooling capacity of my radiator is just not enough.

For those of you that are not familiar with me or my car, it is a 67 Dart with a mildly warmed up 340 with a 727 trans with 3000 stall and 3.91 gears.
 
i have the 26" 2 row from the guy on moparts, i couldnt get an accurate measurment of the core thickness on 2 and 3 core. so i just went with the 2. what size are the tubes in the 3 core? i heard the 3 row has thinner tubes than the 3 row. that was another thing the guy couldnt tell me that i had bought from. i dont understand why they put the overflow on that side. thats just stupid. i was going to cut the neck out and recess it down in to the tank so the cap would be flush and point th eover flow the right way, but i took the lazy way and just bent a piece of brake line up to run over to the factory overflow.
 
Hey jamesdart,
I have decided to do the same with the overflow. I have been sick all week is the reason I have not posted any pictures like I said I would, but I will get some pictures this week.
I will get you some measurements this afternoon on the thickness of the tubes and core.
 
James - not sure why the guy on Moparts could not provide you the information you wanted. The 2 row core is 1-3/4" thick. The 3 row core is 2-5/8" thick. Both use 3/4" tubes. The only one with thinner tubes is the 4-row.
 
yeah it was annoying. when i asked what size tubes he never answered me i asked more than once. when i asked the thickness of the core it looked like only the 2 row would fit, when i got it the core was much thinner so i contacted him to possibly swap it out for the 3 core, he then told me the measurement he gave me was to the edge of the tank, not to the core. i stuck with the 2 row and its working fine for my application. id have to run in a lot of stop and go traffic for the temp to really get up there even in extreme heat. it has a few times but it isnt often. im using the jaguar clutch on a hayden 18" fan. i actually just made a shroud because i couldnt figure out if any stock shroud would work on my application.
 
Is your car a small block or big block?

Did your stock fan want to hit the top radiator hose?

I wish they would just move the upper hose inlet more to the driver side. Then you could use a stock fan and might even be able to use a stock fan shroud.
 
my car is a big block. i didnt have a fan at all so i started with the hayden 18" fan and jag clutch. it is close to the upper hose, maybe 3/4" away. i used part of the lower hose off my slant as an upper hose.
 
Thanks for chiming in challengergary and answering jamesdarts' question for me. I am still sick and just haven't made it to the garage yet. Finally went to the doctor today and got 2 shots and some med's so maybe I can get to work on my Dart later this week and get the pictures and info I promised.
 
jamesdart said:
i have the 26" 2 row from the guy on moparts, i couldnt get an accurate measurment of the core thickness on 2 and 3 core. so i just went with the 2. what size are the tubes in the 3 core? i heard the 3 row has thinner tubes than the 3 row. that was another thing the guy couldnt tell me that i had bought from. i dont understand why they put the overflow on that side. thats just stupid. i was going to cut the neck out and recess it down in to the tank so the cap would be flush and point th eover flow the right way, but i took the lazy way and just bent a piece of brake line up to run over to the factory overflow.
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From what I can tell the tubes are 11/16" like challengergary said. The measurement I got of the core thickness is 2 1/2", that is the thickness of just the 3 rows of tubes.
 
Ok people, here are some pictures of the setup I have at the moment. And some pictures of the champion radiator. Click on either of the pictures to go to my photobucket page to see the rest of the pictures and the images enlarged so you can see them better.


 
I know this is an old thread and it has been 6 months since I started it but I finally went ahead and put the champion radiator in my car. Here are a couple pictures to start off and click on them to see more. I will post more info later tonight.


 
I had the clutch fan on first. It is a 7 blade "215" fan. I could feel it pulling some air through the radiator. But when I put the 7 blade flexalite fan on I could really feel the air coming through, there was a lot of difference.

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I do have a shroud I am going to install soon but I wanted to see how the radiator worked without it.
 
I thought this radiator would fit right in the car but I had to do a couple mods to make it fit. As for the mounting holes I only had to drill one on the lower drivers side. All other holes were already there from the factory. For what I don't know because nothing was mounted to them. Because of the height of the radiator I had to cut out the cross section under the radiator to get it to sit low enough. This didn't bother me any as I am going to replace it in the future with a nicer piece. As you can see it was in rough shape, pitted on one side from a leaky battery and looks like someone put a tow hook on it also causing the bend.

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In 2010 I bought a 3 core Champion radiator from the guy on Moparts (Craig). The 3 row version. Took it out of the box and it looked decent other than the welds weren't the prettiest but still looked functional. This unit was supposed to be a direct bolt in that would use the stock fan shroud which I liked the idea of. Went to bolt it in and 2 bolt holes weren't even close to aligning up unless I didn't mind the radiator setting at a 20 degree angle but it wasn't a huge deal as there was enough meat on the mounting brackets to drill new ones. That was the only issue I could have resolved myself and if it would have been just that I wouldn't be posting anything about it. But I also noticed as I sat it against the radiator support it didn't want to set flat like it was warped. Set the radiator on my nice flat concrete garage floor and same exact issue. It was warped by over 1/4". I also laid the stock radiator shroud on it to see if it fit like they claimed. Not even close. The stock A-body shroud overlapped the hoses and trans. cooler fittings by a bunch. At that point I e-mailed Craig about the issues and he made some calls. Seems they felt they made the first batch too big as some guys said they were sitting too high in the radiator support so they shortened it up by a couple inches which made it way too short for my Cuda. All Craig could say was maybe the newer vs. the older A-body core supports are a different height. I have no idea. Craig gave me a RMA number and I sent it back, at my expense (about $30) as they would do nothing about the return shipping. So in all I wasted 2 days and $30 on a piece of crap. Sure hope yours turns out better. I have heard B-body guys say they worked fine for them.

Oh ya, I posted this on Moparts and another guy said he had the exact same problems with his. A few others replied they had other issues.

Here are some of the pics I sent to Craig.

Hum... Just noticed mine had the outlet for the overflow on the correct side. Wonder why they changed it?
 

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This one is a 26" unit. It is nice and flat. I decided to go ahead and use it since I have had it so long I couldn't return it. It seems to be working pretty well so far.
 
duster360 said:
This one is a 26" unit. It is nice and flat. I decided to go ahead and use it since I have had it so long I couldn't return it. It seems to be working pretty well so far.
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Damn, wish I would have known to buy the 26" unit. What is the part number for that one?

Mine in just like fishy68's so I don't have a fan shroud an the MP fan would not fit (to big of diameter).

But mine cools fine. Except gets up to about 190's when I'm in total gridlocked (wreck or construction) L.A. traffic. Like taking 15 minutes to go 1 mile.
 
autoxcuda said:
Damn, wish I would have known to buy the 26" unit. What is the part number for that one?

Mine in just like fishy68's so I don't have a fan shroud an the MP fan would not fit (to big of diameter).

But mine cools fine. Except gets up to about 190's when I'm in total gridlocked (wreck or construction) L.A. traffic. Like taking 15 minutes to go 1 mile.
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Part # is CC374. If your car only gets to 190's I wouldn't sweat it. Mine would get a lot warmer than that is the only reason I switched.
 
American Eagle radiator which is owned by Champion. $159.95 & $29.95 shipping. Not speced out for my 1970 Duster with later built 360 but all I had to do was redrill 3 hole locations in the radiator bracing. It was lacking about 3/8" of dropping down & lining up like my old factory syle radiator. It's bigger on the bottom end and my cross brace is bent/dented so this may have been the reason. Easy install anyway and looks great in the car.
 

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This 26" radiator is cooling like crazy. It is 83* and sunny here today. She runs right on 180*. Normally it would be at around 200* or better and worse when it gets 90*+. I don't have the shroud on it yet. This thing might be overkill, I might have gotten away with the 22" radiator. From what I have seen so far I am not even concerned about the summer heat coming.
 
duster360 said:
This 26" radiator is cooling like crazy. It is 83* and sunny here today. She runs right on 180*. Normally it would be at around 200* or better and worse when it gets 90*+. I don't have the shroud on it yet. This thing might be overkill, I might have gotten away with the 22" radiator. From what I have seen so far I am not even concerned about the summer heat coming.
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Jaimie,

Glad you are happy with your purchase. I appreciate the business. :glasses7:
 
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