Koyo 3 Row Copper Radiator
-
s13sr20chris
- Posts: 4148
- Joined: Tue Jun 10, 2003 9:32 am
- Car: '89 Nissan S13 w/redtop running 13psi and not leaking fuel anymore
- Contact:
keep in mind lady liberty underwent a major restoration a few years ago. She was and all green and nasty. I think they coated her with something to keep here the right shade of green (she was originally copper colored of course)
I got the big alluminum Koyo with a pontiac fierro fan and couldn't be happier. That fan is like a hurricane, and comes with a nice shroud attached that fits the radiator perfectly.
I live down in south mississippi so heat is a BIG issue.
I got the big alluminum Koyo with a pontiac fierro fan and couldn't be happier. That fan is like a hurricane, and comes with a nice shroud attached that fits the radiator perfectly.
I live down in south mississippi so heat is a BIG issue.
Keep in mind that copper conducts electricity. I would make sure if I had a copper radiator to put a grounding strap on it or something. I read somewhere a while back that the cause for heater core/radiator failure was the fact that the lightly charged water will "eat" the metel from the inside out.
Making sure you use distilled water and maybe a grounding strap should fix this. Summit racing has some 4ga. braided flat straps for $5 each. Very nice.
Making sure you use distilled water and maybe a grounding strap should fix this. Summit racing has some 4ga. braided flat straps for $5 each. Very nice.
-
nnkfws333
- Posts: 723
- Joined: Tue Jul 23, 2002 5:29 pm
- Car: 2004 Infiniti G35 and a 1989 Nissan 240SX
Im have sort of a weird question. Well I see people with larger radiators, i.e. koyo 3 rows and 260z radiators but I wasn't sure how it cools it so well. I mean I have the stock radiator and a big 16" fan but if I run the AC my car temps will slightly rise. I see its just larger and I would think that it would be a lot harder to cool meaning it would heat more.
Do you think my temps will be a lot lower if I do a larger radiator with the same 16" fan? Does anyone run just a single fan and use there AC? I think last question is how come I hear from people say that there fans don't even kick on with larger radiators and if they do its not for that long.
Thanks for the replies, some good information.
Do you think my temps will be a lot lower if I do a larger radiator with the same 16" fan? Does anyone run just a single fan and use there AC? I think last question is how come I hear from people say that there fans don't even kick on with larger radiators and if they do its not for that long.
Thanks for the replies, some good information.
-
rbsileighty
- Posts: 1694
- Joined: Sun Feb 09, 2003 8:10 am
- Car: 92 S13 Hatch w/ RB20 & 05 Audi S4 Avant 6MT
Copper is a better conductor than the aluminum ones, but I am not willing to sacrifice the weight for the copper. Here is a good excerpt from a chevy article:
"Aluminum vs. Copper-Brass
Many new performance radiators, such as those from Griffin and Be Cool, are made from aluminum that offers weight savings over copper-brass. While aluminum does not dissipate heat as well as copper-brass, modern radiator design more than makes up for the difference. Old copper-brass radiators were soldered together, but solder is a poor thermal conductor and this reduced the ability of the fins to remove heat from the tubes."
Seems logical to me... however, as always, different strokes for different folks.
I am going with the aluminum KOYO.
Quote »Im have sort of a weird question. Well I see people with larger radiators, i.e. koyo 3 rows and 260z radiators but I wasn't sure how it cools it so well. I mean I have the stock radiator and a big 16" fan but if I run the AC my car temps will slightly rise. I see its just larger and I would think that it would be a lot harder to cool meaning it would heat more. [/quote]
The larger rads have more surface area for the air to move across them, and therefore better heat transfer properties. The added surface area allows for more air to move across the fins, which allows for more heat to be pulled from the coolant.
"Aluminum vs. Copper-Brass
Many new performance radiators, such as those from Griffin and Be Cool, are made from aluminum that offers weight savings over copper-brass. While aluminum does not dissipate heat as well as copper-brass, modern radiator design more than makes up for the difference. Old copper-brass radiators were soldered together, but solder is a poor thermal conductor and this reduced the ability of the fins to remove heat from the tubes."
Seems logical to me... however, as always, different strokes for different folks.
I am going with the aluminum KOYO.
Quote »Im have sort of a weird question. Well I see people with larger radiators, i.e. koyo 3 rows and 260z radiators but I wasn't sure how it cools it so well. I mean I have the stock radiator and a big 16" fan but if I run the AC my car temps will slightly rise. I see its just larger and I would think that it would be a lot harder to cool meaning it would heat more. [/quote]
The larger rads have more surface area for the air to move across them, and therefore better heat transfer properties. The added surface area allows for more air to move across the fins, which allows for more heat to be pulled from the coolant.
Im not sure about this but the difference in the wieght might be proportional to the amount of radiator used to give the same cooling effect as copper.
The more material you use the heavier the product is going to be. So in essence your adding weight when the same weight product of copper could produce the same results without it being wider or more rows added on.
Also I doubt copper is very electrically conducive. If it was then everyone who put a copper heatsink on top of a cpu would have major problems. For pc's you want a product that has very little eletrical conductivness and I dont think a bunch of pc builder enthusiasts would use it if it had a large amount of problems with electricity.
You must also realize that I believe the soldering techniques employed to make the "Old" radiators where sub par. It was quite a while back they where made so alot of alloys of silver and others where not available. Hell who would want to use a precious metal such as silver to solder a plain old copper radiator. But if you use it now you definitly get good or better thermal conducivness than a standard solder would allow for.
The more material you use the heavier the product is going to be. So in essence your adding weight when the same weight product of copper could produce the same results without it being wider or more rows added on.
Also I doubt copper is very electrically conducive. If it was then everyone who put a copper heatsink on top of a cpu would have major problems. For pc's you want a product that has very little eletrical conductivness and I dont think a bunch of pc builder enthusiasts would use it if it had a large amount of problems with electricity.
You must also realize that I believe the soldering techniques employed to make the "Old" radiators where sub par. It was quite a while back they where made so alot of alloys of silver and others where not available. Hell who would want to use a precious metal such as silver to solder a plain old copper radiator. But if you use it now you definitly get good or better thermal conducivness than a standard solder would allow for.
-
rbsileighty
- Posts: 1694
- Joined: Sun Feb 09, 2003 8:10 am
- Car: 92 S13 Hatch w/ RB20 & 05 Audi S4 Avant 6MT
xxtrizz wrote:
The more material you use the heavier the product is going to be. So in essence your adding weight when the same weight product of copper could produce the same results without it being wider or more rows added on.
The cooling/size/material relationship is not that linear, and you might want to try picking up one version of each (big alum vs smaller copper) to see for yourself.
-
s13sr20chris
- Posts: 4148
- Joined: Tue Jun 10, 2003 9:32 am
- Car: '89 Nissan S13 w/redtop running 13psi and not leaking fuel anymore
- Contact:
nissan ecm heatsinks are aluminum. the lead solder method is still the predominant copper core construction method. if you check the last link i posted you will see them talk about "cuprobrazing". this is a patented method that makes copper much more efficient than it would otherwise be. it aint cheap, it still aint light, and in practice it just doesnt work as well as everyone thought it would. still copper has some strong points. me, im going aluminum. one reason is because aluminum radiators with aluminum engine blocks wont develop an electrical potential between them. this will cut down on the corossion and stuff.
VitaminT wrote:Keep in mind that copper conducts electricity. I would make sure if I had a copper radiator to put a grounding strap on it or something. I read somewhere a while back that the cause for heater core/radiator failure was the fact that the lightly charged water will "eat" the metel from the inside out.
Making sure you use distilled water and maybe a grounding strap should fix this. Summit racing has some 4ga. braided flat straps for $5 each. Very nice.
Aluminum conducts electricity great thats why spark plugs work.
Al isn't as conductive as copper. The reason the many heat sinks are made of Al instead of Cu is because Al can dump the heat faster. Cu retains heat better than Al. Cu is a better conductor hence the move towards Cu based heatsinks for computer chip use, but they're usually forged into the base of a heatsink with fins that are made of aluminum. The reasoning being that the Cu can absorb the heat faster, but the aluminum can dump it faster.
All I can say fellas is that I have built well over 40 pc's they used to be made out of aluminum with aluminum fins. Now they are straight copper I can give you plenty links and test temperatures for the aluminum and copper differences. There were derivitives but those didnt perform at all. Because you must have a medium on which the heat transfers from metal to metal of different consistancy such as a liquid thermal compound. Such as the failed attempts of the aluminum fins with copper heatsinks. They failed because they tried to mate two different metals together without the compound.
You gotta think of it this way copper absorbs the heat quick therfore it also is capable of loosing it quick. If there is enough wind on the fins then it will operate fine.
Although they put aluminum heatsinks on ecu chips or this and that its because I believe the thermal "epoxy" bonds better on aluminum rather than copper. Heatsinks are made for a fluid type thermal transfer substance anyways. SUch as Arctic Silver.
My current CPU is running off a fully built copper heatsink with copper fins. It will absorb and kill the heat quicker than aluminum will ( I also have another cpu running an aluminum heatsink, they use the same thermal compound and same top fan. the cpu with the aluminum heatsink is naturally supposed to run lower temperatures but with the aluminum heatsink it runs hotter than my "very hot" cpu on my copper heatsink IE ::aluminum,cpu = 56 F / Copper,cpu = 42F Keep inmind again as I stated the copper cpu runs naturally a Higher temperature.) . The only thing that aluminum has that copper doesnt is weight. But for a standard use or in case of emergencies then I would suggest probably jsut going with aluminum so I can have more copper to myself
You gotta think of it this way copper absorbs the heat quick therfore it also is capable of loosing it quick. If there is enough wind on the fins then it will operate fine.
Although they put aluminum heatsinks on ecu chips or this and that its because I believe the thermal "epoxy" bonds better on aluminum rather than copper. Heatsinks are made for a fluid type thermal transfer substance anyways. SUch as Arctic Silver.
My current CPU is running off a fully built copper heatsink with copper fins. It will absorb and kill the heat quicker than aluminum will ( I also have another cpu running an aluminum heatsink, they use the same thermal compound and same top fan. the cpu with the aluminum heatsink is naturally supposed to run lower temperatures but with the aluminum heatsink it runs hotter than my "very hot" cpu on my copper heatsink IE ::aluminum,cpu = 56 F / Copper,cpu = 42F Keep inmind again as I stated the copper cpu runs naturally a Higher temperature.) . The only thing that aluminum has that copper doesnt is weight. But for a standard use or in case of emergencies then I would suggest probably jsut going with aluminum so I can have more copper to myself
-
s13sr20chris
- Posts: 4148
- Joined: Tue Jun 10, 2003 9:32 am
- Car: '89 Nissan S13 w/redtop running 13psi and not leaking fuel anymore
- Contact:
-
SpeedRacer1
- Posts: 3144
- Joined: Fri Jul 26, 2002 7:44 pm
- Car: 1990 240SX, G35
-
SpeedRacer1
- Posts: 3144
- Joined: Fri Jul 26, 2002 7:44 pm
- Car: 1990 240SX, G35
Well look at it in all practicality. We have users who are worried about warranty issues with radiators and compensation for a non working radiator.
Im sure if you happened to source one from japan it would be alot harder for the person to get a refund or exchange it with those companies in japan. We are talking about issues on whether the person could actively source and recieve support on a copper radiator market in the US as Koyo did their own. Secondly Koyo made one its not being made now.
If you can find a company that makes copper radiators for the SR or KA, brand new, here and markets them for those engines in the US then I will gladly eat my foot.
Im sure if you happened to source one from japan it would be alot harder for the person to get a refund or exchange it with those companies in japan. We are talking about issues on whether the person could actively source and recieve support on a copper radiator market in the US as Koyo did their own. Secondly Koyo made one its not being made now.
If you can find a company that makes copper radiators for the SR or KA, brand new, here and markets them for those engines in the US then I will gladly eat my foot.
-
s13sr20chris
- Posts: 4148
- Joined: Tue Jun 10, 2003 9:32 am
- Car: '89 Nissan S13 w/redtop running 13psi and not leaking fuel anymore
- Contact:
koyo makes some of the oem (not just oem style) radiators too. calsonic is dropping a lot of their hard parts and doing mostly electonics. the new altimas have koyo radiators and they suck. i dont know what they did wrong, but i have had to replace one already. there is a guy in my shop that has done like 5 now.
-
hokiruu
- Posts: 741
- Joined: Sat Dec 07, 2002 1:34 pm
- Car: 2012 INFINITI M37X Platinum Graphite
'95 240sx/s14 SR20DET (in 2000) SOLD - Location: Northern CA
Hello! Didn't I post some of this stuff on the first page? Copper radiators are still around, in great numbers. I have one, it works great for me. Yashio factory, Koyo, and other companies are still making them, or laest using the ones made by Koyo, so stop with all the "copper is not being used in radiators anymore" talk. No! Shh!
i know this is an old thread but i have done a search.and i was wondering what the stock radiator is made of? and if this koyo alumimum oem replacement that is a single core is worth it on my 240 with ton of bolt on mods. the stock keeps overheating after ideling for a while in stop and go traffic. the stock clutch fan was gone when i bought it is has an e-fan. not all that great i think i need to upgrade it too. any suggestions?