Aluminum Race radiator from Civic in 2002? DONE!

[cederrowe]

What bottom hose did you use?

[rover1]

i would be interested in purchasing one of those radiator kits when your done R&D.

[jgerock]

Don't you need to block off the left side opening from the stock radiator? Lot's of high pressure air entering there while driving.

[e28rusty]

Has anybody else done this yet?  I just ordered an ebay radiator with an electric fan and I would love to know how you mounted the bottom to keep it from shifting around.  Any more pictures?

[CubbyChowder]

Do you think this would be a decent option for M20 swap guys? I'm looking into my radiator options

[e28rusty]

the honda radiator is extremely narrow, but not much thinner than the pinto radiator I am pulling out.  I don't think you would gain any space and I don't know if it will be enough to cool a 6 cylinder.  It seems very small.

[e28rusty]

I finally got around to putting mine together, it really wasn't very difficult at all.  I welded a couple small pieces of tube to the bottom of the core for the nubs on the radiator to sit into and bent the aluminum brackets for the top in the bench vise.

 

I used the autozone universal thermostat because it's adjustable and I like to mess with stuff.

I got this ebay radiator with fan and it is working great so far.

 

I used my existing top hose, just rotated around.  For the bottom I bought a civic hose, but it was clearly wrong, as it was a 1" hose and the radiator uses 1-1/4" hose.  I ended up using some 1-1/2" hose I had laying around but the piece you need is pretty simple, hopefully my picture shows what you need.  Basically just a 90 and a little curve for the thermostat.

 

If anyone has any questions about doing this feel free to ask.  It really was very easy and you could easily use brackets at the bottom instead of welding, I just made it easy to remove.

 

You can see the autozone fan controller probe going into the top hose.  Not the cleanest install, but it's working fine for now.

 

Universal autozone fan controller

 

Lower radiator hose