WOW GREAT DEAL ON NEW RAD!!

[JAYGT]

i wondered into my local wall mart.  they have a parts counter in the back.  the guy runnin it was at ctc for 15 years.  guy knows his stuff.  well   i got a price list for full tie rod and ball joint replacement. he changed all the prices to  beat canadian tire prices and his parts are all moog. beat napa uap prices by over 200 bucks. the rad came up 276.  i told him ctc was 236.   so he said no problem 205 plus tax.  brand new not rebuild.  wow thats the best price i have found anywhere.    first thing im gettin when the money comes in next week.  wish i had rust free control arms to replace my rotted ones when i do the ball joints.  anyone out there can help me?

[a.k.a]

well, since you were at wally mart, why dont you grab some steel wool, or an orbital sander and refurbish those rusted ones?

just a thought

[JAYGT]

pict up the rad.  he sold it to me for 196$ plus tax.  its brand new rad made in canada.    seams like a good deal to me.   uap napa wanted 276 plus tax what dicks.   if anyone lives in the brampton toronto area and wants one pm me and ill give ya the number and guys name at wall mart.

[aaron88]

But remember, not all rad's are build equally.

Aaron

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[JAYGT]

how is this a bad rad?   its brand new union made in canada.   its not made in china or rebuild from a used rad.  i guess a three core aluminum rad would be nice but so would a corvette.

[aaron88]

What makes a rad good?

A few of the most important things to look at.
Cost
Efficiency
Toughness

First Cost: if radiator A cost twice as much as radiator B but lasts twice as long, then radiator A has more value because you only have to install one of A for every two of B.  Unless of course the length of time radiator A lasts exceeds the life of its host, by double.

Efficiency: Although aluminum radiators are considered good they aren’t nearly as efficient as a copper radiator.  Here’s why, copper conducts heat twice as well as aluminum.  So in order to have an aluminum radiator that functions as well as a copper one, it would have to have twice the usable surface aria.  Therefore as far as efficiency size for size, the copper one is much better than the aluminum one.  About twice as good in fact.  By the way, Canadian tire sells one of the best copper rads you can buy.  Of course if you aren’t concerned about overheating your car, efficiency here could be considered as how far is your spending dollar going to go.  In other words the cheaper the better, as long an it lasts long enough to justify not getting the next model up.  There are many other factors to consider here but I don’t have enough space here to get into it.

Toughness: If you are rally racing your car or like to drive behind transport trucks then you might want a rad that can take a rock or two before springing a leak.  That’s a function of the properties of the material, the quality of construction and the thickness of material.  This varies, depending on model and manufacturer and is very hard to test for without destroying your rad.  So unless you are serious about racing or tailgating forget about this one.

So what’s a good rad?  That depends what you are looking for.

Aaron

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[JAYGT]

ok i understand what you are saying now.  yes the rad i got from wallmart is all copper.  i was kinda pissed about this .  it was my understanding that aluminum  was better at heat dissapation.  think about it.  you dont see to many  thousand dollar intercoolers made out of  COPPER!!!   they are all made out of aluminum.  but hey what do i know.    now i know a copper intercooler would be better but the whole world is too stupid to know this.
someone should tell greddy this.  all the custom race car rads are aluminum as well.  man all these racing guys must be retarded.

the only reason i said i got a good deal was that the next guy in line would have to pay the 276 ,  full reatail price for the rad.  the guy liked me at wall mart and gave me the 196  cost price.   heck evin ctc is sellin the fiero rad for 236. i will post what i pay for all the moog tie rods and ball joints next.
just thought i could help a local guy out if he needed a rad.  the average price around toronto for a used recored  rad is 180 but they only last around a year.

[FieroDough]

Het is like elctricity. Whatever conducts electricity the best, conducts heat the beast.. I can't remember why we don't have aluminum power lines...  

[aaron88]

The reason we don’t have aluminum power lines in our houses is because they were causing fires.  Basically the aluminum oxidises in time.  The outside layer of aluminum reacts with the air and water and basically corrodes.  The corrosion (chemical reaction) is in the form of aluminum oxide (white powder looking stuff), aluminum oxide is a ceramic and ceramics are a poor conductor of electricity and heat.  Therefore once the aluminum wires in your house start to get old they become dangerous at all the connectors.  Basically because the aluminum oxide coating creates a lot of resistance to electrical flow over time (only at the connectors) the by-product is heat.  Enough heat will start a fire.  This is why they were banned for residential construction.

However; the hydro company use aluminum lines in there high voltage transmission lines (750 000 volts).  They maintain there lines well and the aluminum lines are cheaper and lighter.  So the use is allowed.

It should also be noted that electrical conductivity and thermal conductivity are not proportional to each other.  For example, silver conducts heat better than copper, but copper conducts electricity better than silver.

Aaron

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[JAYGT]

so aron you never gave me awnser.  why are  all the worlds turbo intercoolers made out of aluminum?  why are all the race car rads made out of aluminum?  if what you said was true why wouldnt everyone make them out of copper?

[aaron88]

Jay GT

First off I think I should point out that you are making a dangerous accusation in the form of saying "ALL the worlds intercoolers" and "ALL the race car rads"  and "everyone".  These are danderously large words to use so loosly.

I can’t answer your question, because I’m not in the automotive industry and I don’t know what the real reason is for this practice.  But what I can tell you is that when one person sees someone doing something revolutionary people just follow without asking.

I will however offer a hypothesis.

As I have said before there are a lot of variables at work to the racing world that don’t necessarily apply to the regular driver.  But let’s take into consideration a few of these variables that affect the racing world and shed some light on the subject.  Variables such as Cu (copper) Alloys used for radiators that have twice the thermal conductivity of Al (aluminum) alloys but are also three times as heavy (now a light should be going off in your head).

The weight ratio means that for a custom application a radiator made out of Al can be simply made with twice the surface aria to equal the Cu rad in heat transfer and still weigh less.  For example lets say car ‘x’ needs to dissipate ‘y’ Btu’s of heat.  It can be done with a two core Cu rad ‘z’ at ‘b’ lb’s, or with a four core Al rad ‘c’ at (‘b’ x ~.8)lb’s.  Therefore the two radiators yielding the same heat transfer but the aluminmu radiator at about 20% less weight.

Plus aluminum is easier and cheaper to work with over copper.  But Al also will have a shorter in service life to Cu.

The reason I say 20% less weight and not 33.3% less weight is because I’ve already rounded some numbers and we live in the real world, and in the real world there are many number of factors involved and I don’t much feel like calculating for the sake of this email.  Factors such as, an radiator isn’t made with only one material, there is also some lead (yes lead in the form of solder) plastic, steel (the cap and clamps) and other materials I’m sure as well.  Also taken into consideration that you will need more fluid to fill the larger rad and such.

However, before you go snatching up all the aluminum radiators take this into consideration.  Given a non custom application of a replacement radiator, which the manufacturer of the replacement rad will likely match the original manufactures specs, such as size, fluid volume, and number of cores.  You are undoubtedly better off with the copper rad.

Taking a real world application, lets say that you are going to replace the radiator in your Fiero and you have the choice between an aluminum radiator and a copper one.  You can now make an educated purchase depending on what your requirements are.  Two core rad for two core rad, you can either dissipate twice the heat or lighten up your car about 2 lb’s.

I’m not going to get into radiant heat transfer that comes with the pigment colour of the surface of the material, or placement of the radiator to maximise convection while minimizing drag, because I can go on for a real long time.

If you don’t believe me, (and I expect that you might not), you can do your own research.  For cross reference I’ll give you some of the titles in my library that I referenced, starting with the most common reference book for material properties.
1.   Machinery’s Handbook, Twenty-sixth edition
2.   Marks’ Standard Handbook for Mechanical Engineers, Tenth edition
3.   Engineering Materials, Properties and Selection, Sixth edition
4.   Elements of Materials Science and Engineering, Sixth edition
5.   Manufacturing Engineering and Technology, Third edition

Hopefully I’ve given an accurate hypothesis, but like I’ve said before, I can’t tell you why all the custom applications that you know of use the Alumium radiator over the copper ones.  I can only offer some insight.

PS. If the applications that you are familiar with don’t make use of a black surface finish then the operator isn’t making full use of the heat transfer capabilities of the material and can be considered unaware of the total science of the matter.  And therefore possible not someone you want to copy without fully understanding the reasoning behind the omission.


Aaron

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[JAYGT]

thank you very much for the information.  i do understand the weight problem that copper would have.  but you cant beat the double cooling capacity.  it would be an awsome trade off for me if im running high boost.  i would love to get my intake charge twice as cold.  heck  changing my battery to a  small gell filled one saved me 20 pounds. i think the world is dropping the ball here. why would i care if there is and extra 2-3 pounds on the front of my car if i can turn up the boost another 2,3 pounds.  but every pound counts.  i evin scraped off all the undercoating on my car to save weight.
you learn something new every day.
now im happy i have a copper rad!
thanks aron

[aaron88]

Take a look at the rad used here.  This is definitely a racing car.
http://www.ultimasports.co.uk/gtr/design.html

Leave it to the Brit's to do something right.

Aaron

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