ok heres my setup.1979 pinto 1969 302 from mustang. c4 tranny with manual valve body and shift kit 8.8 rear 373 gears.heres my problem i just bought the car im 99% sure its got the 4cylinder radiator.its got an electric fan.but it still over heats after about 20mins of hardcore driving.i want to keep my stock hood latch.what radiators did you guys use. the cheaper the better.if i put that wetter water stuff will that work for now or no?pictures would be great if you have them.
thanks guys
larry
I myself am in the process of doing the same thing(302/c4)conversion and I am at the radiator part. I also did not want to go chopping things up in front. My Pinto had a v-6 in it and I would have been wise to save the radiator but I did not and ended up buying a new one(From arrowhead, out of Las Vegas). Anyway, it is a two core that is about 2 inches thick. At this point I have removed the side mount brackets from the radiator using a simple soldering torch and it fit between the side car mounts with about a quarter of an inch to spare. The top and the bottom needed to be cut away a little bit with some tin snips which was easier then I expected it to be. I also cut the big titnipple back on my water pump a half an inch and left just enough to center the pump pulley. The pulley bolts now stick out farther then the stub. I wish I would have taken before pix of this but I failed to do so. At this point I expect to get about a half inch at least between the radiator and the pump pulley and I will be able to install and remove this radiator like a human being when needed. I have not exactly worked out my mounts yet but like I said, i am currently at it. This is my first conversion and I would appriciate critique from what experienced group members read this. I will be posting pictures tomorrow of where I am in this radiator part of the procedure. I also would like to compare some notes with you madscientist on specific points of interest that you experienced with your conversion project. High_Horse
thanks for all the helpwhen you get pictures please post them here.
Here are the pics-----It shows the radiator with the side mounts removed.
These pics shows the tin work....I followed the side lines up/down and intersected with the top lines that were cut 3/4 of an inch back................................
These pics show the fit......I will mount the radiator on the top and the bottom and I will be able to remove it easily. Again this is a v-6 2 core radiator. If it does not cool the v-8 good enough then I will solder fittings onto the 4 corners and connect booster cores.
This pic shows the clearence between pump pulley and radiator....notice that the centering stub was cut back....but I left enough for the pulley to still be centered. The clearence is about a 1/2 inch.
ok kool thanks are you still using the factory hood latch
yes
i know this is going to sound extremly dumb especially because i work on cars for a living.i just opened the radiator cap and it looks like the guy just filled it with water.if i put coolant in it and the wetter water. could that solve some of my over heating problems?
I personally would empty it out and use distilled water as the base to whattever additives I was going to use. Have you checked the thermostat? Put the coolest one in there that you can. And keep it in mind that thermostats do go bad.....by this I mean that if you car was running hot, the inherant desigh of thermostats lend to the fact that they will temper to the minimum cooling capabilities of the cooling system in a fairly short period of time ...like a month. But bottom line is one core is not enough. Again I bought a 2 core v-6 radiator from arrowhhead online for 150 shipped. I cannot garrantee that this will work but two cores are better then one.
High_Horse
a mustang II V8 rad will work for you if you can get one from a rad shop.
Hey 78Pinto, Isn't the Mustang II radiator fairly wider then the v6 Pinto radiator. I mean that it looks to be about the same height but woudn't one have to cut sideways to get the Mustang II's to fit. You can see from my photos what direction I am going. Am I going in the wrong direction? I did mention that I did not want to cut the car but I did because I needed to set this radiator back to fit in front of the pump pulley. But what cuts do I take to get the mustang II radiator to fit and can I remove it conventionally if I need to work on something???
High_Horse
I installed a m2v8 radiator in my pinto, very easy. I fabbed a simple craddle and made 2 brackets to hold the top of the sides. Other than drilling a few holes for bolts, no mod.s were needed. The only issue is, there is not much room between it and the waterpump, so I have two small fans. It is a very big rad., but it fits in there, and I don't think a bigger one would fit.
Bill
how can you tell if your radiator is a 2 core?
look at the side, the single core is less than 1" thick (in the core not the tank) a 2, or even 3 core will be considerably thicker.
if you look inside the radiator is there a difference.i looked inside mine there are 2 rows of holes that coolant flows through
yes
A good radiator shop could recore your 2 row radiator as a 3 row. The bottom tank is different on a 3 row and a 2 row radiator, but it is pretty easy to widen it to fit the header. If you didn't mind spending a bit, you could have a custom core made that is a 3 row high efficiency. That would pretty much cool any engine you would likely install in a Pinto.
Kind of a funny story about cooling. I removed the thermostat from my 2.0L when I was troubleshooting a few problems. I went to smog it the other day and I hadn't re-installed the thermostat yet. So I put a piece of cardboard in front of the core so it would warm up for the smog test. After it hit 210F (took forever) I removed the piece of cardboard and pulled into the smog station. During the test, the smog tech revved the engine to 2200rpms for 3 minutes! It was 114F outside that day, so about a minute into the test I looked at the temp gauge. It had cooled down to under 190F!!! I thought for sure it would be on the verge of boiling over, but it was cooling down. I guess I'm not going to have to worry about overheating with this car! :)
I am (in the process of) putting a v6 radiator in front of a 302 bored 60 over. Other then that it is bone stock. I will go into startup without a thermostat as so I can evaluate and determine a signature delta T. I might jump on the concept of three cores being "better then a two" but then I weigh the coefficient between core one and core 3 relative to how much room I am given after fitting a 302 into given engine compartment my preferance is leaning towards booster cores in a more Maint. freindly space.
High_Horse