My brand spankin' new radiator is fudged, a problem that has happened twice in three months. The first time, coolant poured down from the radiator. I got the entire radiator replaced. Now it's happening again. $350 down the shoot and I'm wondering if I can buy an intercooler from Speed-Factor to replace the radiator and if it would work without any turbo components. Would it be a direct replacement and cool the engine better even without a turbo setup? I'm thinking, if I'm going to spend $400 on a sh*tty radiator, I might as well spend it on an intercooler.

Thanks!

 

maybe.. but i´m not sure, and a water intercooler might work better. but someone here knows better than me. lol

 

Intercoolers don't replace radiators in turbo setups... they are two very different things. I don't see how one could replace the other.

 

coolant radiator is designed for water/anti-freeze
intercooler is designed for air

 

short answer...

no, it wont work.

 

hmm... really??? ouch lol! thanks guys...

ok, so i thought an intercooler replaced a radiator and cooled the engine down with water.

is there anything better i can replace the radiator with to have it work? something similar to an intercooler? and so how come intercoolers work with turbochargers without water or cooling liquid?

 

Intercoolers generally use air as the cooling medium. The Boost that the turbo flows through the intercooler is warmer than ambiant tempetures. This gets transferred to the aluminum of the intercooler. The cooler air flowing OVER the intercooler from outside the car removes the heat from the aluminum. This allows the intercooler to remove more heat from the boosted air.. and so on and so on.

Air to water intercoolers are actually more efficent. An air to air intercooler can never cool the air lower than ambiant tempeture. An air to water can.

The big question is though.. what is going on with your radiator? How is it you keep killing them? Are you sure you are killing them? Just having it puke coolant through the resevour does not mean that it is dead. The only time you generally kill a radiator is either through rust through, over pressurization (bursts the plastic end tanks), gumming it up (takes years or decades) or taking an object through the radiator and holing it. If you have any but the last.. you got serious problems with your car and your radiator is only a symptom.

Full story, in detail, please.

 

buy maximum boost my friend, you still ahve a bit to learn and it would help a lot.

the radiator is used in cooling the engine only. an intercooler is used to cool the air traveling from the turbo back into the engine. totally independent of each other.

 

OOhhh!! WOW... Mad-Machine you know so much! damn thanks you guys.

well, it's happened twice in the same exact way. I've had the entire ratiator replaced once and now this one has taken the same exact toll. The mechanic i go to said last time that the air temp sensor went bad and i kept driving on a broken radiator which caused it to overpressurize and burst. right now, the coolant is leaking because of the busted tubes inside of it in the same exact place as last time. but the engine runs fine and the engine temperature is fine too. i think it's overpressurized somehow. i do put miles on my car everyday, but the same thing happened to two different radiators within a period of three months. could these "symptoms" be warning signs that my engine is in its final days?

i hope this doesn't have anything to do with the evaporation cannister. because both times, i was tampering with the cannister. right now, i connected all of the cannister hoses together but the valve which vacums the vapor from the tank is connected together too. maybe some sort of pressure builds up because everything is connected? I hope that is something seperate from the radiator.

 

odd... did you replace your radiator cap after the first radiator died? If it is working normally, it should not allow the radiator to overpressurize to the bursting point.