TR radiators

I did a bit of homework on the brass/copper versus aluminum radiators (when recoring my Boxer radiator).

Copper has a lower thermal resistance than aluminum - meaning, heat transfers more efficiently through copper than aluminum. Aluminum is lighter than copper. Thus, the advantage of aluminum is weight: The advantage of copper is cooling efficieny. If the vehicle is not raced, I am not sure that the aluminum offers much in that 1) it likely costs a bit more, 2) it is not original (although it looks great), 3) it cannot be painted to look original and 4) it does not cool as well.

Jim S.

Jim,

I had the Boxer radiator re-cored last month; also with a copper/brass core. The radiator guy stated what you did.........copper/brass is better than aluminum......especially in a Boxer.

I am not opposed to aluminum.....had my TVR Griffith's radiator replaced with a custom made aluminum one, however, larger. The aluminum looked awesome in that car. I would stick with copper/brass for any 12 cylinder car.

Henry - it sure looks good, aluminum, ah, but alas, not all that glitters is gold.

Jim S.

While I would never do this to a concours car...
In the case of my 308, the multi-row cross-flow aluminum radiator I installed was a big step up over the old stock design,
which had nowhere near the cooling capacity of the new radiator.
And the cost was very reasonable.
On a side note,
The difference in weight between the stock radiator/fans
and the aluminum/fans, is 21 pounds.
While 21 pounds does not seem like a lot of weight,
21 here, and another 30 there, things start to add up.
Cut a couple hundred pounds from any cars diet, and performance starts to appear.

I've read somewhere on the Net that for every 100lbs you can remove, it is equivalent to 7hp increase. Don't know if that is true or not.