Radiator help!!!

[ej22t]

Just found out my radiator is leaking today and found there are a crack on the upper hose outlet, I did seach all over the web and can't find any radiator for my 92 turbo 5spd.
The one I found is car Radiator.com, they do really great service, they even call me from US to Canada, and get me the price for $199 with life time warranty.
Does anyone know how much will the radiator goes for?
Should I get it from Dealer or local Radiator shop?
Will the WRX will fits on to my car since both of the car use Tubro charge?
BTW, my car with EJ20G engine
Thanks for rpely.

Ben

[THAWA]

you can have my old NA radiator which has a crack in the same place for shipping

[ej22t]

Haha, Thawa, thanks for your gift and I do have my crack one and I don't think I needs the other crack rad.....

^u^

Ben

[vrg3]

I don't think a WRX radiator will fit the same. The WRX radiator has the upper hose fitting in the middle of the radiator. You may be able to make it fit with different hoses or something though -- maybe even using the stock WRX hose.

Although you'd lose some cooling capacity, you can fit a non-turbo Legacy radiator. The simplest way to do it would be to remove the lower gasket of the cap on the radiator and route high-pressure hose from the small fitting on the back of the filler tank to the nipple on the radiator's cap fitting. When you fill the system, you'll still want to burp it at the burp screw.

[Matt Monson]

I don't know about the soundness of that set up. Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't it that very nipple on the filler tank that coolant comes into it from the bottom once the car is turned off that allows the full tank to drain to the turbo and cool it? Do you follow me? The tank is there to remove the need for a turbo timer. If you remove that funcionality, you had better run a turbo timer or sit and cool down after running hard.

EJ22T,
I can find you a used turbo one local if you are interested. Figure about $75 plus freight. I also have a used NA one in the garage that I will sell you if you do decide that VRG's set up will work for you. PM me with an offer if interested...

[ej22t]

Thanks all for help, I just found a local shop who get me the good price with install, hope the car run back as usual soon.
BTW, when the coolent level is low the car is running really bad, like running in 3 cylinder as this happened to you guys before?

Ben

[Matt Monson]

Ben,
Unless you have no tools and nowhere to work, I wouldn't pay someone to install that for you. It only takes something like 10 bolts and the screws on the pipes and 15 minutes to pull the radiator. Then you just unplug the fans, unscrew 8 more bolts to take the fans off the old radiator. Install is the reverse. It really shouldn't take you more than an hour to do yourself...

[vrg3]

Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't it that very nipple on the filler tank that coolant comes into it from the bottom once the car is turned off that allows the full tank to drain to the turbo and cool it? Do you follow me?

Uh, was that a sentence?

Sorry, I don't follow.

The setup I was describing wouldn't touch the coolant lines that connect to the turbo or water pump.

The turbo radiator has no cap on it, and has no burp screw. Instead, it just has a small hose going from where the burp screw would be to the filler tank. That way, air rises out of the radiator and goes to the filler tank where the cap is.

The problem is how to approximate this with a non-turbo radiator. The non-turbo radiator has a radiator cap, and a small nipple through which the cap vents coolant when system pressure exceeds about 13 psi. If you remove the cap's lower gasket that will effectively make it "open" all the time. Then you can use the nipple coming off that cap just like you use the nipple on the burp area of the turbo radiator. Then, when filling the system, you just need to burp at the burp screw as well as at the filler cap.

You'd retain all the after-shutdown cooling functionality you had beforehand. As far as I can see, the only functional differences would be a smaller radiator core and the need to burp at the burp screw.

If you wanted to approximate it more closely, you could find a fitting that threads into the hole for the burp screw and has a hose barb on it, and solder/braze/weld/epoxy up the radiator's hole where the cap usually goes.

Oh, and 10 bolts plus 8 more? I thought it was just the two on the top and then the 8 for the fans. Yeah, the radiator is super easy to remove and install.

[THAWA]

what about instead of doing all that you just use one of these where the bleed screw is:


and have that go to the #1 tank?

[vrg3]

That's exactly what I meant with the "If you wanted to approximate it more closely" part.

The thing is, you'd be hard-pressed to find one of those fittings with the correct threads. I don't know off-hand what the threads are, but they do appear to be regular (non-pipe) threads, and the burp screw seals at its base through a tapered seat, like brake bleeders do.

But you could probably wedge in the wrong fitting and epoxy it in place...

In any case, you still have to seal the radiator filler neck.

[Matt Monson]

Although you'd lose some cooling capacity, you can fit a non-turbo Legacy radiator. The simplest way to do it would be to remove the lower gasket of the cap on the radiator and route high-pressure hose from the small fitting on the back of the filler tank to the nipple on the radiator's cap fitting. .

Sorry my first try at this was less than clear. Let me try this again. Your explanation above says to route it to the nipple on the back of the filler tank. Here is where I take issue with the design. If I am not mistaken, the nipple on the back is the one that leads down to the cylinder head. It is the coolant that comes up into the filler tank as the result of thermal siphon, once the engine is turned off. It is that coolant that then proceeds to drain down from the filler tank into the turbo, this cooling it. If that nipple were used, you lose the cooling properties of the OEM design. To my reckoning. But then I realized something else, and that is the USDM Legacy Turbo has a completely different layout than the JDM one I have recently been working with and was thinking about when considering this...

as for the 10 bolts. No need to be so damned anal all the time. I said like 10 bolts to emphasize that it is not big deal to DIY. If you want to get technical about it, you need to count the bolts on the belt cover that you remove when you take it off. And there is the bolt on the battery that you need to disconnect. and, and...

[vrg3]

Your explanation above says to route it to the nipple on the back of the filler tank. Here is where I take issue with the design. If I am not mistaken, the nipple on the back is the one that leads down to the cylinder head.

Ohhh... I guess this whole time I was thinking of the EJ22T's coolant tank, which has three nipples on the back (to water pump, to turbo, and to burp area). I said to connect to the small one, which is the right one.

But Ben has an EJ20G, which has a different coolant filler tank. You can tell us which nipple is the right one -- all I can say is it's the small one that's not attached to the filler neck; it's the one that currently connects to the burp area of the radiator.

Sorry about my mistake, guys.

as for the 10 bolts. No need to be so damned anal all the time.

I'm sorry. I guess that didn't come out how I meant it to. I thought I was agreeing with you. Like:

Matt: "It's simple!"
Vikash: "Yeah, super simple!"

[Matt Monson]

Your explanation above says to route it to the nipple on the back of the filler tank. Here is where I take issue with the design. If I am not mistaken, the nipple on the back is the one that leads down to the cylinder head.

Ohhh... I guess this whole time I was thinking of the EJ22T's coolant tank, which has three nipples on the back (to water pump, to turbo, and to burp area). I said to connect to the small one, which is the right one.

But Ben has an EJ20G, which has a different coolant filler tank. You can tell us which nipple is the right one -- all I can say is it's the small one that's not attached to the filler neck; it's the one that currently connects to the burp area of the radiator.

Sorry about my mistake, guys.

as for the 10 bolts. No need to be so damned anal all the time.

I'm sorry. I guess that didn't come out how I meant it to. I thought I was agreeing with you. Like:

Matt: "It's simple!"
Vikash: "Yeah, super simple!"

On the EJ20G there are two small nipples and lines on the frontside of the tank. One is actually integrated into the cap area, and the other is lower down. I will have to take some pics and post them in the morning so we are all on the same page.

as for the 10 bolts?

[vrg3]

Cool, thanks, I'd love to see the pictures of that tank.

It's the lower-down front-facing small nipple, then, that you'd use on the EJ20G tank.

Ben - Do you have the EJ20G tank or the EJ22T tank? It'd probably depend on which intake manifold you used.

[ej22t]

I already replace the MRT Aluminum Tank that for Legacy turbo and locate beside the intake air box.

Ben