The other side of the coin is that not everyone can afford the best of everything. I go cheap on everything on my car. It's been a daily driver its whole life. I drive it 600 miles to Canada beat the snot out of it at Mosport, Calabogie and Mt. Tremblant and then drive it home.

I went with the Griffin 1.25 inch tube dual core. It has better cooling capacity than 1 inch tubes. It's not that hard to install. Many people here do much harder jobs on their car. Its lasted 10 years so far. It's not an ebay radiator. You can order it from Jegs and other race car suppliers.

The thing is there are a lot of C3s sitting around rotting waiting for some kid or whatever to bring it back to life. Its just not practical or even sane for anyone to put the best of everything into the rebuild. You'd end up with a 40k + car.

So you can wait and save while the car rots away or read this forum find out how to do your own work on the cheap, get cheap parts that are known to work and get on the road and get on with life.

i just see so many cars sitting around that "are going to be something someday" and it just never happens.

 

Funny that you should mention customer service,about 3 years ago there was another exact same thread about DeWitts rads,I even think Pauldana was going off on one even on that thread.
But anyway back to the point a fellow Brit forum member and friend posted in that thread, that we needed to buy two rads,but because of the high shipping costs and import tax we were leaning towards the cheaper eBay offerings,Tom replied email me and we'll work something out,which we did.
In the end we ended up with two great fitting rads,low cost shipping and I dont know how Tom did it but we did not even have to pay any import tax.
That kind of customer service goes above and beyond the call of duty.

 

How true! someone understands engine temperature!
Cor

 

Several years back I bought one of those inexpensive aluminum radiators from ebay. I had a little trouble adapting it to work on my 77 which has just a mildly built 350. It has worked pretty good until this summer of 60 plus days of well over 100 degrees temps. If I drive my car at 60 mph with the a/c on the temp is about 210 degrees but if I push it up to 70-80 mph it jumps up to 230 degrees. I am using a single volvo electric fan. Yesterday I purchased the dewitts radiator fan combo for a great Carlisle special deal which included free shipping. I am so looking forward to getting it and being able to drive my car the way it should be driven like a sports car. Thanks Tom for the good Carlisle deal.

 

ok, good to know! I would say that a 'stabilized temp' is exactly what I am looking for. My 70 rad is also leaking at the seams. Did you replace your water pump as well? Mine is starting to rust around the access plate and I wonder if some days it does not pump.. I have been considering a replacement Edelbrock or Stewart...

 

I think in an actual Corvette is better than a lab.
Who cares if the side bowls look factory, did a vette come out with an aluminum rad in the first place?
I too can't/won/t pay $500 for a rad as long as Ebay has 1for $250 and I know I have ran 3 so far and they run very cool.

The day is over having only 1 choice and price for anything.
If they will play "beat the price" I'll buy one Monday.

 

And don't forget the Radiator cap.

 

I'm running a stock BB radiator w/ DeWitt's dual fan setup. It keeps my 427 cool in traffic and A/C running. It was 113 yesterday here in Phoenix, so the fans work great.

I can't comment on their radiators, but their customer service is AWESOME. I had some questions about my A/C and fan install and they answered them w/in 12 hours, sometimes even as late as 11pm PST. I still haven't heard anything negative about their radiators. They're guaranteed to fit and everyone agrees they're great.

Thanks DeWitts.

 

That is basically it in a nut shell however, Paul did say he'd like to see his car run 10* cooler. That might mean he's not getting to the stat setting and if that's true there is still room for noticeable improvement. The problem with a "real world" test is the conditions would have to be exactly the same, including ambient temperature, humidity, and traffic conditions. Changing radiators out in a C3 is not an easy task and Pauls offer is a lot of work, for nothing in return.

My intent with the above link was to create a document that showed what we do and how we do it. In no way was it to criticize the ebay radiators or the buyers of them. If this information gains us a sale, great, but if not that's ok too. The main point of the write up was to show you one thing. The quality of the core is everything.

No one in the USA makes their own cores and the imported ones are not made with the same TLC as ours. I know because I bought some years ago from several china sources. They were not all bad, just very inconsistant. Some would be brazed good but not square or vise versa, lots of fin damage, etc.

My intent was to make you think for a minute....."If your USA guy is making radiators and not making the core, then where do the cores come from". A lot of guys are buying chineese cores, welding end tanks on them and calling the radiator "made in USA" and that's only the tip of the iceberg as to what you don't know about the aftermarket business.

I'd love to keep this thread alive and open so let's just keep it civil.

 

Wow, just wow is all I can say to keep things civil here, take a look at my motor in my avitar

And respect Mr Dewitts post.

 

That's the main observation I've made. I've bought a few different models and even ones that claim to be "made in the usa" sometimes have very poorly made cores that have fins so thin they bend if you look at them wrong...

Maybe I'm strange but it's a huge pet peeve of mine to get a radiator with nice billet end tanks but has a core that looks barely good enough to be put on a Pep Boys ATV.

 

I enjoyed the article as it was very informative. Thank you for posting.

And while I appreciate the virtues of an AL rad I do wonder why you have ignored the copper/brass segment of the market. My 1974 will go 180*F on the highway for hours with the 180 t-stat and an OEM-style rad of unknown age. In city it will see perhaps 200*F in stop-and-go. With A/C that bumps up to 210. Perfectly fine with me and certainly well within specs. But of course we in these regions do not see 100*F temps.

If my rad were to fail I would not probably seek out an EBay AL cheapee but a top-quality copper/brass version. I do not trust local rebuild shops. I don't know where their 27" cores are coming from these days. I would be tempted by your $495.00 AL unit but would feel more comfortable with a "direct fit" non-AL rad at a lower price. And in the $300-325 range. Given your penchant for quality control and fit I am sure this could be produced as a nice unit but at that price?. You are the expert. Still higher than EBay AL Chinese "Made in USA" but I would buy at that price from you. With respect, why are you not addressing this segment of the market? I am sure many would go with your reputation for quality but in the more traditional C3 metallurgy as well. I would.

 

??? - I in no way meant to denigrate what you have done. If it was interpreted that way then my bad. Yes, your motor looks fantastic. I've followed many of your posts and have been quite impressed with the things you've done.

 

Paul - there are new cores available. See page 18 of the catalog at http://www.dewitts.com/download/catalog.pdf

You'll have to have your OEM side tanks installed, however.

 

Meaning it's a aluminum rad ?, meaning you don't have a factory appearing rad either ?, that's just one of the things that got me going, unless you have the OEM style / version you don't have a "factory appearing rad" either.

Kinda gets under my skin I could care less about anything on my Vette being "factory appearing". It will go over the speed limit on our highest mph freeways in first gear

Other than that everything is fine but when I see something like that I have to say something. So no probs

 

Thank you!



You can get copper cores from many place but you can't get them with the GM hat channels that the judges would look for.

 

My bad! Thanks for the reference.

 

[QUOTE=Tom DeWitt;1578535795]

The quality of the core is everything.
QUOTE]


Im not rich , I paid alot for my Dewitts radiator and knew that when I bought it 5yrs ago.
But It was certainly the way for me to cap off my new $6K engine build
and install.
Plus, I simply like Tom Dewitt for his transparancy , integrity and success , building his line of products in a very competative Market.

 

Guys ( and gals ) Dewitts is the rad you want in your Vette. You get what you pay for period. It will cool a pretty hopped up motor no probs and like I said I was going to buy from him, had money in hand but I didn't like the controller being non adjustable.

Mr Dewitts is correct, I don't know if he is selling an adjustable controller or not these days. I would like to tell him that he is right they are not reliable. My adjustable went after about 1-2 years and had to replace it, so far the new one is working fine for about 2 summers now.

I went and bought a custom setup, but I now have a fail-safe wire connected directly from the battery to the fan, it bypasses the controller and the relays with no fuses or anything else in the path. It connects the fans to the battery via a battery cutoff switch I have mounted in my ashtray should anything fail, this will power the fans.

So in short, he has the best, most reliable cooling system we can get get and think about how much money you have invested in your motor, the piece of mind justifies the cost unless you want to spend $1600 on a custom built setup like I have

 

I have the edelbrock aluminum one sprayed Chevrolet orange and it looks just fine - close to stock. My original was not - some cheap reproduction junk someone swapped in there a while back.