Summer Rad upgrade

[Kinger]

Thinking of upgrading the standard Elise radiator as it is now 17 years old and would like to change it before it goes pop !!!

Would appreciate the thoughts of the wiser members, currently trying to decide whether to go for the Elise shop all alloy radiator at £200 or is it worth forking out another £100 and go for the 3 pass Pro-Alloy radiator.

Don't want to throw away £100 if the three pass is a bit of an overkill for me, main reason for upgrade is considering taking the S1 to Zandvoort and Bilsterberg in August, imagine it will be quite hot over there in August.

Any thoughts appreciated.

[kneedoon]

I went for the £200 all alloy job from Elise Parts with an upgraded fan and new silicon hoses seems a fair improvement over the standard one although only done about 20miles since fitting it ! No complaints though


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[BigD]

Cheaper one for me too Kinger recently after some discussion on here. Did someone not say the triple pass can actually put more strain on the water pump etc.
Single pass and bigger core seems spot on for me so far and runs cooler than it did.

[campbell]

Get cheapest all-alloy you can get. It'll do fine. I have one fitted, 5 years so far with no issues.

[Dominic]

I fitted mine just over a year ago. £200 EP rad. Does a good job, rarely goes above 85 deg C on the stack display. Fairly straightforward job, although there is potential for hassle removing the clam if it's not been off in a while. One thing to be very wary of, if your car has OATS coolant, make sure you get the same stuff that is already in it.

[Kinger]

I fitted mine just over a year ago. £200 EP rad. Does a good job, rarely goes above 85 deg C on the stack display. Fairly straightforward job, although there is potential for hassle removing the clam if it's not been off in a while. One thing to be very wary of, if your car has OATS coolant, make sure you get the same stuff that is already in it.

OATS coolant ?, how would I know what's in it at present. Mine's is pink coloured, other than that don't know which type .

Cheers

[Stu160]

I have used both types (mine was elise shop) for the standard car, the elise shop one is fine, i also fitted twin fans, one on a manual switch, that worked very well in higher temps, on all the time. Also fit the elise shop heater matrix upgrade, makes a huge difference. Toasty feet.

Stu

[robin]

The additional cooling capacity of the triple pass radiator is not going to be required for a <150BHP car even on track IMHO. Cars with A/C (whether or not it actually works) seem to struggle much worse for track cooling and there the additional cooling capacity of the rad is going to be useful.

Cheers,
Robin

[tut]

Craig put a manual fan switch in the cockpit when the car was in, but nowadays I am not going anywhere hot enough where the fan would even come on unless I got stuck in a traffic jam.

Also as it is CC it has a twin fan radiator.

tut

[Dominic]

I fitted mine just over a year ago. £200 EP rad. Does a good job, rarely goes above 85 deg C on the stack display. Fairly straightforward job, although there is potential for hassle removing the clam if it's not been off in a while. One thing to be very wary of, if your car has OATS coolant, make sure you get the same stuff that is already in it.

OATS coolant ?, how would I know what's in it at present. Mine's is pink coloured, other than that don't know which type .

Cheers

OATS = Organic Acid Technology IIRC. It is important not to mix types. Don't mix colours of OATS, the chemicals react and cause the coolant to get white lumps in it, which blocks the radiator, stopping any cooling and cooking your engine. I took great care to get pink OATS coolant to go with the pink stuff in the car. Turned out that it was not the same pink - so I ended up with lumpy coolant and had to get the entire system cleared out.

[Stephen]

Dom,
Does the elise need OATS or would it be better just to change to glycol?

Ps where do you get your oats?

[Dominic]

Dom,
Does the elise need OATS or would it be better just to change to glycol?

Ps where do you get your oats?

Don't know if it needs it as such, just much easier to top up with the same stuff, than have to clear it all out to save issues.

I originally bought pink stuff from Unipart (Rover parts supplier who are no more). It would be about 18 months ago that I changed my rad, and at that point I could not find pink stuff in any motor factors so ended up getting pink stuff from Halfords... which reacted badly with the pink stuff in the car.

[BigD]

I'm guessing the 2 pink stuffs you bought were oats and non oats Dom?

[Dominic]

Both pink OATS, one unipart, one halfords.

[Stephen]

It sounds like a flush and change to glycol may be the best option to prevent further issues.