I ordered a Mishimoto and fan as soon as I came back home and installed it last weekend.
The radiator replacement job was probably the *easiest* job I've ever had to do on this car!! It required almost no removal of parts not associated with the part being worked on (yeah, unbelievable considering this car is famous for having to remove 30 unrelated parts just to get your part in question) I was pleasantly surprised that I got it done in about 2 leisurely hours!
Where the radiator burst:
Before Replacement:
After Replacement:
Pretty straightforward swap. You have to reuse the temp sensor from your stock radiator.
Compared to stock, here are the differences:
1) It's thicker, thus there is virtually no clearanace between the alternator cooling duct and the radiator now-- it's literally pushing up against the radiator: I'm considering fabbing up a DIY duct later.
2) The bottom drain plug cannot be reused. There is a hole for draining, but the diameter is much bigger and it points horizontally. Perhaps an aftermarket spigot is supposed to go there. I left it plugged.
3) The top 2 brakets that hold/cushion the radiator doesn't 100% fit. Stock is not totally curved (has a sharp bend towards the back), so if you're reusing the braket, it won't sit perfectly with the Mishimoto, it'll stick up more.
4) Radiator cap / top neck sits slightly higher. I think it touches the bottom of the hood/insulation.
I was a bit surprised and confused that the 12" Derale fan that I ordered has a SPAL fan in the box. Upon investigation (this took about 30 minutes of my time), it turns out that Derale rebrands (in this case, didn't bother to put any Derale branding-- it's literally a SPAL fan) SPAL fans for certain products in their line. However, I was happy that the fan I got fit *perfectly* with this radiator. The flat parts of the fan housing fit just right at the edges of the core where the end tanks meet. Couldn't have asked for a better fitment.
The harness that came with the fan isn't plug and play with our stock harness, so I cut it off, then cut the harness from the stock fan and spliced them together (used butt connectors for now since I didn't have my soldering iron with me-- will solder it later, maybe this weekend). There's definitely a lot more space where the stock fan used to sit as this fan is much thinner in thickness.
Had to run out to the drug store to get distilled water (another 30 minutes, so I guess the install itself was about an hour lol), filled up the radiator, connected the pipes back up and went for a drive.
Surprisingly, the temp gauge is exactly where the stock radiator put it, slightly left of center. Without a true temp gauge I can't tell. So from what I see, it's much of an "upgrade" from stock. The fan it a bit louder (or seems that way since the pitch is higher), and that's about the only difference. I guess I won't know until I take the car to the track or autocross to see if it dissipates heat better. Certainly better than a cracked radiator
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And oh... I was going to do some editing of the GoPro videos from 2 weekends ago, but I haven't gotten around to it. So I just posted a few of the raw, unedited footages on YouTube. One of them seems to have a problem, but if you wanna see they are here:
ProSolo last runs before my radiator burst:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Wo_7_W3pKc
AutoX Helmet Cam:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTi9uQvdeV4
AutoX Wheel Cam:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvqy-9e0GUw
AutoX Winshield Cam:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwOrL0dNUAY
How my tires looked after 3 days of track and autocross:
And oh, I meant to show you guys this. It's my underhood LED light strip (Corksport). I have it ziptied like this but it does the job:
Thanks for reading.