So I installed my Mishimoto radiator today. Told you I'd do it within 2 days.

Fitment
Radiator is a direct drop-in replacement on a stock car. Everything lined up perfectly. I did have to modify my IC piping on the hot side as it was already against the AC fan. Since this radiator is much thicker than stock the piping wouldn't fit as is. So I trimmed the fan bracing to make room and shorted the "leg" of the pipe before it enters the TB. I also have 26mm JR front sway so the lower parts of the fan shrowd had to be trimmed to fit.

Build quality is equal to if not better than the Godspeed I have on the other car. With the GS I had to widen the holes in the fans to line up with the standoffs on the radiator. Didn't have to do that with the Mishimoto. Also the GS does not come with mounting brackets. You have to reuse the brackets from your factory plastic radiator. If you had previously upgraded to the automatic all metal factory radiator you'd be **** out of luck with a GS until you source the brackets. The bottom plug on the Mishimoto is a better design than the GS too. It seems less likely to start leaking.

Performance
I am upgrading from a factory all metal automatic radiator. I also have the BEGi coolant bypass at the waterpump inlet and the heater core outlet is spliced in to the upper radiator hose with a custom T, similiar to what BEGi sells. Previously I would see temps from 185 to 200 with that setup. Fans were set to turn on at 190F(both together).

After installing the Mishimoto radiator today I took the car out for a drive. Set the fan turn on temp top 200. It was 75-80F out. Idling in my drive way it got up to 185F. As soon as I started down my street the temps dropped to the 170's, 176F to be exact. Cruising across town in shitty Bricktown traffic the temp hovered between 181 and 184. Jumped on the highway. Temp slowly dropped to a low of 174F. Got off the highway to take back roads home. Got the thing into boost as much as safely possible. Temp never went above 181F.

Come winter I will have to come up with a way to keep the temps up. That t-splice heater core bypass allows coolant to circulate at all times. I'll probably put some restrictor in it or maybe a t-stat at the rear outlet of the head. Maybe I'll get lazy and just shield the radiator.

After seeing how cool the car runs now I realize I didn't have to modify the AC fan to fit the IC piping. I coulda just left it off the car. Oh well.

I whole heartedly recommend this radiator for anyone looking for better cooling. Thanks Nester.

 

Nice writeup paul.

 

Stand by for update. running into some issues after driving a lil longer. May turn out to be nothing big but radiator is leaking at/around fill neck. It's at least a bad cap and leaking overflow fitting(its tapped instead of being welded)

Will check it out and advise after dinner. Giving it time to cool before attempting to fix.

 

No, I will not weld it unless you CLEAN IT FIRST.

 

HAHAHA. I said that to Jes already.

Anyway, update. Problems fixed.

Removed the overflow fitting, cleaned up the threads(old teflon tape), new teflon tape, screwed it back in. Tighter than it was. Wasn't in all the way originally. But now the fitting protruded past the inside wall of the neck and was causing radiator cap to get caught. So I Dremel'd that down to be flush on the inside. Now the cap clears it. Btw, went back to my old cap. Fit much more snug. I think the gapping on the Mishimoto cap is wrong, the distance between the seal and the lips of the cap was too much so the cap wasn't very tight.

Took the car for an hour drive and not a drop leaked.

So if you do pick up one of these don't bother with the included cap and 2x check that overflow fitting.

 

I also noticed the teflon on the overflow fitting and thought: "Oh, will this hold?". I will have it checked before the install. Would this turn up if you pressure test the system after install?