Review Of Mishimoto Radiator
 

Here we go again.

Some of you may remember my last round with Mishimoto over an oil sandwich plate... After some discussion with the company they did follow through with their promise to compensate me somewhat for the trouble. I ended up with their radiator to try out to see if I can find anything good to say. Here's the results and reasoning behind this adventure.

I chose to try this radiator based on reading reviews of the two major brands I know of (Mishimoto and CSF). I have seen good and bad reviews of both. Based on this and my frequent trips to the Tail of the Dragon, I thought giving this radiator a shot could be beneficial. I will be posting my temps from runs starting this week, weather permitting.

Full Disclosure Section:

I want to clarify I am not being compensated in any way for this review. I was given a special price for it based on the hassle of my previous experience. If any of you have read my review of that oil sandwich plate (which will never be on my car again) I will give honest feedback.

Story Section:

I ordered the radiator directly from Mishimoto. Unfortunately Fedex managed to destroy the first one. They somehow put a hole through a double wall box all the way through during an overnight shipment. (I was trying to get it in before my dragon season ended due to weather.) I had to contact the company and request an RMA that came quickly, I think within 1-2 days. They paid the shipping back and sent out a replacement shortly after receiving it. Once I had one that the box was in one piece, I unboxed it to check it out. Here's how it arrived:

http://i.imgur.com/QdpOUfW.jpg
Fedex killed box....

http://i.imgur.com/ROItCcl.jpg
Side 1 of good radiator. Some fins bent but nothing major. Only my OCD was affected.

http://i.imgur.com/YI0cswz.jpg
Side 2 of good radiator. More find bent... OCD suffers.

http://i.imgur.com/WOiwqY3.jpg
Interesting feature. Magnetic drain plug.



After I unboxed it, I check both plugs. They were both able to be removed with my hand. Not sure if that's correct torque or not but I won't get off on that tangent again. I decided it would be a good idea to fill it and check for holes and debris in the radiator. I did not find any debris, I used a couple coffee filters in a effort to trap anything that may come out and still found nothing. I know this wasn't a pressurized test but It was a dummy check I thought was worth the 10 minutes it took to try. After this, I repackaged the radiator to take to a friends garage to install. Might have spent an hour bending fins back straight. Again, mostly OCD.

Install Thoughts and Such:

The directions on Mishimoto's site are pretty accurate. The only trouble I had was getting the A/C hard lines around the radiator to get to their final locations. I ended up just fighting with the radiator location vs hose location to get them by the corner. A picture of the final product is below.


http://i.imgur.com/b0HyUJq.jpg
My cooling setup is complete, I think.

A couple of side notes:

1. I hate the integrated A/C heat exchanger in the stock unit. I ended up paying $100 total in evacuation and refill costs as a result.

2. Wear eye protection and work in an area that can be well ventilated quickly in case your A/C guy doesn't understand that when you tell them you want the freon out of the system because you are opening the lines ALL of it should be removed. When I broke the hard lines loose from the stock radiator, the oil, dye, and a large amount of freon were still in the system. The oil and dye are now all over the core support and garage floor. If I hadn't had safety glasses from work, it would have ended in a trip to the ER.

Post install thoughts:

I really hate that you can't see the radiator once it's bolted back together. It's a fairly nice to look at. If you install any aftermarket radiator, keep an eye on your fill tank. Even after I turned my heat to max and used the refill funnel like in the video to purge the air out of the system I had to refill the overflow tank twice. This might have been because I still had the car on stands until after I was sure there were no leaks.

Testing:

This is where the fun begins. I have been driving on the unit for 3 weeks now. I has survived the two ice storms that have been through east TN. The warmest day since the install was today and it has made a couple three hour instate trips at a good rate of speed. I've romped on the engine in town trying to see if I can create a leak. So far, nothing.

I am planning a half day trip to the Dragon this week if the weather forecast holds true. my average temps after the oil cooler install were 200-220 if there was little traffic in the fall. It will still be cool in the mountains but I think It will drop the temps some more. On average I'm seeing 10-20 degree drops around town and I haven't seen the temps get above 180 at all. I am hesitant to say this is all the new radiator because it's been around an average of 33 here most of the time since the install.

Overall Impression:

I have been happier with this product vs the last one. It does take about 4 hours if you are working around upgraded PS and oil coolers. ( I was lazy and didn't unbolt mine) If it makes it through a couple trips through the dragon without incident, I will sign off as something I would buy again.

If you have any questions, please ask or PM. I'm only posting this to help others as this forums always helps me with my questions.

Sorry for the book and I hope this helps someone.

P.S. Not sure how to make the photos smaller. If someone can tell me I will edit the IMG tag or what not.

Interesting. Good luck with it. Hope it works out for you. ;)

Thanks, while I am defintely sticking with mocal for the oil needs, this radiator seems to do well. If there is ever a problem with it I will be documenting it here. There's rain predicted tonight so if that happens the dragon trip might get postponed. RE-11s don't like rain up there.

How are you comparing your water temps? Datalogging?

I am primarily watching my oil temps right now. Probably should have clarified. I have a data logger that I watch the temps with when it decides to connect. On the dragon it comes loose from the OBDII port sometimes. I'm gonna try and borrow a temp gun tomorrow for a before and after if the roads dry out in time.

full disclosure. what did you pay?

If I was you. I would install an aftermarket water temp gauge.

PM'd.

I want to but haven't found a way I like to mount the gauge. Strongly considering just installing a in car computer with Torque in the navigation cubby. I think they've located every PID in the car now.

i don't personally care what you paid, but if you're going to state full disclosure you should post what you paid, especially considering your scorn history with the company.

As I said in the PM, I'm not posting it on the boards at the moment. If asked I will tell, as I did in the PM. You're not the first that has asked. I'd rather not throw the number out there, that's my personal preference. I stated I received a discount because it was talked about in the other thread. They did follow through with their promise eventually. To give an idea of the range it was less that $300 with shipping.

I hope this helps.

Finally back from the dragon.

Good news:

Radiator is still in one piece and no leaks.
It's finally warm enough to be up on the dragon.

Bad news:

Doesn't seem to help my temps on that road. This doesn't surprise me as it's relatively low speed. My data logger dongle finally gave up on me so I could only watch the oil temp gauge. Never got above 220 but that isn't far from what my oil cooler did for me.

I have noticed once the car gets above 55ish the oil temps start going down. I think this is a case of lack of air flow. It was also 63 and below 35% humidity so not exactly ideal conditions for this test. I ran the parkway home to see what it did at faster speeds and it dropped from 200-220 to 160-180 quickly. Say maybe in a mile or so. I couldn't get it to go any higher than 180 once it had cooled down.

It seems like this unit is suited to more of a track day setting than tight mountain roads. I don't believe it is any worse and I'm happy with oil temps holding under 220 given the circumstances.

I am looking into a better data logging setup to check the PIDs and see what's going on. I may also look into a gauge if I can't find a better solution. We are expecting snow again next week then hopefully it'll warm up and I can give it more of a workout in hotter weather.

A gauge with the sender in the upper radaitor hose. Once the themostat opens. Then you will have a better idea of what's going on. If you really want to know. Also put a sender in your lower hose too. This way you can see what the Temp Delta is.

OP, Y do u keep giving u'r $$$ to this cHineeZ sh!+ company? LOL! It baffles me! :confused:

I may end up doing this. I'm still pushing oil temps higher than I would like. The next option will be to upgrade fans I think. I just don't hit sustained speeds high enough up in the mountains to effectively cool. It would be nice to see how much of a cooling effect the radiator is giving.