So I need a chopped rad for my flathead powered roadster so that i can lower the grill shell a little and make it all line up nice with the cowl and i can then sleep at night knowing my aesthetic sensibilities are all in tact. question is can i take a rad set up for Deuce grill and a Chevy motor and simply have the extra inlets and outlets for a flathead added? or is there black magic at work inside a flatty rad that i don't know about? it may sound like an odd question but I've come across a shed load of Chevy rads that would fit my needs at a reasonable price and all the chopped flathead rads available cost an arm and a leg.....just wondering. what say you? F
Flathead Fords need an oversize rad. They have exhaust passages through the block that dump a lot of heat into the cooling system. Not a big problem if the cooling system is in top shape but you must have a rad twice as big as an OHV engine.
Every water cooled overhead valve engine I ever worked on had water passages surrounding the exhaust ports, and they don't necessarily run hot. Why so on a flathead Ford? Bob
I'd say that it would depend more on what the radiator you plan on using is set up to cool. First if you know where the radiator came from check it's specs against the specs for the radiator they build for a Flathead. My bet is that they are the same radiator with different outlets. Update: I went and downloaded the Walker radiator catalog to see their recommendations. They do have a radiator set up for a mild small block but that style doesn't have a model for a flathead. The flathead radiators are a step up with more cooling capacity.
OHV exhaust runs a very short distance in the head. Flathead exhaust snakes it's way from one side of the block to the other. Plenty of people on here have modified mustang radiators with extra ports for the their flathead, and worked fine. To answer your question, there is nothing magical about a flathead radiator, just extra ports. Rich
I got a decent deal on a slightly used walker radiator with chevy outlets. I had my local radiator shop modify it and add outlets for my flathead. He even opened up the top with a stock model a filler neck and cap and repainted the whole thing. Still saved a few hundred over a new walker. Haven't hooked it up yet, but is should work just fine.
Great stuff Guys, seems if I came across a rad set up for a slightly warmed over SBC I could mod it and use it, just gotta make sure it has good heat exchange properties.....food for thought. Thanks for the input. Felix
We had a 65 mustang radiator modified to work with a flathead. It cools just fine. Now the motor is an older Merc flathead that runs pretty strong. Clark
Not a Chev, but I have an early Mustang modified to suit the flathead. With no thermostats, Bob Drake waterpumps, a 6 blade fan, 13lb cap and Purple Ice water wetter it never gets over 180deg. In fact it's a bit too cool, so I'll go back to the 4 blade fan. The Mustang is a small radiator, which blows the theory of needing a big one for a flathead.The guy who put the extra outlets in it also checked it over and did a pressure test on it. One thing i did before putting it all together was to run a water blaster wand in through the jackets when the water pumps were off. This ensured there was no rust scale, casting sand etc in the waterways. Hope this helps.
The original flathead radiator is like any other except 4 conections. You could Y the hoses together if the radiator are aluminum Getting a shop to add outlets to an aluminum one might be tuff.
I did this with a '70 Dart rad to fit an A shell. Soldered on the necks and had the rad recored to a 3 core with 3/8" spacing on the tubes instead of 1/2". The rad shop even built me a new larger lower tank when they shortened and recored it, Total cost on the rad, $120. Flatman
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