Reply to "New Custom Radiator; need opinions"

If you back-up one page, to the Engine Forum Summary page, you'll see sticky #2 about the cooling system. All the info most owners will ever need is there.

There are two schools of thought in regards to cooling systems, the older school of thought believes in slowing the coolant down, giving it time to absorb heat in the engine block and time to transfer heat to the air in the radiator. This is the basis of the Panteras cooling system. Frankly, it seems to work quite well with good quality parts.

The newer school of thought believes in speeding up the flow of coolant, the faster the better. This is the school of thought JT was following as he made his mods to his Pantera's cooling system. This is also the basis for the parts I've had custom built for my Pantera. Some of the re-engineering included in speeding up coolant flow are eliminating the swirl tank, eliminating sharp bends in the tubing, higher flow remote thermostat, higher flow coolant pumps, single pass radiators, larger tubes between the motor and radiator. In other words, some major reworking of the cooling system.

John also installed a de-gas tank (surge tank) and reworked the venting system to make it functional. This improvement is something anyone can do, regardless which school of thought they choose to follow, this is the improvement PLT-1 made to his Pantera. I highly recommend it.

Should you extensively modify the system like JT did, or optimize the system that's already there? Well, your Pantera will be more desirable when you decide to sell it if you optimize the oem system. Its also much easier to buy a few off-the-shelf parts and install them than to have parts custom made. A lot of owners are using their cars on track days and driving their cars around town in places like Phoenix Arizona with no problems at all, using an optimized oem cooling system. The guys who raced the Pantera at LeMans in 1972 and 1973 raced using the oem system, competing with 500 BHP motors and at 170 mph top speeds. For the majority of owners an optimized oem cooling system is all that will ever be necessary. My advice is to optimize the oem system, and only consider re-engineering it when the optimized oem system proves to be inadequate. A situation where an optimized oem system "may" be inadequate is open road racing in the higher speed classes on days when the temps hoover around 100 degrees F.

Anybody racing their Pantera needs a motor oil cooler and a transaxle oil cooler. This is where to spend your money first, before you do any re-engineering of the coolant system.

Whether or not to use a radiator shroud hinges simply upon how you intend to use the car. Most guys drive their cars on track days with shrouded Flex-A-Lite fan kits, no problems experienced. This is what you would call recreational track use, the car is basically a street car, and the shroud helps in those stop and go driving situations which occur much more often than the day or two each year the car is driven on a track. The guys involved in open road racing in the higher speed classes on days when the temps hoover around 100 degrees F will be better off without radiator shrouds. The more you set your car up for serious racing, the less "street friendly" your car is going to be, that's an unavoidable fact of life.

-G