all of these venders are selling these aftermarket radiators. are they abosutely necessary. i bought one because i messed up my factory radiator.

I haven't heard of anyone overheating yet, but I guess it would be a good safety measure if you have more hp. How'd you mess up your stock radiator? The fins on mine are all bend from all the road debris. What radiator did you end up buying?

Jay

only time I've overheated mine was when I screwed up doing the 30k service. I fixed it, runs fine. but other than that, not even close

speed safely

Brian

Slvrblt, what did you mess up on during your service? Because I had mine serviced at the dealership and ever since then everytime I drive my car and get out, I can smell coolant. I've since taken it back to the dealer and they said it was just from the overflow tank but I'm not buying it.

it was just a matter of a large- and I mean LARGE air pocket within the hoses and or radiator- I did the flush in somewhat of a hurry.

smelling coolant- sounds like they spilled it somewhere- how long ago did you get the service done?

speed safely

Brian

my dad dropped it after looking at in and then that was the end of it.

i have gotten the temp gage all the way hot once. i was also doing some off roading and was climbing an insanly steep hill. once i came back down it was fine and haven't had a problem since

I thought that they spilled some at first, but it has been at least 2 months. I'm puzzled.

The only times I ever overheated is when I had the Samco hose kits (coolant) and the coolant had to be drained and refilled, I guess it takes some time to fill all the way.

Pete

anyone know the exact amount of coolant the subaru needs?

I have yet to overheat mine. For reference, I live in the Mojave Desert and have driven the car pretty hard in 120 degree heat. I'm sure the IC heat soaks pretty good when I stop. I also have run the AC in this heat also. But if the factory rad was messed up, I'd get a better one. My rule, something breaks or wears out on the car, a better one goes in.

/\rcanum

damn. i better not move there since i removed my a/c

I'd think a larger aftermarket radiator would help for road racing, hopefully keeping the ECU a little happier with cooler temps so it doesnt put a damper on the show. Adding cooling capacity in any way to a turbo car seems like a good idea.

The stock radiator has plastic end tanks, and is not REAL reliable. They are not blowing up quite yet, but give them a little while :)

Once you reach over 280WHP you should probably upgrade your radiators capacity.


-Zach

good thing i bought one. plus they are shinny and look nice.

Stealth, which radiator did you go with?

i really wonder what it would take to get it to overheat....
stock seems fine..even some Redline waterwetter goes a long way to keep the temps down.

pwr radiator.

Originally posted by stealth-wrx
pwr radiator.

Post a picture please!

do you want the pic with it bolted to the car or on the ground next to it. both will work.

There's 2 schools of thoughts on aftermarket engine cooling..

The first one is obviously to go for a bigger all aluminum radiator.

This is usually the best way to go.. however, bigger capacity cooling systems add weight by the components, and also by the added coolant capacity... In the end you may sometimes end up having more cooling power but a heavier car...

The other way to go , is to use the available properties of your cooling system such as the existing radiator heat dissipation capabilities , but tweak the cooling process itself..

You can always add some water wetter agent that adds better fluid properties to the coolant, like Redline's water wetter, or some other chemicals / additives like DEI's Radiator Relief that have much better heat transfer capacities than water/coolant by itself. They're not cheap, DEI's product especially, but still much cheaper than new hardware and sometimes enough to get the results you want.

There's also the high pressure cap. Higher pressure translates into a higher boiling point so the coolant keep its best properties through a wider temperature range...


Either way, it's all about what you aim to get and what you have already to work with!

I've overheated my ENGINE OIL before at a road track session. The coolant temp was happily at the normal mark. And worth noting is I live in the tropics where temperature hover around 95-100F all year round.

I highly doubt a regular WRX driven on public roads (no matter how hard) will overheat <- IMHO.

i overheated my car last night in the snow.
i took it to the dealer to get it checked out just to be safe.
if your wondering what happened, my friends made a big boulder of snow and i hit it with my car. afterwards we went to go do some donuts and drifts in a parking lot. my turbo was glowing red hot and steam came out from everywhere. i posted on the other site to see if anyone would know what happened to my car.
do u guys know? if ya do let me know. i hope nothin bad happened to my car. I know 1 thing for sure...i won`t be doing that for a while.

Jaime