Champion Radiators for the IDI

Wow it seems like a lot of people are having issues with their rads. I’ve done a good bit of work with bell intercoolers about 15 minutes from me doing custom work for turbo setups and have a good relationship with them. If y’all are interested I could look into having some big 4 rows made. Everything they have made for me has been super high quality and never had to use their warranty. Just food for thought if anyone is interested

Probably wouldnt hurt to check. I'm sure if you could get a group buy going, might get cheaper rates.

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I’ll give them a call and see what i can arrange

Well, just to be the advocate here, mine has been in for about three years and no worries! These radiators, being aluminum, are susceptible to electrolysis so if your electrical system has issues with grounding, or your coolant isn't just right(SCA's do need charging occasionally) that can have an effect on the lifespan.

And let's be honest, these are the cheapest all-aluminum radiators on the market, so sometime we do get what we pay for and sometime we hit a home run.

easy fix>> drain rad pull rad,locate about where ur leak', get some REAL fine steel wool, mix wool with J B weld and stuff into radiator fins around leaks. works leaks fixed many rad with this mix.saves a lot of money.good luck .fjk

Mine was rotted from the inside out, the outside was corroded and green/blues/white and the fins were falling out of it, no amount of jb weld was gonna fix it lol

jrad235 said:

Well, just to be the advocate here, mine has been in for about three years and no worries! These radiators, being aluminum, are susceptible to electrolysis so if your electrical system has issues with grounding, or your coolant isn't just right(SCA's do need charging occasionally) that can have an effect on the lifespan.

And let's be honest, these are the cheapest all-aluminum radiators on the market, so sometime we do get what we pay for and sometime we hit a home run.

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My original 3 row champion went 4 years, and has a small leak at one of the seams on the top tank. I am going to see if I can have a rad shop tig that hole shut since it is on a heavy tank seam and not on tank to core joint. The new 4 row champion I bought to replace the leaking 3 row lasted about 3 weeks before leaking (can't be electrolysis since not enough time had passed and it had new Fleetcharge coolant besides). The new 4 row that champion sent me to replace the leaker has been fine so far. Given the fact that these things are made in China, and handled roughly during shipping, there are bound to be bad ones in the bunch. I would agree that with the price these radiators are at, the champions are still a good deal even if you do take a bit of a "risk" hoping you get a good one first try. If the new one last 4 years, I will say it was a good purchase compared to the cost of a copper brass radiator or the cost of a Rodney Red. I still think these champion radiators are better than the 2 row aluminum/plastic Spectra radiators the parts stores are selling.

Parts store radiators are only a 2 core? I thought stock was 4? It looks abou the same thickness sort of but i got a totally different radiator since changing core support from wide to tall radiators. I'm hoping mine last but didn't have much choice it's daily driver, but it's got a lifetime warranty hopefully I don't have to use it for a few years at least

When mine failed, it made one heck of a mess under the hood and a real pain to clean up. Adding in the price of lost coolant and the shipping costs involved with returning "their failed product", I would've been further ahead to bite the bullet and buy new factory style brass rad in the beginning. In fact, if they offered me a refund right now, I'd take the loss and replace with new factory style rad. I have two old factory rads in storage above garage, might check out refurbish costs???

i dont have one personally but have heard great things about the Rodney Red? i believe. Im sure its more expensive but looks built well.

The replacement radiator Champion sent has been in the truck a few weeks now and is doing fine. (I know I just jinxed myself there). From my earlier post, you may recall that I have installed rubber belting in between the radiator mounting flanges and the mounting flanges on the core support. This is my attempt to somewhat isolate the radiator from the flexing of the core support. While this may or may not help with that issue, the rubber belting between the two flanges will probably act as an insulator and prevent the radiator from being properly grounded to the chassis. Read that as "electrolysis". So before that happens, I took some inspiration from @towcat, and his thread about grounding the heater core, and attached ground straps to two of the radiator mounting bolts. I then bolted the other ends of the ground straps to the core support. One of those core support locations was near the driver's side battery and was already a chassis ground location for some other things. On the passenger's side, I ran a bolt through an existing hole in the core support. Will this help? Who knows, but it was worth a try and time will tell!

My warranty replacement arrived yesterday. Packaging has improved significantly since my original purchase. Box only had one "ding" in it and no damage to rad. I'll install this weekend.

catbird7 said:

Mark-up another one in the failure column! Mine just started leaking where cores intersect bottom tank, it was purchased in Aug of 2015 (4-core). Warranty says "covered" so long as original purchaser owns. I called seller (in California) who confirmed it's covered by warranty and gave me a return number. Here comes the kick in the "****", return UPS shipping costs from PA to CA is just shy of $100.00. Seller inquired about coolant I used which was Fleet Charge. He asked what color it was, Fleet Charge is purplish and he claimed that could be reason for failure. He advised using green coolant??? Does anyone make "green" coolant with pre-charged SCA? Champion Rad box states "Must use glycol based coolant", Fleet Charge is glycol base??? Is there an issue with coolants that are not "green"?

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By any chance @catbird7 did you recently post about this on the facebook idi enthusiasts page? Because if not that is the second time I have heard that.

No sir, I'm an odd ball old fart that doesn't participate in "facebook".

pelky350 said:

Parts store radiators are only a 2 core? I thought stock was 4?

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My aluminium one is 'two core' as well. However each core is as wide as two copper cores. Read somewhere that wider cores are supposedly better but copper is to soft to make two 'wide' cores so they make four 'skinny' cores instead.

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