Champion radiator - I cut her open
I didn't consider that a 1 inch tube could be as narrow as the ones shown in the picture. I thought about it for a bit, and I can say I don't think I've ever seen tubes that narrow in anything, not even an OEM radiator.
You'd be correct...if the tubes are as narrow in the pictures it really wouldn't matter hob big they are in the other direction.
I going to ASSume the only reason to do that is to get enough tubes in there and keep the width to a certain size.
Correct. They’re cramming more total surface area by adding more tubes that are narrower. They can only make the radiator so wide. The math will work really well because of the total surface area of all those tubes. But the radiators efficiency in real life may suffer because of the water circulation. If not at first, certainly as the radiator ages.
Same with the length. Manufacturers will use shorter tubes and run more cores. They can only make the radiator so thick and still sell them. But they get to advertise them as a 4 core- the ”well if 3 cores are good 4 must be better!” kind of thinking sells radiators. Well, no, not if the tubes are really thin and short, you have surface area but lose efficiency.
But the same is true for advertising 1” tubes. Is that really better? Have you done the math on water circulation, surface area, efficiency, etc? Two rows of giant tubes won’t necessarily work better either, the tube length being 1” doesn’t mean anything by itself. Longer tubes don’t mean crap if you don’t have enough of them to create enough total surface area. A 3 core with .75” tubes might work better, but unless you test them side by side for thermal efficiency you wouldn’t know.
It’s just advertising, more cores vs larger tubes. Neither one actually tells you which radiator is best for your car.
2 row core 1" tubes, and water wetter added to the antifreeze. Dont run electric and engine driven fans. Run one or the other.
The last bit I agree with, run electric or run mechanical. Running both is inefficient, and usually counterproductive.
But like I said above, just having 1” tubes doesn’t necessarily mean anything either. It’s not that simple, you have to look at the whole thing.
