ECP radiator issues.

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yellow rose

yellow rose

Overnight Sensation
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Ay one use an ECP radiator. Guess I should have looked at the posted blue print closer before i bought.

I actually called them several times before i bought. They said it was a drop in fit. And it would be if the cap mount was not clocked 180* degrees out. And if the drivers side mount didnt hit the fram. And if I could move the driverside bolt hole up 4 inches. But I cant because of the notch in the radiator mount.

This would be the BEST radiator for the $$$$$ (and way better than some that are almost twice the cost) except for the above mentioned ****.

And Frank says to send it back, except I have to eat the freight becasue the radiator matched the blue print! I guess it doesnt matter that I have NEVER seen an A body with the overflow tank on the drivers side. And I suppose my car is the only A body to ever have my frame hit his radiator mount. Frank says thay have sold 100's of these and I am the only one who complained. Really???

Double check everything before you buy an ECP radiator. Now I have to do some fab work I didnt want to, and shouldnt have to. Or, eat freight 2 ways, wait on them for a refund, and run a radiator that has smaller cores than I thin is required.

Welcome to the world of chinese copy cat manufacturing.
 
Radiator work fine!
You not know how!
You go home now!
You scare my Wife!

Overflow on the drivers side, and no one complained?
Yea, right.
 
I just replaced the 50 year old radiator in my 67 fastback with the ECP bigblock replacement.
was it a direct bolt in, no. I had to drill /match upper holes, I drilled and relocated the bottom holes. no biggie.
the overflow is in a better spot on drivers side. trunk mounted battery = more room.
bottom line, the bigblock temps were running 210, now 190. I'm happy with the quality and the price.
bolt in's are for yuppies ! grab a wrench and do some fab.
 
TrailBeast said:
Radiator work fine!
You not know how!
You go home now!
You scare my Wife!
Click to expand...

That's funny......

I just installed an A body ECP radiator in a '57 Savoy 360 conversion project for a customer.
After carefully measuring everything and locating it to the car, it worked out great.
Had to drill the holes to mount it, overflow does point to drivers side.
Also Installed a matching polished overflow on the passenger side,
I just looped the hose around from the neck to the overflow reservoir and tucked it up to the core support and all is well.
 
Duster_Dude said:
That's funny......

I just installed an A body ECP radiator in a '57 Savoy 360 conversion project for a customer.
After carefully measuring everything and locating it to the car, it worked out great.
Had to drill the holes to mount it, overflow does point to drivers side.
Also Installed a matching polished overflow on the passenger side,
I just looped the hose around from the neck to the overflow reservoir and tucked it up to the core support and all is well.
Click to expand...

Yea, it's not a huge deal and it's easy to make work, but it would be so easy to make it right and they just don't.
That part stinks worse than the original issue in my book.
 
I dont want the battery in the trunk.
I didnt want to drill ANY holes in the core suport.

The real pisser is that when looking at th drawing, the measurements are all correct. The pronlem is where they have X, Y, and Z zero. There are no refrence points on that drawing. Where the idiots found the numbers i do not know. The numbers are correct as far a centerlines go, but not correct.

I can fab anything I want. But just because I can, dont mean I should.

I would call them back, but Frank is a jack *** and there is no sense trying to convince a jack *** his blue print is worthless.

And the overflow on every MoPar Ive ever seen is on the PASSENGER side. How can you possibly F*&K that up? I should have caught that on but who screws that up?? Only copy cat chinese.


FIX IT EQP
 
Glad this came up, I'm going to buy an ECP radiator. They look fine for the price. Drilling a few holes in a mounting bracket is no big deal. Did you buy the 22" or 26"? I've done a lot of research on this recently (this weekend, today) and theirs looks pretty darn good. I like how the info on the webpage is written, they seem more honest than your average part description blurb.

But, the main reason I am getting one from them is because I'm throwing in the towel on my ridiculously expensive Griffin 'Direct Fit" radiator. Direct fit? My ***. You think the ECP rad. is not what it should be? Be thankful you didn't get the one I got. I've wanted to smash my radiator into bits the minute I took it out of the box. It's pathetic how many hours I've spent trying to make it work for my application which is just a small block in an A body. The radiator itself is fine and works well but the fit is nowhere near correct.

When I bought it a few years ago, I had to mangle a nice, original shroud to get it to work with my fan set up. While wrangling it around, lots of fins got mashed, I was pissed.

Besides the oversize tank and core, their 'factory blueprinted' radiator came with huge, welded on mounting brackets that put the radiator 1/2" farther back into the engine bay than the stock piece. For whatever reason, it was OK with the previous motor but I recently built a new combo and put in new motor mounts. Guess what? The fan no longer cleared. And it's not like there is only a 1/4" clearance or even an 1/8", there is 0" clearance. I could not physically get the fan on the water pump, even with the short Jag fan clutch. WTF?

I called Griffin about it at one point and they said they used factory blueprints. Let me say here that there is no possible way they used factory blueprints. Maybe they found some random, Brand X drawings but they certainly bore no resemblance to anything Chrysler. I talked it over with the tech and he said it was too late to send it back so my only option was to cut or modify the brackets to make it work. He actually told me that Mopar guys seem to have more problems than anyone else. Wonder why? I was not happy.

So I cut their crazy brackets off and had some generic ones welded on and gained some clearance back but it was still not great and it left no provision for mounting the shroud. All told, I ruined a good shroud, damaged a brand new radiator, modified it to work and it still required more to make it right and I can't even mount the shroud. I've spent too many hours trying to come up with reasonable brackets to hold the thing in place. It's preventing me from finishing my build up and I am not willing to dick around with it anymore. It shouldn't be that difficult. Goodbye Griffin Direct Fit radiator. Let's hope the ECP will be less of a hassle.

BTW, the overflow tank nipple goes to the driver's side on mine as well so don't think it's just ECP, Griffin did it too. I didn't care but just pointing it out.

Sorry for the sort of hijack but the ECP rad. has to be a better product just by default.
 
TrailBeast said:
:D
Click to expand...
Ya think? There's a reason ,why gear heads in training, built models.... You're massaging multiple parts,from multiple vendor's, used junk,an unknown speed parts manufacturing,& vendors....Hot rodder s,didn't have "bolt on stuff ",then... The opportunities for real improvement's ,are there.... (You being an actual line wrench,gives you that knowledge ,& perception. ) Learn the subject,before you buy anything,anymore...
Edit ,to the o.p: .Seen your posts,you have knowledge,I will never know... My apologies,to you,and your post.....Sorry...
 
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Just thought I'd update here.

I went and ordered an ECP radiator/fan shroud combo and their dual fan controller.

The radiator arrived OK but the fan controller was not sent with it. Got on the phone and they sent one out right away, received it a few days later.

The radiator itself looks fine. However, the shroud was installed crooked and it is bowed in the middle.

The fan controller is larger than I expected. It's looks decent enough though, the wiring job looks OK. I dislike that plastic convolute tubing they use and there is a lot of it.

What Yellow Rose said about the holes in the brackets not lining up is absolutely true, it's not even close. The whole thing is too tall actually. The lower tank rests on the lower radiator support and the brackets actually protrude above the support by about 1/4". When I spoke to Frank he asked me to measure my existing radiator from top to bottom and I did, he said his would fit no problem. Again, to corroborate Y.R., it kinda 'fits' but not without massaging.

I believe he gets generic parts, puts them together and markets them as direct fit. Maybe there is an alternate universe where A body Mopars have different dimensions because like Griffin, there is no way they based their part off a factory radiator.

The lower outlet is also slightly smaller than the factory 1 3/4" which caused a hose fitment issue. The actual diameter was around 1 5/8" so I would have needed to find some sort of hose adapter to make it a snug fit. I know this is the situation with a few other aftermarket radiators but it's no less annoying. The factory made the lower rad. hose larger because it prevented cavitation at higher pressures or some such thing. Why any company that sells radiators for our cars while claiming they are somehow better than factory with this kind of fuzzy engineering is beyond my scope of imagination.

The Griffin I have is also WAY lighter than the ECP, by a long shot. Though I have not weighed the two to compare, there has to be 10-15 lb difference. Not sure where all the heft comes from but it's significant.

I really can't say how well it works at cooling though though because I decided not to use it. Despite how frustrated I was with my Griffin, I knew it was a good radiator. I took it to a rad shop and had them test it for leaks. It passed the test so they welded on some brackets for me to install an HHR fan. It's a little crude but it don't leak. I had nothing to lose with it and it worked out better in the end. Wish I would have done that in the first place.

So now I have this brand new radiator taking up space. I know I can return it if I eat the shipping which was $60. I dunno, I might hang onto it for a future project but if it's an A body, I will have the same issues.

Guess I like doing things the hard way.
 
Like my ECP. I need a hose adapter for the bottom, like a bushing, but it works better than the old factory piece and looks good to boot.
 
Wish i would have seen this post sooner, so I could save someone grief. I bought their 22 inch radiator for mt 69. None of the bolt holes lined up. I had to cut them and weld up the slots for the bottom bolts cause they were too wide. Not easy when you suck at aluminum welding. Then it's so tall that you can't use a lever cap. On top of that, the side rails for the shroud mounting stick out about an inch. Couple that with the gaps on the stock shroud, and it won't fit. I ended up building a shroud, since it wouldn't cool at low speeds. Cools now, but I have to build a new shroud that looks better. All I can say is RUN AWAY.
 
fishmens67 said:
I just replaced the 50 year old radiator in my 67 fastback with the ECP bigblock replacement.
was it a direct bolt in, no. I had to drill /match upper holes, I drilled and relocated the bottom holes. no biggie.
the overflow is in a better spot on drivers side. trunk mounted battery = more room.
bottom line, the bigblock temps were running 210, now 190. I'm happy with the quality and the price.
bolt in's are for yuppies ! grab a wrench and do some fab.
Click to expand...
I'm happy
 
As an update, I had a real pisser with this deal.

There is absolutely no F'ing way they were made to a Chrysler blueprint. ECP should NEVER market the P.O.S. As a direct fit because it ain't and never will be. The print shows the hole lining up, but they don't. That's because you don't know the x,y,z zero. For example, I could put 2 bolt holes 14 inches apart. They would always be 14 inches apart. Now, hang a radiator core in there. You can move the core up or down 2 inches but your holes are still correct. ECP is full of CRAPOLA.

Here is another pisser. I was having issues with temp. Wouldn't get warm. Pull thE junk crap out AGAIN and run down to the local radiator shop to have it flowed. Naturally, it was plugged. Couldn't tell what was in the radiator but they had to flush a BRAND NEW radiator. What a crock of crap.

What could be a good product is blemished by stupid crap. I'm using it, but it don't fit ANY a body Chrysler. They should fix their web page to correct it.
 
yellow rose said:
There is absolutely no F'ing way they were made to a Chrysler blueprint.
Click to expand...

Yep, I totally agree. Hard to understand where they came up with their measurements.

Again, the entire radiator is too tall for the core support. I wondered why he asked me to measure it top to bottom, I thought that was an odd thing but I went along with it. He must know it's too tall. There is no possible way the holes in the brackets will line up with the proper holes on the radiator support.
 
rmchrgr said:
Yep, I totally agree. Hard to understand where they came up with their measurements.

Again, the entire radiator is too tall for the core support. I wondered why he asked me to measure it top to bottom, I thought that was an odd thing but I went along with it. He must know it's too tall. There is no possible way the holes in the brackets will line up with the proper holes on the radiator support.
Click to expand...


Yup. I have to say old Frank is a bit of a fibber.
 
Lelo Dart said:
Like my ECP. I need a hose adapter for the bottom, like a bushing, but it works better than the old factory piece and looks good to boot.
Click to expand...
Lelo Dart, What did you mean by hose adapter? Which one of their radiators are you using?
 
yellow rose said:
Same brand but I used the 26 inch radiator. It's in but I had to do some mods. That ain't bolt in.
Click to expand...
I knew you could do it. works pretty good don't it. and the price makes it that much better.
 
fishmens67 said:
I knew you could do it. works pretty good don't it. and the price makes it that much better.
Click to expand...


Yeah it works, but it pissed me off I had to put extra holes in the core support. He "blueprint" is bullshit because he doesn't hang the mounts in the correct spot on the core.

Can't be that hard to make it so the bolt holes line up don't you think?

I could have bought a Champion and it would have bolted in and done the job.
 
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