So I was driving home the other day, got in the garage and noticed a small puddle of coolant on my garage floor. Opened the hood, checked the hoses, nothing. Looked at the top of my radiator and theres coolant coming out of the plastic. Finally found a very small hairline crack.

So anyways, ordered a mishimoto radiator today and am curious what coolant i should use. I usually use the honda type 2 w/ my oem radiator. Is there any other brands someone could recommend? Or can i use the OEM?

 

I use redline WaterWetter with destilled water and its the best, the car runs much cooler now. Also I have been using it on my STI and all my subys with out any problem!! A++++

 

make sure if you run that, you have enough water wetter. It acts as a water pump lube, straight water will fry your wp.

I personally just run normal coolant, with a little bit lower coolant/DI mix since I live in hawaii.

 

what makes mishimoto better then OEM??

 

Size and material

OEM radiator has made of copper, copper has higher heat transfer rate than aluminum.

This will mean the radiator will heat up faster than the aluminum one.

This is why it runs 'cooler'

On the other side of the coin, the copper radiator dissipates faster the heat from the coolant.

But at the end it really depends on air flow, air parameters, and outside temperature.

 

Although what you said is true, it doesnt run cooler for that reason, aresk. If you look at the core sizes you'll see why. Theres almost 2x the amount of material on the aluminum fins as there are on the copper, since the aluminum radiator is 2x as thick. the OEM radiators are super thin. Even at a lower rate of heat transfer the aluminums 2x surface area does amazing things.

When we say it "runs cooler" it doesnt mean the radiator is cooler, it means the car takes longer to get to temp if you install a lower temp T-stat, or that it takes a longer time for the fans to kick on (fan switch is measuring coolant temp, not radiator). Also, on the OEM radiators the top and bottom of the radiator are plastic - those heat up waay less than aluminum so if you're saying we're checkjing temp by touching the top of the radiator the OEM one will be cooler.

 

yeah i use 2 bottles just in case!!

 

Thanks, I will look into redline's product..


Any other recommendations?

 

you can use OEM coolant with the mishimoto radiator.

i've been running OEM honda type 2 coolant with my koyo radiator and i havent had any problems.

 

most people end up "upgrading" their radiators when their OEM radiators fail. this happens because the OEM radiator utilizes a plastic cover that has been known to crack on older models.

the new radiators (by mishimoto or koyo) have all metal cores that resist cracking.