Anyone have recommendations on setups to keep approx 500hp cool in one of these trucks. I'm having my 400 built and that's about where it'll be power wise, maybe a little less. Any particular radiators/electric fans/ mechanical fans that work better than others?

It's a 1978 F250 on 38s and it used for cruising around and 4wheeling.

 

I used this for my 460 estimated at 300 hp...

1979 FORD F 150 Griffin Exact Fit Radiators 7-70138 - Free Shipping on Orders Over $99 at Summit Racing

I don't have 500 hp but it is the biggest aluminum that fits with no major mods. Otherwise a 4 row super cooling copper brass unit would work.

Do a search this has been discussed many times.

 

X2 on a 4 core copper or alum with duel elec fans.

"Lincoln Mk VIII two-speed fan, Taurus or Lincoln cars. A 95 Mercury villager minivan with a 3.3L V6. The stock radiator for this thing was a gigantic three core all aluminum radiator. However, the fan for this was a gigantic 19" two speed fan. This thing is massive. Bigger than a mark viii. If anyone's interested, I did some research the 92-2002 Villager is a rebadged Nissan quest."

 

I'd run an oil cooler... a good one like a Setrab.

 

A lot of guys I've been seein have been talking good things about the Champion aluminum 4-row radiators. (68-79) F-Series Truck 4-row Champion Radiator

The Mark VIII fans are awesome, but tough to find in the junkyards these days. I hear the early to mid-90s Taurus SHO are nearly as good

 

THE BEST luck ive had is get a stock ginormous tank 4 core for a camper special (with the desert cooling), then hit the junkyard and snag a 7 bladed fan out of an 80's van, a 3" spacer, HD fanclutch and run it. that has worked sweet for me on 2 builds and NEVER overheated

 

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I have this in my '79 Bronco with a built 473. I have the stock mechanical fan and no shroud (though I really should), but even so, this thing never runs hot. It's huge, but a direct bolt in.

 

They do make 4 core Aluminum radiators now and are very affordable on Ebay. You can get a 3 core champion aluminum one on eBay for something like $175. I have one of those right now and the quality is just as good as ones selling for 3x that amount.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/171816763846?item=171816763846&viewitem=&vxp=mtr
If you want to do electric fans everyone swears by the Lincoln Mk VIII fans. You will need to wire up relays and a temperature switch for high and low speed to do it correctly. There is lots of write ups about it.

 

I run a 4 row Champion with my 400. Probably overkill. I run it with a standard capacity thermal clutch fan and it does fine.

I expect the 4 core would handle 500 HP fine. In that application I would recommend the 7 blade fan and HD clutch as mentioned above or high capacity electric fan like the Lincoln unit.

 

I'm also in the market for a radiator. My radiator has the rear bracket and it looks like the Champion radiators all have the front bracket.

Will any of the Champion radiators fit my in my truck and will the factory shroud mount to it? I plan to get an electric fan at some point but will be sticking with the stock fan for now.

My alternative is to get the Spectra from O'Reilly's which looks like a direct fit but I don't like the plastic tanks. It is also slightly more expensive than the Champion.

 

On my stuff ('78 F250, 400) I used the radiator listed on the Champion website. The OE shroud fit fine. Looks like there are flanges front and rear.

(68-79) F-Series Truck 4-row Champion Radiator

 

I think I'll look in to the champion raditor. I have an aluminum radiator right now but I don't know how many cores it has. It'll keep the temp at 185-195 with the stock fan but that's with a stock 351m/ fenderwell headers.

 

I ended up getting the Champion CC433 3-row for $200 shipped on eBay. Not quite a bolt-in for my truck. The brackets on the rear side of the radiator (how my original radiator mounted) were too narrow. Even if it was wider, the holes didn't quite match up anyway (11" centers on original radiator, 12" on the Champion)

The 4 slots on the flanges on the front side of the radiator did match up to the 4 holes on the front side of the radiator support so I moved the u-nuts from the original locations on the rear of the radiator support to the front flange on the radiator. Two holes on the driver side rear flange of the radiator matched up to my shroud, so I bolted that up and marked and drilled the holes for the passenger side.

I tried putting it in and the front flange was too wide to fit. I ended up put a small notch in the top of the radiator support on both sides to slip the front flange in.



I ended up going a little wider than the picture shows to clear the u-nuts that are now installed on the front flange of the radiator.

I had to remove the grill on both sides to get the lower radiator mounting bolts installed.

Over flow hose and upper radiator hose hooked up fine.

My lower radiator hose was good but I ended up replacing it because it was too short to use with this radiator. The lower connection on the radiator is in basically the same spot as the factory radiator but the factory radiator connection is angled up a little bit. I was able to get the existing hose on but it was up against the bottom side of the PS belt. I cut the hose off and found a MasterPro 21053 hose at O'Reilly that was a little bit longer (maybe 1/2" to 3/4") at the radiator end. The hose is close to the belt but looked ok when I checked it with the engine running. I didn't measure it, but the bottom hose connection on the Champion radiator seemed a little smaller that the factory radiator.

Filled it up, no leaks so far. It is a very nice radiator for the money, just wish it would have went right in. The install ended up being more time consuming than I had hoped.