Radiator question

My car is a 99 gst not a gvr4 but I figure I'd post this here anyway. How well do half size radiators work on these engines? I have an evo3 16g with fp manifold, long story short it's only running with one fan, and it overhears with the ac on, and oh hot days it will run somewhat warm. I'd like to put a half size radiator in it to make room in the bay, but idk if it would make my issue worse or not. Any suggestions?

 

[thedsmguy]

Run the thickest one you can find. And a very good fan.

 

[Boost4U]

have you changed your thermostat, flushed the radiator, cleaned the fins on the radiator, are you running a FMIC, do you have all the plastic ducting in the bumper still, does it over heat with the heater on, when was the water pump replaced and if it was, was it an OEM or parts store pump? Give a little back ground there are a lot of things that can make it over heat.

 

Give some background as previously stated. I would attempt to fix the current issue unless your current radiator is the problem. I have read that the half sized ones, even the thick ones don't do as good as a full sized one in Ca heat. My galant with a 16g and A/C on in this heat does just fine. There is some other underlining problem with your current cooling system.

 

sorry, i should have been more thorough with my previous post. it has a 180* thermostat, water pump was replaced with a napa unit when the motor was built 40k ago. it has a huge fmic and there.s no splash ghard/ducting under the car. the radiator itself is fine (checked with the car warming up and the fan off, temp readings across the radiator were consistant), likely the issue has more to do with the fact the ducting under the car is gone and there's only 1 of two stock fans on the radiator. (I got the car this way) I've been told its a fairly common issue as far as overheating with the ac on, and that dual fans would help cure the issue. the problem Is There's simply not room to put another fan back on the car, which leaves me with a couple options.
1. half size radiator (3 or 4 core would be ideal i think)
2. find a slimmer oem style fan to put in place of the second fan that wont fit.
3. aftermarket slim fan (I'm not a huge fan of them due to noisyness and quality for the money)

option 2 or 3 would leave me fabbing up a shroud/mounts for the fan, because i absoloutely HATE the radiator zip ties that go between the fins of the radiator, I've had radiators in the past spring leaks due to those stupid things.

with all that being covered, what would my best course of action be at the moment? I like the Idea of a half sized radiator just for simplicity, and opening up room in the engine bay, but I'm not sure that route would fully cure my issue.

I should also note that I have sheet stainless that I plan on making a spash guard/ lower radiator duct with, I figured I'd just tackle the whole project at once.

 

[iLLeffeKt vr-4]

Are you willing to get rid of the AC?

If you do go with a half sized radiator make sure you get one that's at least 2.5" thick and put on the biggest fast you can get. I had a 14" Spal puller mounted on mine.

Click here to see the one I had on my car.

Remember that the eclipse doesn't have an upper grille so it might not be as efficient as on the vr4 but I'm sure there are plenty of 2g guys running half sized radiators.

 

I'm wanting to keep the ac, riding around when the heat index is 110* with no ac sucks.. I'll continue to research before I pull the trigger on anything, but most likely I'll be going with a half sized radiator.