Just wondering if anyone knows of any radiators that are easy to fit in a ke10 without modifying the car itself? Looking for an upgrade in my car but don't want to Modify the body by drilling or cutting.

I've got a ke70 radiator In mine. I only had to make two tabs to fit the wider radiator then use ke70 lower hose.

Cheers.. May be an option.. thanks for that

V6 commodore radiators are pretty easy to adapt. I might get around to removing mine tomorrow, if so I could get you a width...which I foresee would be your biggest issue in a Ke10. There's pics of mine in my project thread.

Ke20 goes straight in. Ke70s pretty easy.

I've used rx7 before.

 

Just measure your radiator and search aluminium radiator on eBay. Most have size listings and you can find one out of something else. Most are sub $150 landed too. Such as s15

was looking into alloy.. but not going for looks... as long as it helps cooling.. ke10 bay is not big, and I don't want to modify anything to a non reversible state..

 

as it is I feel bad modifying seeing I'm the 2nd owner

Really not hard to make tabs to hold it in a factory way, few bits of flat bar used correctly will be fine

What's wrong with the original radiator & what is the issue, if its over heating I would be looking at possibly a blocked radiator or thermostat faulty or engine reasons & not looking at upgrading things, just fix what's there & just make sure everything is working properly, I have never owned a KE10 but a mate had one years ago & he used to thrash the shit out of it & it was stock & he never had over heating issues, used to go well it was about as quick off the lights up to 60 - 70kmh as my old GT Cortina ..

Edited March 16, 201511 yr by lexsmaz

turbo 4k.. blocked radiator... so an upgrade wouldn't hurt..

Just measured my commodore one for you. Its about 700 wide by 480 high. I started having some issueswith heat when I first got my turbo 4k running well, the stock one just wasn't up to the job anymore. Have been running commo rads since and have always had good temps... Provided you use a thermo fan for stop start city traffic. They're really easy to fit in k's as the inlet/outlet are in the same spot, you just need a longer top hose.

My first one developed an unfixable hole (from the way I mounted the thermo) so I ended up buying a new one from my local repro for $126....needed car back on the road asap and it was in stock. That's now bent from the roo I hit a couple of weeks ago so I'm going to get myself something like this....

http://m.ebay.com.au/itm/151387501551?nav=SEARCH

You'd probably have atleast a third of that rad, hiding behind the support panel, of a 1X Si.

For my new turbo setup I'm gong to use the old ke-20 one I used for the blown setup. It rarely came up to temp on an under 25deg day. I'm also getting my exhaust manifold, exhaust housing and dump pipe HPC coated so heat soak won't be an issue.

Yeah I did cut away a fair bit of the front panel to maximise the radiator, a bit of that was also to make way for the cooler and piping. After stripping the whole front end yesterday I was reminded how little was left lol.

 

Btw after getting that rad out is amazing how much it bent and twisted without leaking!

Edited March 17, 201511 yr by Taz_Rx

Cheers for replying.. Think Commodore may be a tad big in the 10.. thinking maybe a ke70 item may do the job... Ke10 seems to work.. but got old dried cristalised coolant blocking the radiator.. And have had no luck cleaning it.. :(

Take the old KE10 radiator down to a radiator place & they pull a end tank off & then ream through each tube to clean out the crud that's there, as unless you are racing the car i'm sure the original radiator will probably cope well enough & as you said its definitely not worth putting something in like the commodore radiator that is designed to keep a 3.8 litre engine cool & then use it on a 1.5 litre motor ..

You'd probably be surprised at the similarity of capacity between a k and commodore radiator, the commodore one obviously does have a bigger surface area. Commodores do also run at quite a higher pressure and temp range. The thermo fan actually doesn't turn on until 103°!

 

Another option is you could always just get a 3 row core grafted into the Ke10 end tanks. You probably wouldn't get much change from about $400 with that option though.