• Spank
  • Utter Madman
  • Offline
  • From: Escondido, CA
  • Registered: 2009-06-10
  • Posts: 5,863

Topic: Miata people: Good cheap radiator?

If anyone has experience with any cheap chinese radiators, I'm eager to hear your recommendations.

It's for a '94 1.8L manual trans and it needs a radiator. It has AC if that matters.

Needs to be under $200 delivered. Ebay has a wide range of options. I don't care about name brands. I do care about cheap and functional.

Stock w/ plastic headers can be as low as $45

and aluminum looks to be
as cheap as $105

This is likely to be a street car for a while that could become a Lemons car or track car eventually.

Your advice appreciated.

Spank's Website

2 Reply by billybobster (edited by billybobster 2016-12-19 09:03 PM)

  • From: SF, CA
  • Registered: 2015-02-11
  • Posts: 592

Re: Miata people: Good cheap radiator?

I've got a Chinese aluminum radiator on my track day Miata. The chain on the cap is made from old beverage cans. Neat.

It came from GodSpeed, was on the car when I bought it. It did start leaking while still under warranty and they replaced it. Sort of. They shipped a new one, and once it got swapped in, I shipped back the old one. They never did the refund and I finally gave up after many tries. New radiator has been fine in the intervening six-ish years.

My car has a turbo and the radiator has done a good job under stressful conditions. It did the job on track for a good four years. A couple years ago I had to up the game on cooling - did the coolant reroute (highly recommended if needed) and the Mustang GT500 hood vent (a common mod). My car had A/C (now gone) and the condenser fit in front fine - but YMMV with different radiators.

I don't trust the plastic header ones one bit.

If I had to buy another radiator, I'd get a Chinese aluminum one, but from someone who would provide a warranty of a year and seems like they would stand by it.

25X Loser - Delinquent Racing - '86 Rust-Tite Merkur - 9 years (when do I get to stop?).