Need Suggestions for New Radiator

[Robert Dyck]

My 02 RT with 37k miles needs a new radiator due to corrosion and leakage. I would appreciate any suggestions for a quality replacement. Thanks!

 

[Will at RSI]

This should help.

http://www.racingsolutions.com/prod...radiator-for-dodge-viper-gen-2-1996-2002.html

 

[Coloviper]

That is nice! Is that a Griffin?

 

[STUGOTS]

I have heard great things about the RSI triple pass

 

[Robert Dyck]

Thanks Will...I will be calling you to get more info.

 

[REDBLACK]

Ron Davis in my Venom 650R for the past 11 years still going strong and cool.

 

[RedEnuf93]

Ron Davis in my Venom 650R for the past 11 years still going strong and cool.

Yep. And I have 2 of those in my garage, leaking too.
Never again.

 

[99 R/T 10]

Check your ***. I have a new radiator.

 

[Robert Dyck]

How is it that "two" are leaking? How were they used and how old are they? What caused the leaks? Need to know because the shop is recommending Ron Davis. Thanks.

 

[99 R/T 10]

RD radiators have very poor quality control. Well documented with several members. Would not stand by their product.

 

[REDBLACK]

RD radiators have very poor quality control. Well documented with several members. Would not stand by their product.

Yeah, I guess mine proves your claim. In addition, all the NASCAR teams running them do too. Why did you buy a second one when your first one leaked? Where did they leak from? Did you damage them when installed? How about some facts and pics?

 

[99 R/T 10]

Yeah, I guess mine proves your claim. In addition, all the NASCAR teams running them do too. Why did you buy a second one when your first one leaked? Where did they leak from? Did you damage them when installed? How about some facts and pics?

Here ya go hero, some light reading for you:

http://forums.viperclub.org/threads...iator-LEAKING!!!?highlight=ron+davis+radiator

 

[Viper Specialty]

You couldn't pay me to put another RD into a customers car.

 

[AZTVR]

Yeah, I guess mine proves your claim. In addition, all the NASCAR teams running them do too. Why did you buy a second one when your first one leaked? Where did they leak from? Did you damage them when installed? How about some facts and pics?

+1 for use of smilies !

If you search on --- Ron Davis radiator leak --- in Google it does make you wary about buying one.

 

[REDBLACK]

Here ya go hero, some light reading for you:

http://forums.viperclub.org/threads...iator-LEAKING!!!?highlight=ron+davis+radiator

Still doesn't answer the questions I posed to YOU. You're just a herd following vendor basher so you can be popular. Pitiful.

The only thing I got from the thread you referenced that was honest and concise was the following:

Re: 2nd RON DAVIS radiator LEAKING!!!

Since I don’t have the time to post and rebut 6422 times at work, I’ll try to say all I can say in one post. Call me if you need clarification. (1-800-842-5166)

About our Quality Ethic:
All aftermarket radiator manufacturers start with a factory sample and build their version within the space allowed. All choose their approach to how they build. Most choose between attention to beautiful, strong welds, build to tolerance, high fin counts- and price. Lower fin counts are cheaper, MIG welds look worse but can be done faster and with less expensive people, flat pattern layout can be thought out for strength, or for cost. You can go for high tolerance or not. Core size can be maximized, or you can use what you have on hand or are tooled for. Stamped tanks are weaker, but cheap after the one time die cost. Stainless buttonheads or bolts that will rust? All these choices define the market you seek: those who want manufacturing quality, or those who want cheap price, and everybody in between. Ron Davis Racing Products always makes their choices based on the highest quality. So, the part ends up being comparatively expensive, but we work hard to make the part a value at the price we offer it at. There are no Vipers, Porsches or Corvettes in our employee parking lot. The purchase price goes into better manufacturing, not toys, lavish lifestyles, fancy showrooms or widespread advertising. We are a small company of 25 people who work very hard to build the very best radiator possible, not some huge conglomerate with little customer focus. In our shop, we know who each radiator is for. We live on reputation and word of mouth- not full-page ads. Our workers know that, and only those who believe it and live it are retained.

About Warranties
As per the Kragen or Kmart models of business, inexpensive mass manufacturing with offshore materials has enough margin to enable long warranties to cover the ensuing quality problems. There is a market for these types of businesses. High-quality, low run manufacturing like ours does not enable such margin. You see shorter or no warranty periods in quality performance products like Carrillo, or the best racing engines. Almost all high-end racing parts have no warranty whatsoever. Ron Davis RACING PRODUCTS is a racing part company- not an OEM. These quality manufacturers know a long warranty has little to do with actual quality. You have to evaluate how a manufacturer runs his company, look at his products and who uses them, talk to others and assess his quality yourself. In custom or racing applications, there are too many variables in the applications for us to ensure our radiator will live to factory life expectations (which vary from customer to customer) every time. One person expects it to live through the race; the next thinks it should last 15 years like his old factory radiator. Ours are parts unlike the ones designed and tested for the vehicle. We make them different to add cooling. Their harmonics, weight, and flows will be different and each car will be set up differently. Therefore, the customer has to determine the suitability of the part for their particular car. We help the best we can, but we cannot know the car or its environment as well as the builder can. Even a change of wheels and tires can change factors that affect radiator life. A commuter will have more heat and vibration cycles than a racer. When you race it beyond what the factory intended, it gets worse. Pressures, temperatures and vibrations hit zones not seen normally. A car raced regularly will not last as long as a commuter. Professional racers know this.

We warranty against defects in workmanship or materials only. We promise no more. If we fail at that- and we do occasionally-we are human- we do our best to replace it with as little pain to the customer as possible. Our simple rule is to question if we did anything wrong. If it comes back with electrolysis stains, or has chafes indicating poor installation, we deny. If we see a weld burn on a tube, we warranty. If no indications, we usually warranty if it’s promptly returned. Should we pay return shipping? Our terms are FOB (freight on board) and are stated plainly on our website. We do not lead you to believe otherwise. The customer accepts that at time of sale. How can we pay return shipping up front when some come back, obviously mis-installed or damaged by the customer? If it’s within the 90 day warranty, we sometimes reimburse shipping, even though it is not our written warranty policy. It depends on the condition of the radiator upon its return and how prompt the feedback is. We can’t re-stock a 4-year-old unused return rad. Any tiny scratches make it unsellable. The customer should evaluate the radiator upon receipt and take prompt action. Also, we often warranty beyond the 90 days, if we can see no fault of the customer (or of ourselves). We often give the benefit of the doubt and take a good, hard look at how we can make the part better. Our intention is to improve our parts by taking failures seriously and employing all the racing experience we have to avoid them in the first place. If the customer “gives up” after a failure or two, we have no chance of solving the problem. Sometimes, it takes a few tries with a troublesome application. We will do our best to get to a solution as fast as possible. Given the realities of putting non-standard parts in non-standard cars, our best effort at customer service lies in our willingness to try and try again to satisfy the customer. The leak problems we see are not only ours. Others making radiators have the same problems. When we lose a customer due to a leak, and he goes to a competitor, often the competitor will tell them “if Davis’ radiator leaked, ours will, too.” Most of the time, a repetitive leak is due to the application- the car has something unique about it. Our evidence, which the public can’t witness, is the hundreds of other similar radiators that work well, and the few that don’t. Citing a 4% defect rate as terrible compares high volume computer parts to hand-built, one or ten off craftsmanship parts. Computer parts have the advantage of being installed in highly controlled, compatible mating parts. Our radiators go into whatever you built and get used however you drive. Early designs going into never-before seen applications have the risk of failure always. The more into the field, the better we get to know the application. The best we can do is work as hard as we can to determine the reasons for a failure and get the customer satisfied as quickly and painlessly as possible. In the Viper line, the part has undergone many iterations- it is being constantly improved. A failure from yesterday probably won’t happen today. In August of 2008, we revised it to reduce stresses on the core even further. Yet we get damned for early designs as if we never address them. The key is a teamwork relationship with the customer to get the job done as soon as possible. We are human and so is the customer. We BOTH want the radiator to work. An example- the 1970 Chevelle big block. We sell 3 or 6 a week with a less than 1% failure rate. One customer’s car has three leak failures within a year. Is it the radiator’s fault? Or, is there something unique that we can’t determine about the car? Still, we work with that customer to try and try again to get him on the road. We paid for three or four radiators and the customer paid for one. That is putting your money where your mouth is. We wish each order was a slam-dunk, but that is not the nature of the specialty parts world. Each manufacturer, if honest, will tell you the same.

Leaks

Most decent aluminum cores are made basically the same way. There are only a few tube mills in the world. Fin counts, fin designs or tube sizes may change, which affects cost, but the durability of materials and braze is very similar. They are all subject to braze or material faults. How the manufacturer treats the core, and surrounds it with framework is the key to the controllable quality differences. Welding around the core affects stresses and vibrations. Our processes are the most highly controlled in the industry in this respect. Our welders sometimes train for up to a year before they weld your radiator. It’s not cheap, but it’s how we make phenomenal welders who can control their heat stresses. Most manufacturers pressure test their radiators, some by sampling one out of a lot, or like us, every one. We can miss a leak if it is very small, but it’s rare. It’s very easy to do and hard to miss. We know welds can crack long after the part is tested. Weld stresses can exceed 30,000 lbs and can relieve while sitting in the box during shipping. While we control our welding to an unbelievable degree, cracking can still happen. Brazes can do the same thing. Tubes to headers can be adequate to pass at 32 psi, then crack when hit with cyclic pressures seen with a water pump or thermal cycles. It’s rare, but can happen. Without testing for an equivalent of 10,000 miles and adding $1000 to the cost of the radiator, we have to accept occasional leaks of this type as the best the industry can offer at the time and offer quick resolution. What we can control, we do to a degree most other companies don’t want to bother with, but there is a limit to what anybody can control.

Many use some form of cycle testing on prototypes, but all know that it is impossible to capture all the aspects of temperature, vibration or harmonic stresses present in all the different vehicles and applications they serve. Many things like tire size and type, shocks, or roads driven can affect resonance vibrations that affect radiator life. Our radiator is larger and holds more coolant, so its weight is different than the stock unit. It will react differently to whatever harmonics are present in YOUR particular car. Any other performance modification can also affect life. Driving style, number of heat cycles per day, or rough roads commonly traveled- all these things can have an effect. Anybody who tells you that you can adequately test the radiator without an enormous test facility like Ford or Dodge is lying to you or just ignorant. Some product lines prove to be faultless from the get-go, occasionally some don’t. When failures start to establish a pattern, the good manufacturers try to determine the cause and make the radiator robust to whatever it is. Since we advertise very little and basically rely on word-of-mouth for advertising, we take reliability or performance problems seriously and do our best to avoid them or fix them as fast as possible. When we encounter a repeat problem, we evaluate them for clues to the failure cause. We can’t ride in your car or lift your hood. Sometimes, there are none, even after microscopic examination by metallurgists. Then we take our best guess at the cause and try something. If we do find clues, we do our best to alleviate the problem. We are constantly developing better methods of manufacture. It’s a never-ending process towards perfection.

Epoxy? We only use it for repairs, when the customer requests it for added durability, or when we feel it may change harmonics, but that’s not the message some would like to drive into your minds. Years ago, epoxy was commonly flowed over the braze to seal pinholes inherent to the older braze processes. We have never glued our radiators together. We updated our braze processes years ago and haven’t had a need for epoxy in manufacture since. The assertion that our manner of constructing radiators causes failures is only partly valid- all manufacturing can affect leaks. How you do it is the trick, and there are many ways. Sometimes, you have to change up the design to suit the particular car and it can take a few tries. Giving up after two, and damning the manufacturer is not how to get the job done.

The Web
The reason we don’t jump in on discussion groups is because we build so many different styles of radiators, and it takes so much time. Our “repeat” models encompass over 90 makes and each has a list. We are small- about 25 people. We can’t possibly cover all the boards and take time to get into all the questions that arise, or to argue with people who aren’t interested in anything other than costing us business. We can’t post 6422 times at work; we have to earn a living. We will do it by phone, though. It’s much faster. Similarly, we find that flamers are rarely looking for a solution. They want revenge or have direct or indirect relationships with other suppliers or manufacturers. Most times they seem to like the notoriety they get or just like a good argument. Whatever it is that makes a lynch mob leader love his job. While pulling a radiator to work out a fix is “too much time”, they will spend hundreds of hours posting hundreds of times with things most list members don’t want to hear. Most people on lists want concise info, or at least our best guess given the variables, but are intimidated to not stick up for their positive experience by the ******’s incessant rants. Our phones are always open, M-F, 8-4:30. We have a 1-800 number (1-800-842-5166). I will always speak to a customer who asks for me personally, and my salesmen are instructed as such. I’m not in the Bahamas- I’m here daily, working to make a better part.

As far as the posts- we see many that are flat-out lies. “said they were built by epoxying the thing together” A flat-out lie obviously told to sway opinion, not to relay fact. Our sales reps know the misconceptions of the epoxy scam and would never allude to that. Or, “no matter how much advertising $$$ is wasted” We have a website we do ourselves, two tiny ads in magazines you may never heard of, and did one local car show booth this year. Total: about $2500. We rely on word of mouth. These people are just driving their opinion- not solving any problems. Personally, I look to facts, pro and con, in a constructive manner. People who have positive or open opinions should not expect to be harassed on a list as we see here. Flames just give one guy a hobby and others a headache. Flamers always hide behind the guise of “constructive criticism”, but do 6422 posts, many vehemently negative, indicate constructive criticism? Flames unfairly punish 25 people who work very hard to earn the thousands of delighted customers they have. One failure, handled the way flamers do, can punish a crew that has an otherwise great track record. Mob mentality. Being hidden by a code name, it even looks more cowardly and gives us little way to analyze how we could have gone wrong in his case, make amends, or improve. Obviously there are other agendas at hand other than working to get to the root cause of the problem. Had the time spent posting been spent working with us on the problem, it would have been solved long ago to both of our benefit.

The web also promotes misconceptions of an industry. While the consumer just sees radiators all over the web, and the viewer assumes they can just dump a specialty product in their car and expect it to work every time, in fact they are not so easy to develop, especially for extreme high performance applications, “application” meaning that particular car- not just “Vipers.” The web also drives home the idea that a manufacturer is either “bad” or “good” based on a few points of data. Keep in mind that good manufacturers work to rectify and improve when inevitable failures occur. As much as they would want you to believe that a perfect radiator can be made first time, every time for a new application, it is not possible in this industry. While flames might be fun for the ******, our employees do NOT deserve this. They work too hard to do their best. If you have questions, PLEASE call me at 1-800-842-5166.

Ron Davis
President, Ron Davis Racing Products

 

[REDBLACK]

You couldn't pay me to put another RD into a customers car.

I wouldn't pay you to do anything.

 

[99 R/T 10]

Still doesn't answer the questions I posed to YOU. You're just a herd following vendor basher so you can be popular. Pitiful.

I'm sorry, when did you become a Vendor here at the VCA?

I wouldn't pay you to do anything.

Guessing trolls like you get feed too much. Not feeding your idiotic rant/copy-paste anymore. Have a nice day...............

 

[Will at RSI]

We have done business and used Ron Davis Radiators for years in our Viper builds. In that time, we have seen only one unit leak or have any issues. I have been to their facility in Phoenix and met Ron personally. They are a good company and produce a good product. I would never have an issue offering their products to our clients.

 

[Viper Specialty]

I wouldn't pay you to do anything.

LOL, and you are...? Your condescending comment does little more than prove you wouldn't know quality if you tripped over it and it smacked you dead in the face .

I am not speculating based on what other people say, nor just a single experience. I have seen every single RD radiator in this area fail within 1-2 years of install back about 7-8 years ago [about 8 total if I recall between originals, repairs, and replacements]. I have seen the crap repairs using glue that would just crack off and leak again. I have been in the middle of their not standing behind their products. These were over multiple cars, multiple generations, and multiple original installers. ALL of them ultimately failed at the same place, the core tubes at the upper neck, and RD placed the blame on everything else other than themselves, regardless of facts presented. Their radiators have a design flaw [and many aluminum radiators for that matter, though not all translate to an actual problem depending on design] that anybody who understands coefficients of thermal expansion can explain quite easily. Different radiator designs, same cars, no more failures over 7 years later. Hell, my own car back then had THREE of them fail in a row, being the original, the repaired original, and a replacement!

As I said, you couldn't pay me to install one. I understand other people may have different experiences, but I am not alone. Be it a design change, be it bad employees at the time... don't know, but I am not going to put myself in the way of that freight train again. Anyone else can do as they wish... but that's my experience.

 

[uvbnbit]

OP, is your OE beyond repair?

 

[CEJ]

Gutterworks129 had the radiator in his '96 taken out and a local shop (Henderson, NC) cleaned it up and repaired it. The radiator shop guy said the OEM radiator is very high quality.

Have you thought about having your original unit inspected to see if it can be repaired?

 

[EllowViper]

I had a FLUIDYNE for a number of years and then it started to leak...like Dan explains...aluminum expands at differing rates and across differing seams/joints. Given these fundamental truths, I have had it explained to me that its not a matter of IF your aluminum radiator will leak, but WHEN. Mine actually was fine when warm and only leaked when cold. It was in a location that I couldn't get at to fix. So I went back to the stock radiator with no issue. Too bad. It was a great looking and functioning piece of work. But in all honesty, I was an emotional buyer thinking that a bigger, shiny, expensive aluminum radiator HAD TO BE BETTER than the ugly, smallish, copper-core stock one. I was wrong to the tune of $700+ dollars.

 

[uvbnbit]

Took mine last year to "highly recommended" shop in Nashville. They couldn't find the leak.
Took it to a "back woods" Mom/Pop. Found the leak, repaired it, and gave it back to me better than the "Big City" shop did.

$100

 

[DrumrBoy]

Great. I've had no issues with the Fluidynes in both my GTSs for 6 years now. I guess the clock is ticking.......

 

[EllowViper]

Great. I've had no issues with the Fluidynes in both my GTSs for 6 years now. I guess the clock is ticking.......

...well like everything else...your actual mileage may vary. I loved the Fluidyne...massive radiator...but the weeping/seeping got old after a year of dealing with it. I never knew if it was going to spring a real leak or just keep dripping when cold. Regardless, just something I had to deal with.