sharing my progress/radiator solution

[ab8127542]

Hope the mods agree with my posting location..

Anyway, we're all aware of the radiator curse bestowed upon us.

Here's what I did.

I found locally, and bought, a gold grand prix, '89, 42,xxx miles 2.8 running great. Drove it home, knowing it's nothing but parts.

Salvage is going to be where most of you end up if you attempt this,  but here it goes:

I went on ebay, first and foremost, and bought, after carefully measuring my limited air damn deminsions, a aftermarket intercooler and a separate universal tubing kit (2.5 in).

I then obtained a heavy duty trans. cooler, lines and hoses. Some are rubber lines and some custom flared hard line. The next step was remove the entire stock air intake tubing and replaced it with the k&n cone filter (thx flybynite for the part #) that mounts directly on the turbo.

Remove the old intercooler, radiator, and coolant reservoir. These are specific to our models of course. I then ran my tubing for the intercooler, mounted it and hooked it up. Same with my trans cooler lines. Unfortunately I spent quite some time fabricating mounts (I insist on a professional appearance) but it was worth the work. Next i bought a new radiator for the base grand prix and installed it along with the 2.8 hoses, used the dual fan setup from my gold GP, along with my coolant resourvoir, which sits where our stock air filter housing once did, and then tidied up all my loose ends and double checked my work.

Besides the radiator rarity problem, I moved my intercooler to direct air flow, doubled my radiator size, can use a stock 2.8 radiator which most parts houses have on the shelf, added a cooling fan, added a large transcooler, allowed for better air intake with the k&n filter, and made my resourvoir easier to access and moved it above the radiator.

I must mention I used dozens of mounting brackets and other miscellaneous hardware (bolts, screws, etc..) from my parts car. Its a journey but it's way worth it. I'll try to get pictures soon. Thought I'd share :)

[Heartbeat1991]

It would have been cheaper and likely better to just get your stock radiator fixed.

[ab8127542]

Agreed, however the idea is to make the radiator available new, plus it gets that intercooler unblocked from direct air.

[flybynite]

This thread is worthless without pictures lol. Post em up!  :peace:

[Heartbeat1991]

My intake temps run reasonably cool.  It would be interesting to know what the difference is from stock when you're done.

[jimmy]

      Awesome I like a person with a plan :icon_cool: keep us updated and if possible throw up some pics.

[fararre74]

I recently bought a 1998 pontiac grand prix gtp daytona 500 pace car.  I want to put the oem emblems back on it that are located on outside of the left and right fenders. Any ideas where i can buy those?

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[Shifter23]

Glad to see someone trying to think outside the box!  OE stuff is great but I do like the idea of coming up with a different option since I ran into having cars that I picked up without a radiator included.

[GPChief]

Just noticed this post.....


Doing the same thing but using a DOHC radiator (1 inch thick) and a FMIC from a Izzuzu cab over truck.  Radiator & fans are plug & play (retune fan on temps)