ColoradoMark

I had my local p-car shop install my center, third radiator a month ago.
This week I was in for a track inspection and noticed the center grill was popping out on the edges. They had just stuck it in without any mounting tape, zip ties, or some other mean of securing it. The owner commented "was this something we ordered?" Another attendee commented about the problems he had had with getting his Rennline grills to fit.

This weekend I was putting on my track pads and race tires and noticed that they had not cut out the bumper to allow the hot air to escape from under the car with the new radiator.

This is a shop that claims to be experienced and have done race car support in the past. Am I right to assume they should have known to do these two things properly?

Hella-Buggin'

I had the third radiator kit installed with Rennline grills by my local shop. The Grills fit perfect and have metal clips that screw into the bumper on the inside that are only visible when the bumper is removed. If that's not what you have going on, they didn't read the instructions. I'd say the same is true of the vets for the radiator. Could be that they just made a simple mistake. Could be they let the B team work on the non-racecars.

nwGTS

It's literally in the instructions for the kit to cut the underside vents. So, they didn't follow the instructions. Agree with the above. You should be pissed.

user 72902

Agreed that the third radiator won't do squat without the exit holes cut out.

wjk_glynn

I recently had the Rennline grill kit for 3-radiators installed and the kit did not come with any way of mounting the center grill (the side grills had a series of clips).

I was personally there to see the last of the install. In the end, they held it in place by pressure from the bumper being attached to the body.

So that part maybe a Rennline problem...

Yah, that's an amature-hour mistake by the shop.

Karl.

ColoradoMark

Took about thirty minutes to cut out the vents. Hit the racetrack this weekend and my water temps never wavered!

Hella-Buggin'

I hope you're monitoring your temps through something other than the OE Gauge cluster. That's a dummy gauge for the most part. Get a OBD2 port reader and bluetooth the data to your phone. The OE gauge stays pegged at 175 unless something goes really wrong. If you consider that the thermostat doesn't even start to open until 185 you can follow the erroneous gauge train logic.

I have the third radiator and on tack and in traffic will see the temps vary between 185 and 205.

wjk_glynn

As Hella said, the water temp gauge is not a true indicator of coolant temps.

What oil temperatures did you see, and what was the ambient air temperature?

Derek Zoolander

Shameless plug - I have a brand-new-in-box 3rd radiator kit for sale if anyone is interested. Local pickup only in the DC area.

ColoradoMark

I do have the Torque app, still figuring out how to set up data logging with it.

The oil temperature in the gauge cluster was reading about 240, a far cry lower than the 270 I saw last summer. That being said it was in the 70's on Saturday versus high 90's last summer.