4d00rEF

Alright, so my radiator was leaking pretty bad. EF full radiators are hard to come by, well, more hard than halfies...and i couldn't find a very good write up for putting an halfie in an EF. Other than the options of cutting cross member, hood, making custom brackets, blah blah.

This might not be the way you'd do it. But it works, and its a start.


Tools/Supplies needed:
-Basic sockets, wrenches, screwdrivers.
-Some sheet metal to make a bracket out of. That exhaust hanger crap would work pretty well too, but that looks to shitty, even by my standards.
-A dremel, or cut off wheel.
-A drill
-A bolt or screw to hold the bracket in place.
-A friend or two to help, patience, and some food is always nice too.:yes:
-Coolant.

1. Jack front of car up, this is especially helpful if you're EF is lowered, saves your back some pain.

2. Make sure car is cool, drain your coolant. Make sure you remove your radiator cap when doing this. It allows the coolant to flow much quicker. Dispose of properly.

3. After coolant is drained, you can then remove your radiator. This involves removing the two brackets that are on the upper sides of the radiator, the upper radiator hose, and lower radiator hose. Also, you must remove the line that goes to the coolant overflow tank, which is located near the drivers side motor mount. I also removed the battery, and my intake, just to get some more room.

After that, you should be to this point.



4. Alright, this is where things start to get interesting, as you can see here, the half radiator is much taller than an EF full radiator.



4. I set the radiator in, where it sat at its lowest point.


This also allows the upper and lower radiator hose to sit in just about exactly there stock positions. So that's a very good plus.

I started looking around, weighing out my options, the tilt just didn't look good at all. Hacking the cross member looked to be a huge pain in the ***.

I decided that cutting a section of the under skin of the hood is where i would start.

I had layed down underneath the car, armed with a light, and had a friend shut the hood, while i marked with a sharpie where the radiator cap, and dowel pin on top of the radiator, were hitting the hood.

From here, i went to town.

This is what i ended up with.



No, im not the best cutter in the world. Im gonna go back and clean the cut up abit. lol.

i had a friend go underneath the car, and hold the radiator in place, to see if it cleared.


SO CLOSE. The support on the hood under the skin was still hitting. Simple solution, cut slits in the side of it, and bend it down.


Voila! It shut fine.


Sweet, that's one obstacle down.

5. Now, you have to make some sort of bracket to hold the radiator in place.

This was pretty easy, i had some about 1 1/2 in sheet metal sitting around, drill a hole in it the size of the dowel on the top of the radiator, bent in two 90 degree angles, of the appropriate height, and drill another hole in the bottom of the bracket. Then drill a small hole in the front crossmember, or whatever you wanna call that piece up front the old brackets for the fullsize radiator used to bolt to, and the hood latch is on. That piece.

Put your bracket on. Make sure the hood still shuts. If it does, move ahead, if not, adjust your bracket.

6. Now, remove that bracket, b/c you have to put your lower radiator hose on. And its not easy.

This part was by far the hardest of the hole process.The stock radiator hose is about 1/8in smaller than the EG radiator hose.

This is how i went about getting it on.

Heat, and lube. And a LOT OF ELBOW GREASE. And time. I used a bit of 5w-30 on my finger, rubbed the inside of the hose, heated the hose up a bit with a propane torch. DO NOT BURN IT, ONLY HEAT IT, just enough to soften in up a bit. Then just start working it, eventually it will stretch a bit, and when it does, hose clamp it. It took two of us to do this, one person holding the radiator, while i shoved that hose on, and tightened the clamp. PITA, but it worked eventually.

7. Once the lower hose is on, its pretty much smooth sailing from here. But the hose on the t-stat housing, apply your hose clamp there. The upper radiator hose didn't go on nearly as hard as my bottom one did, i was able do it alone, with out any issue.

8. Put your bracket back on, to hold the radiator in place.

9. Fill back up with coolant, and distilled water mix. Put overflow tank back on, bleed system, start it, let it get to operating temp, and enjoy!




AFTERNOTES.

There are a couple of this i didn't cover in this write up,

1. A lower mount for the radiator.
Mine doesn't move around that much with only the top mount, so it isn't that huge of a deal. If it is to you, then I'm sure you could fab something up using the stock bracket for the normal full size ef radiator. I'm not gonna worry about mine to much yet.

2. A radiator fan.
Honestly, when i got done last night, it was about 11:30 at night, and i just wanted to sleep at that time, because i was supposed to work today at 8 this morning. Unfortunately, i seem to have caught the flu, so now i'm spending my time writing this HOW TO. Lol. Anyway, i don't think the stock fan is a bolt on thing, the mounting bolt holes dont line up....not that i saw anyway. I'm gonna order a slimfan, and call it a day. The OEM Fans are like 2.4 or 3 inches thick anyway, DO NOT WANT! lol.

3. The overflow tank.
On the stock full size radiator, the line to the overflow runs along the top of the radiator, to the overflow near the drivers side mount. On the EG radiator, its on the the back of the radiator, pointing towards the engine bay, this is inconvenient because it shoots a random line right over your header if you run it to the stock overflow position, and looks super messy. So for now, my line is just ran straight down, to the ground. I hate it, but it got me home last night, I think im gonna order a universal coolant overflow tank, and mount somewhere where i dont have to run a line all over the place. Or find a way to mount the line.




There are other ways of putting a halfie in, i know. But this is the route i went, and it worked fine.


Hope this inspires someone else, this is my first write up. Woot!

Heres a few for the road....






Ugh, winter has started. All i want for christmas is grip.

Crx-Vtec_

n ice write up

4d00rEF

Thanks man.

4drEF

So... why didn't you just lower the mounts on the crossmember instead of hacking up your hood?

4d00rEF

Uhmm. You cant just lower your mounts on the crossmember, b/c then the lower radiator hose will still hit, and the drain plug...so, its not just moving mounts, you have to completly hack up the front crossmember.

4d00rEF

and the mounts dont sit on the crossmember, they sit on like the front bumper support.

efjones9

thats what i was thinking before i opend the link. i was thinking about cutting off the stock mounts and fab'ing up some some mounts to sit lower than normal. then i just got a da radiator and tossed that idea lol i wanted to keep my ac fan. but anyway, nice write-up very creative

4drEF

You are right - they are on the 'radiator support' (I definitely need more coffee!) and not the crossmember.

I cut mine and lowered it... then again that was an EF2 front with the bump up in the center of the hood.
I did very minor bending of a metal seam near the mount to get it to work.

Can't see why it's completely not possible with the USDM front.
I had the top of EG rad sitting level with the T-bar.
Car was low and scraped the stock crossmember regularly.
NEVER hit the EG rad or hose.

4d00rEF

Whatever works, ya know?

At least im giving an idea on it, i stated in there that you can cut the crossmember, etc etc. But if you look here.


It would hit the crossmember bad. lol. I was about to do that much hacking. Eventually, ill get a traction bar, and itll all drop down. Then ill just have to get a CF hood. Oh well. lol.


Once again, im in no way saying this is the only way to do it, its just an option, and its easy as hell.

Marcos Barrios

I like your set up better than mine
I did my eg rad like 3 or so years ago but i did the tilt
but before that i had cut my radiator sopport thinking it would fit but no luck cuz I didn't want to cut my cf hood so I just cut it all off and had it sit on the cross member and tilted cut the front rad hose and made it smaller also
it was a hassle
but it works also
that was 3 years ago and still no problems with it
this was on my crx si

slowsinglecam

Nice write up.

4drEF

Can't tell in your pic, but with the EF2 front when I bent the metal back on the radiator support it allowed the radiator to slip down in front of the crossmember.
No mods were done to the crossmember at all.

I don't mean to be coming off like your mod wasn't good.
It's a LOT better than the complete hack and slash jobs posted before.
Just would be nice to see something that was a lot less obvious when the hood was popped.

4d00rEF

Im fine with critism.
I understand that this is kind of BAM HOLE IN THE HOOD. but it works, its easy. my orignal intentions were to just cut the brackets on the radiator support, so it could just slide down. but that doesnt work like it seems it would. And i soon realised that. Plus then, the lower radiator hose would have to be routed wierd. B/c it would need to go directly through the crossmember.


Either way, thanks for the critism.

LatnKng

I cant do it bro..i guess its the radiator sitting somewhat slanted or not straight is what bothers me..ive seen my friend do his ef hatch and it looked horrible..i still have the radiator in the shop..just cant do it..besides, the regular long radiator looks a whole lot better in my opinion...im assuming ppl do it to save space.

4d00rEF

actually, i did it because my old one was leaking badddd, and EG radiators are a dime a dozen, much easier to find. And it was sunday, so all the junkyards were closed. lol.

crx_si-r

whats wrong with the stock replacement radiators for our cars? they cost the same at auto parts stores. i got mine in my crx for 100-discount=87 w/tax. EJ8 coupe 99-discount=86 w/tax.

i just cant see how you are saying its easier to go with a half radiator, and mine all have lifetime warranties (the best part i might add).

ghg78

iTrader: (2)

you might want to add some sort of rubber bushing to your top mount so it absorbs the vibration.that way it don't crack the upper tank.

EK-ek

nice write up! I just did the ghetto slant haha

jbrokos307

that intake pipe looks mighty dangerous touchin that + battery terminal might wanna fix that to but nice write up i my self would have mounted in front of the crossmember but then again i would just use a factory replacement but put a bushing in your mounts so it dont eat at the plastic from the vibrations good job overall

crx_si-r

you also gotta fix that kink in your top hose by the water outlet

89s1

Dear god yes, watch out for that positive terminal. Get a rubber boot for it ASAP.

As stated on the D, you used the b16 del sol rad and that is why the radiator nipples are so hard to get the rad hoses on to. The sohc 92-95 half rad will fit the hoses just like stock.

Lots of time with boosted applications there is simply not enough room for the full size rad.