Hey everybody,
Here's the last post as promised! This time we go over our test fit and dyno testing. The radiator performed really well in the modified Raptor, so we look forward to hearing how it works in your trucks. Check it out below and let us know what you think!
Thanks,
-Steve
Everyday Hercules – Aluminum Radiator R&D, Part 3: Production
As summer begins here in Delaware, it’s quickly becoming the season of trailers with boats, jet skis, and campers filling the roads. Most of those trailers are pulled behind massive, oversized trucks that look like they rolled off the showroom floor yesterday. While there’s nothing wrong with taking pride in your truck and keeping it clean, my favorite thing to see on the road is the F-150 that still has the toolbox in the back and mud on the tires, towing an old aluminum fishing boat. The drivers of the shiny behemoths might scoff at it from a few feet up, but that F-150 has been that driver’s Hercules. You know that truck and its owner have done some work.
Summer is also an opportune time to finish our
2015+ F-150 / 2017+ Raptor radiator. But before we move into the final phase of development, let’s look at how we got here. Our first post in this series focused on the stock radiator. Much like our 2011-2014 F-150 radiator, we found that Ford offered multiple cooling options for the 2015+ F-150 and Raptor. Never ones to take the easy road, we decided to out-cool Fords most efficient radiator found in the 2017+ Raptor and some 3.5L EcoBoost F-150s.
We started development by measuring the stock radiators and sorting out which features needed to be carried on to our radiator. One of the bigger challenges would be incorporating an in-tank transmission cooler into the larger radiator. To find out if our design was feasible, we then created a prototype radiator using our 3D printers to make true-to-life end tanks. Our fabricator welded together an aluminum frame to act as the radiator core and we had a prototype.
Our previous post ended with a successful test fit of that prototype and the beginning of our wait for a production sample. With the arrival of spring came that very production sample and the final steps of development.
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