One of the Greats - Radiator R&D, Part 3: Production

One of the Greats - Radiator R&D, Part 3: Production

The world is full of attempts at greatness that fell
short for one reason or another. It's no secret that creating something great
takes the right combination of timing, motivation, and vision. Over the past several
months, we've been working to craft our own version of greatness for one of the
most celebrated trucks in the world.

When we last saw our 2011-2014 Ford F-150/2010-2014 Ford Raptor radiator, it was merely the shell of greatness. Our prototype was constructed and test-fit successfully, but we were still a few steps away from our goal of a radiator that lives up to the F-150's reputation. While we've been absent from posting, work was still progressing on our production samples. These samples, and the testing we'll perform with them, will be the milestone that determines if our radiator will be fit for greatness, or fall short along with so many before it.

Building two radiators meant that the time between our prototype and this point was longer than normal, but after a long wait, we had our two samples in hand. The first step in vetting our radiators was to make sure they both fit on the truck. Test-fitting two radiators typically requires two vehicles, but since the F-150 and the Raptor radiators are so similar in design, we were able to simply test fit both on our volunteer F-150. Removing the stock radiator from the F-150 was a simple matter of draining the coolant from the truck and removing the ancillary parts attached to the radiator.

After removing the stock radiator, it was time to install our replacement and see if all our hard work amounted to greatness or failure. Our radiator has a 102% larger surface area than the stock F-150 and Raptor radiators and holds 150% more coolant, so tensions were high as Jason dropped the radiator into its new home.

Luckily, all of Jason's measurements were spot on and the radiator fit like a glove. The next step in the path to greatness was to see if the radiator performed as well as it fit. There was one problem with that, however. We test fit this radiator in the cold winter months of February; temperatures outside were hovering in the 30s on good days. Needless to say, it's difficult to get any vehicle hot enough to tax even the smallest stock radiator in those temperatures. But we had a backup plan.

While we've been developing our 2011-2014 F-150 radiators,
we've also been working on our 2015-2017 F-150 radiator. Coincidentally (or
maybe by Ford's love of the parts bin), the 2015 F-150 and Raptor radiator use
cores that are similar in size to the 2011-2014 F-150 Raptor radiator. Since
our 2011-2014 radiator is essentially a scaled-up version of the Raptor
radiator, the core specs are nearly identical to that of our 2015-2017
radiator.

All of this meant that any temperature data we could gather from the 2015-2017 radiator would be nearly identical to any we could get from the 2011-2014. Better yet, we had a 2018 Raptor coming in for testing later in the year. If anything was going to push our radiator to the limit, it would be the high-output 3.5L EcoBoost in the 2018 Raptor.

Once the weather had warmed up, the 2018 Raptor arrived at our facility and was bolted to our DynaPacks. After getting the engine up to temperature, we ran several loaded pulls to see how the Mishimoto radiator would fare. We're going to spoil the ending a bit for the 2017+ Raptor owners here, so if you've been following that development thread, you might want to skip this part.

The inlet side of the above graph may not look too
impressive, but it's the outlet side and the difference between the two that
really counts. Our radiator was able to drop the temperature of the coolant by
over 70 degrees and coolant returning back to the engine was over 40 degrees
colder than with the stock radiator. Even though these aren't the exact numbers
you may see while driving, it proves that our radiator core significantly
out-performs the stock core, and we'd call that pretty great.

That's it. Our 2011-2014 F-150/2010-2014 Raptor Radiator is one of the greats, just like the truck that it was made for. But you know what else is great? Discounted pre-sales. We're keeping the streak of greatness going by offering this radiator at discount until it's released in May. So click the link below to cash in and, as always, feel free to let us know what you think.

Click here to get your 2011-2014 F-150 or 2010-2014 F-150 Raptor Radiator Today!

Thanks for reading!

-Steve