Aftermarket heater core comparison

TexasTJ2004 said:

Don't be a grammar nazi. The heat exchange don't have enough surface area or any airflow it actually impact the temperature. By itself it acts as a capacitor in the thermal equation.

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no offense intended, just a little friendly jest. I'm genuinely impressed and excited about what you did with this.

TexasTJ2004 said:

The heat exchanger is this one:
View attachment 436444
https://www.ebay.com/itm/1241249481...d=link&campid=5337789113&toolid=20001&mkevt=1

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love it. Did you do some calculations to arrive at 60 plates or just go with the biggest thing that would fit? I've wanted to do some analysis of my own but I have no idea what the cooling system flow rate and pump head is supposed to be.

TexasTJ2004 said:

Yes, I made calculations. The specific model that I bought from Ebay does not provide the BTU rating for it. Based on other products with similar technology, I calculated that it will be in the ballpark of 300 KBTU/HR. Let's be humble and say 200 KBTU/HR. This is like a complete overkill whatsoever to any heater core possible. I think that heater core dissipates maybe 30KBTU/HR if any. If you want just to have it for heater core purposes, then 10 plates will easily make it.
My goal was not to how to deal with leaking heater cores once and forever, but rather how to have a secondary cooling system to which I can add additional auxiliary radiators to help cooling down the engine. Especially in the summer heat, with AC, at slow speed. Plan is have an additional radiators (basically heater cores with fans), that are connected to the secondary loop. The goal is make sure that engine runs at 215F and not higher. I don't want to swap to electric fans for the main radiator, as it does not make sense reliability wise (maybe adds power, but huge stress on the radiator etc).

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Awesome. Just for my own curiosity, what is your job and in what field?

I'm nerding out over this particularly because much of my work over the last year has involved retrofitting a plate heat exchanger into primary-only (refrigerant) systems and moving all the loads into a secondary loop, in order to reduce refrigerant charge by 90%. Essentially converting it to a chiller.

next on the docket is one that's a tier up in pricing...closer to the $50-60 range rather than the $30-40 units I've looked at so far.
Two parts on RockAuto use the exact same stock photos, OSC and FVP, both at the top end of the price range offered there.

OSC Heat Transfer Products is a subsidiary of US Motor Works, which is also the parent company for Derale. Their blurb on heater cores talks a lot about materials and testing which makes me think they're at least a manufacturer.

FVP is a multi-line auto parts company but looking through their career section and their website they sound like a distributor, as it's all warehousing and transit jobs. Based on this info I'm making an educated guess that OSC is the manufacturer and FVP is buying and rebranding OSC's core.



Return shipping is more expensive on RockAuto than Amazon, so I found the OSC on Amazon and ordered it.

I probably won't bother with the lower end GPD and UAC units. Interestingly the Four Seasons uses the same part number as OSC but the fin pattern is different in the photos (though as Agility taught me, that may not mean anything).

This one is the first one that's differed significantly.

Fin per inch: 23
fin pattern: flat with basic enhancement, lancing to allow airflow to bypass clogged fin which is pretty common in clog-prone very tight fin spacing
tube count: 34 total, alternating 8-9 per row
configuration: 4 row double fed
tube OD: 6mm
tube pattern: ~17mm between tube centers, 8.5mm between row centerlines
turbulators: cheap white plastic with no retention, AGAIN. However the ones I can see are sitting back from the entrance of the tube and not sticking out, so maybe that's something. Also possible that if they're the same turbulators maybe they stay in place better in the smaller tube.

The extra tubes provide about 4% more primary surface and 4% more cross section, which would make up for the slightly reduced fin per inch vs the Spectra, but the reduced fpi allowing more airflow, combined with the better tube arrangement would be likely to have a net advantage in total heat output, but maybe not a higher outlet temperature.



This is the first one that came with no foam gasket. The spectra had one installed and the agility had one in the box for the user to install. It also has the same fin rippling at the tube sheet that the agility had. This area is hidden by the foam on the spectra so if it was there it didn't catch my attention unfortunately.





Packaging was probably the worst, with the core just loose in a small box with a good inch or two to move around.

Jury is out on this one, I may hold onto it at least long enough to see another one. What that other one is though, I'm not sure. Performance radiator still shows out of stock and I'm not sure whether I'm committed enough to drop the coin on the one from Brassworks.

bobthetj03 said:

Little late to the party here, but I replaced my factory core with a Performance Radiator core a year ago. Last Saturday it catastrophically failed and dumped most of the coolant in the floor and left me stranded. Thankfully, I was close to home and got the jeep back to my shop with my RV. Pics are in my build thread if you want to see what happened to the Performance Radiator core. I ordered a Four Seasons replacement from Rock Auto, but it wasn't going to be here by the weekend, so I ordered another one from O'Reilly's. According to the parts guy, Four Seasons was bought out by Murray, with the same part number, so that is what I put in. The Four Seasons one will be here Monday, so I'll compare it to the Murray I put in yesterday. It is not a fun job. In total, took me about 7 hours. Wishing I would have just left the factory core in there when I replaced the evaporator a year ago, but with 175K miles on the Mopar unit, I thought I was being proactive, so I bought the Performance Radiator option along with the evaporator.

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If you don't have plans for the Performance unit I'm up for paying for shipping to me using your shipper of choice so I can add it to this thread.

Four seasons and OSC use the same part number, so if they're actually the same that points to good heat output, and hopefully the smaller tubes hang on to the turbulators better. Hope the longevity pans out.

SkylinesSuck said:

Or at the least take lots of pics of it after you pull it out (if you are trying for any warranty and they want it back). That is super disappointing to hear.

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I'm really curious if it uses the same garbage white plastic turbulators that everyone else does, that come out and wad up in the block or get jammed in the thermostat. Not that I would use one at this point, but it would be a shame if the only heater core that didn't use them was the one that splits open in a year.