Heater core recommendation?

[bdavid50]

Performance Radiator always shows out of stock. If you call and talk to sales they typically have them in stock. Went thru that same thing. I installed one Sept 2023 and so far heat is good and no leaks.

 

[reddvltj]

Performance Radiator always shows out of stock. If you call and talk to sales they typically have them in stock. Went thru that same thing. I installed one Sept 2023 and so far heat is good and no leaks.

That's good to know, thanks for sharing.

 

[brassworks]

Wow, I’ve started poking around more online, and it seems no one is satisfied with their heater core. Someone who installed an expensive brassworks one said it was very disappointing in terms of heat output. At this point I just want something decent that I don’t have to wait 18 weeks for. Any other ideas?

The initial version was built of copper and brass and 11 fins per inch. We had feedback from someone about the heating and offered a 15 fin per inch option and them ultimately made them 20 fin per inch. We are also playing with the heater box to make an 2-5/8" 20 Fin per inch. This depth must clear the door and nest inside the 2" channel. The cost is higher than China due to the US labor and North American tube and European copper.

 

[sab]

The initial version was built of copper and brass and 11 fins per inch. We had feedback from someone about the heating and offered a 15 fin per inch option and them ultimately made them 20 fin per inch. We are also playing with the heater box to make an 2-5/8" 20 Fin per inch. This depth must clear the door and nest inside the 2" channel. The cost is higher than China due to the US labor and North American tube and European copper.

Welcome to the forum, brassworks! I think you'll find us here to be a skeptical lot, but only due to all the bad experiences with substandard heater cores. Many of us love to support American companies and will pay for it - provided the product actually works!

 

[freedom_in_4low]

The initial version was built of copper and brass and 11 fins per inch. We had feedback from someone about the heating and offered a 15 fin per inch option and them ultimately made them 20 fin per inch. We are also playing with the heater box to make an 2-5/8" 20 Fin per inch. This depth must clear the door and nest inside the 2" channel. The cost is higher than China due to the US labor and North American tube and European copper.

excellent to have a vendor show up and comment. I'm much more inclined to pay extra for something American if it gives me some assurance that i won't be tearing my dash out again in a year, and that becomes even more so when a vendor has an online presence and is willing to entertain a dialog with its customers.

I'm a design engineer in the HVAC industry and have a bit of experience with heat exchanger design including sitting on a committee to write a standard for air-to-water/glycol heat exchanger performance testing and prediction.

I have no idea what your specific career background is but if you have the information necessary to answer a few questions, and are willing, could you comment on a couple of these things?
1. your flat/oval shaped tube, I assume must be soldered or brazed to the fin, rather than the mechanical bond used in round tubes where the tube is expanded into an interference fit inside a collared hole in the fin. Can you commend on the joining method and brazing materials used here and how it might impact the heat transfer between tube and fin?

2. Adding fin per inch and/or core depth also increases the air pressure drop, which depending on the performance of the fan will create a crossover point where more fin may produce a hotter output temperature but at a reduced mass flow which can result in actually LESS heat making it into the cabin (and conversely, less fin allowing more airflow may produce a cooler output temperature but put MORE heat into the cabin and therefore be a more effective heater). Would you be able, or willing, to comment on the thought process in this area and the potential compromise as the product has gone from 11, to 15, to 20fpi?

3. I don't know if it was in this thread or another, but someone posted claiming that your tank had a gap in the baffle between the inlet and outlet, which would allow some flow to bypass the core. No photos were provided. Can you address this?

4. is there any test data comparing your heater core to the stock one that might include air and coolant pressure drop, air flow cfm, heat transfer capacity, and outlet vs inlet temps? If I see data that demonstrates good performance overall I'm much more willing to overlook where it might not perform exactly the same (such as rumors on the internet that the output temperature isn't exactly as high...see #2)

And don't worry, I'm not a competitor trying to figure out your design to duplicate it. We don't have equipment or tooling to make anything small enough for anything automotive and have no interest in investing in that, or else I'd have made my own heater core already.

 

[brassworks]

excellent to have a vendor show up and comment. I'm much more inclined to pay extra for something American if it gives me some assurance that i won't be tearing my dash out again in a year, and that becomes even more so when a vendor has an online presence and is willing to entertain a dialog with its customers.

I'm a design engineer in the HVAC industry and have a bit of experience with heat exchanger design including sitting on a committee to write a standard for air-to-water/glycol heat exchanger performance testing and prediction.

I have no idea what your specific career background is but if you have the information necessary to answer a few questions, and are willing, could you comment on a couple of these things?
1. your flat/oval shaped tube, I assume must be soldered or brazed to the fin, rather than the mechanical bond used in round tubes where the tube is expanded into an interference fit inside a collared hole in the fin. Can you commend on the joining method and brazing materials used here and how it might impact the heat transfer between tube and fin?

The tubes are highly elliptical to increase the surface area of coolant touching tube inner wall and outer tube wall touching fin. The fins are louvered between tubes to disrupt air on the fin surface and the tubes are offset to tumble air laterally. The fin hole punching punches and extrudes the fin and, after the tubes are pressed in through an indexing jig, they are are soldered in place. Round tubes have a considerable amount of fluid touching fluid and some manufacturers use a spiral plastic "turbulator" to swirl the coolant. Unfortunately, in time, these plastic pieces may be found in the engine, land fills, the ocean, fish and ultimately us.

2. Adding fin per inch and/or core depth also increases the air pressure drop, which depending on the performance of the fan will create a crossover point where more fin may produce a hotter output temperature but at a reduced mass flow which can result in actually LESS heat making it into the cabin (and conversely, less fin allowing more airflow may produce a cooler output temperature but put MORE heat into the cabin and therefore be a more effective heater). Would you be able, or willing, to comment on the thought process in this area and the potential compromise as the product has gone from 11, to 15, to 20fpi?

We have been making radiators for 47 years and heater cores for the last 13 years principally due to imported aluminum aftermarket failures, manufacturer abandonment or just finding solutions to complicated designs (usually from the 1930s). The aluminum heater cores we replace tend to be thinner with inline tubes and serpentine design. Some are crimped plastic and epoxy, some are glued or have swivel tubes which fail. Others are round tubes with no "extrusion" for tube fin purchase and some can be as much as 30 fins per inch. We can fin density when we cannot make them thicker due to the shape of the housings.

3. I don't know if it was in this thread or another, but someone posted claiming that your tank had a gap in the baffle between the inlet and outlet, which would allow some flow to bypass the core. No photos were provided. Can you address this?

Ahhh yes the internet. We baffle the tanks to direct fluid flow. Two adjacent baffles are installed and while there may be a gap that permits light rarely will fluid elect to take this path when there is a far less restrictive route via the tubes.

4. is there any test data comparing your heater core to the stock one that might include air and coolant pressure drop, air flow cfm, heat transfer capacity, and outlet vs inlet temps? If I see data that demonstrates good performance overall I'm much more willing to overlook where it might not perform exactly the same (such as rumors on the internet that the output temperature isn't exactly as high...see #2)

I appreciate the interest but my experience with internet forums is that there is little or no control over the comments made, the direction the thread takes and they live forever. You can appreciate why few manufacturers comment.

And don't worry, I'm not a competitor trying to figure out your design to duplicate it. We don't have equipment or tooling to make anything small enough for anything automotive and have no interest in investing in that, or else I'd have made my own heater core already.

There is nothing new under the sun and we would encourage anyone to make their own replacement parts. We have a build queue for products that can range between 4 and 30 weeks depending on what we are asked to make. We produce things for people that were produced as early as 1901 and are happy to provide materials and/or piece parts for the do it yourselfer.

excellent to have a vendor show up and comment. I'm much more inclined to pay extra for something American if it gives me some assurance that i won't be tearing my dash out again in a year, and that becomes even more so when a vendor has an online presence and is willing to entertain a dialog with its customers.

I'm a design engineer in the HVAC industry and have a bit of experience with heat exchanger design including sitting on a committee to write a standard for air-to-water/glycol heat exchanger performance testing and prediction.

I have no idea what your specific career background is but if you have the information necessary to answer a few questions, and are willing, could you comment on a couple of these things?
1. your flat/oval shaped tube, I assume must be soldered or brazed to the fin, rather than the mechanical bond used in round tubes where the tube is expanded into an interference fit inside a collared hole in the fin. Can you commend on the joining method and brazing materials used here and how it might impact the heat transfer between tube and fin?

2. Adding fin per inch and/or core depth also increases the air pressure drop, which depending on the performance of the fan will create a crossover point where more fin may produce a hotter output temperature but at a reduced mass flow which can result in actually LESS heat making it into the cabin (and conversely, less fin allowing more airflow may produce a cooler output temperature but put MORE heat into the cabin and therefore be a more effective heater). Would you be able, or willing, to comment on the thought process in this area and the potential compromise as the product has gone from 11, to 15, to 20fpi?

3. I don't know if it was in this thread or another, but someone posted claiming that your tank had a gap in the baffle between the inlet and outlet, which would allow some flow to bypass the core. No photos were provided. Can you address this?

4. is there any test data comparing your heater core to the stock one that might include air and coolant pressure drop, air flow cfm, heat transfer capacity, and outlet vs inlet temps? If I see data that demonstrates good performance overall I'm much more willing to overlook where it might not perform exactly the same (such as rumors on the internet that the output temperature isn't exactly as high...see #2)

And don't worry, I'm not a competitor trying to figure out your design to duplicate it. We don't have equipment or tooling to make anything small enough for anything automotive and have no interest in investing in that, or else I'd have made my own heater core already.

 

[freedom_in_4low]

First of all, thanks for responding! and just to make sure, I don't want my post construed as accusatory or intimidating, I'm just trying to understand some things.

The tubes are highly elliptical to increase the surface area of coolant touching tube inner wall and outer tube wall touching fin. The fins are louvered between tubes to disrupt air on the fin surface and the tubes are offset to tumble air laterally. The fin hole punching punches and extrudes the fin and, after the tubes are pressed in through an indexing jig, they are are soldered in place.

ok, it sounds like there is a collar in the fin making contact with the tube, implying the solder is simply holding it together and not a critical part of the heat transfer circuit.

Round tubes have a considerable amount of fluid touching fluid and some manufacturers use a spiral plastic "turbulator" to swirl the coolant. Unfortunately, in time, these plastic pieces may be found in the engine, land fills, the ocean, fish and ultimately us.

I agree, I'm not a fan of the plastic turbulators at all. I actually bought (and returned) 4 heater cores from the standard replacement market last year trying to find one that gave me any warm fuzzies and none did. And yes, the elliptical tubes have a clear advantage over round when it comes to effective primary surface.

We have been making radiators for 47 years and heater cores for the last 13 years principally due to imported aluminum aftermarket failures, manufacturer abandonment or just finding solutions to complicated designs (usually from the 1930s). The aluminum heater cores we replace tend to be thinner with inline tubes and serpentine design. Some are crimped plastic and epoxy, some are glued or have swivel tubes which fail. Others are round tubes with no "extrusion" for tube fin purchase and some can be as much as 30 fins per inch. We can fin density when we cannot make them thicker due to the shape of the housings.

It's kinda sad that we're already in that situation on TJ's made as recently as 2006 (with crap imported aftermarket, manufacturer (OE) abandonment, etc)

The lacking of an extrusion is what I was getting at with question number 1 as I'm aware some older copper tube designs just had a flat hole punched in a tube and then soldered on with a solder material much less thermally conductive than copper or aluminum.

Ahhh yes the internet. We baffle the tanks to direct fluid flow. Two adjacent baffles are installed and while there may be a gap that permits light rarely will fluid elect to take this path when there is a far less restrictive route via the tubes.

I suspected that was the case, thanks for clarifying. Fortunately 50% glycol/water is more viscous than photons.

I appreciate the interest but my experience with internet forums is that there is little or no control over the comments made, the direction the thread takes and they live forever. You can appreciate why few manufacturers comment.

Understood and reasonable, even if it leaves my curiosity unsatisfied.

There is nothing new under the sun and we would encourage anyone to make their own replacement parts. We have a build queue for products that can range between 4 and 30 weeks depending on what we are asked to make. We produce things for people that were produced as early as 1901 and are happy to provide materials and/or piece parts for the do it yourselfer.

No, seriously though. None of our existing fin press dies would provide enough surface to do the job in a heater core-sized package and our existing market in commercial/industrial HVACR is big enough and I don't have the sway to give out a 7 figure PO for tooling for a market we know nothing about. 3/8" round tube with 1" fin spacing and max of 16fpi...we do use turbulators but they're metallic and they're not going anywhere. I'm sure it would last longer than the $35 Amazon options but would underperform even those. The design considerations for our respective applications are wildly different - the most obvious of which is that I don't have to size mine to be crammed behind a glove compartment.

 

[Blitzkrieg]

Welcome to the forum, brassworks! I think you'll find us here to be a skeptical lot, but only due to all the bad experiences with substandard heater cores. Many of us love to support American companies and will pay for it - provided the product actually works!

Jeepers Beware !!!!!!!! I also wanted to support an American company but Brassworks does not stand by their product & they are only chiming in here because they were reported to the Better Business Bureau. The heater core does not put out adequate heat & is actually subpar to a china made product. It is made well out of cooper BUT after that it is pretty much useless. Check other Jeep forums & you will see the same feedback. Trust a Jeeper not a company & learn from my mistake.

 

[freedom_in_4low]

Jeepers Beware !!!!!!!! I also wanted to support an American company but Brassworks does not stand by their product & they are only chiming in here because they were reported to the Better Business Bureau. The heater core does not put out adequate heat & is actually subpar to a china made product. It is made well out of cooper BUT after that it is pretty much useless. Check other Jeep forums & you will see the same feedback. Trust a Jeeper not a company & learn from my mistake.

do you have side by side test data to back this up? Outlet temperature on your toes is, by itself, not a comprehensive indicator of heat exchanger performance.

 

[brassworks]

Jeepers Beware !!!!!!!! I also wanted to support an American company but Brassworks does not stand by their product & they are only chiming in here because they were reported to the Better Business Bureau. The heater core does not put out adequate heat & is actually subpar to a china made product. It is made well out of cooper BUT after that it is pretty much useless. Check other Jeep forums & you will see the same feedback. Trust a Jeeper not a company & learn from my mistake.

Thanks for your feedback

Jeepers Beware !!!!!!!! I also wanted to support an American company but Brassworks does not stand by their product & they are only chiming in here because they were reported to the Better Business Bureau. The heater core does not put out adequate heat & is actually subpar to a china made product. It is made well out of cooper BUT after that it is pretty much useless. Check other Jeep forums & you will see the same feedback. Trust a Jeeper not a company & learn from my mistake.

See aforementioned comment; My experience with internet forums is that there is little or no control over the comments made, the direction the thread takes and they live on forever. You can appreciate why few manufacturers comment.

 

[Apparition]

Jeepers Beware !!!!!!!! I also wanted to support an American company but Brassworks does not stand by their product & they are only chiming in here because they were reported to the Better Business Bureau. The heater core does not put out adequate heat & is actually subpar to a china made product. It is made well out of cooper BUT after that it is pretty much useless. Check other Jeep forums & you will see the same feedback. Trust a Jeeper not a company & learn from my mistake.

 

[Blitzkrieg]

do you have side by side test data to back this up? Outlet temperature on your toes is, by itself, not a comprehensive indicator of heat exchanger performance.

do you have side by side test data to back this up? Outlet temperature on your toes is, by itself, not a comprehensive indicator of heat exchanger performance.

Test data is my experience with their product. Brassworks unit did not perform as stated. Its performance was way below average & disappointing in terms of heat output .I then installed cheap heater core & I got heat. Its pretty cut & dry but hey if you like to invest in one go for yours & learn on your own. I would have liked for this product to work & that is why the investment was made on it but unfortunately that was not the case.

 

[SkylinesSuck]

I have no dog in this fight but your proof of "test data" is lacking. I am not impressed.

 

[JMT]

Test data is my experience with their product. Brassworks unit did not perform as stated. Its performance was way below average & disappointing in terms of heat output .I then installed cheap heater core & I got heat. Its pretty cut & dry but hey if you like to invest in one go for yours & learn on your own. I would have liked for this product to work & that is why the investment was made on it but unfortunately that was not the case.

Anecdotal hearsay by a guy that joined the forum today and had made two posts against @brassworks. Looks like a vendetta.

@brassworks, I think a lot more people would try the heater core if they were even remotely close in cost to most other offerings. $349+ is a big gamble, and maybe it’s worth the cost of entry, but need more people to share their experience. Thank you for sharing the information about the heater core. Maybe that will help build some interest. Vendors/manufacturers with a good relationship with core folks on this forum have solid products that make everyone happy and they sell a lot of stuff..

 

[zebra12]

@brassworks If it works as advertised and lasts 20 years like the Mopar, then $350 is money well spent.

 

[freedom_in_4low]

Test data is my experience with their product. Brassworks unit did not perform as stated. Its performance was way below average & disappointing in terms of heat output .I then installed cheap heater core & I got heat. Its pretty cut & dry but hey if you like to invest in one go for yours & learn on your own. I would have liked for this product to work & that is why the investment was made on it but unfortunately that was not the case.

Test data is floor duct outlet temperature at full fan speed and a given ambient and 195F ECT, preferably combined with an outlet velocity. Otherwise all we have is a subjective statement prone to emotional bias, which seems likely given the appearance that you joined the forum just to make this post.

I don't have any test data either, but I've laid hands on enough of the sub $100 heater cores on the market to know that they're all chinesium junk and you're probably going to have that dash out again within 24 months.