Allan,
>1) Cullen Bennet (or is it Bennet Cullen?? either way, I appologize....)
>has suggested that he gets good results from a custom Aluminium radiator
>built by a friend of his....anyone had a similar experience? And Cullen,
>if I order one of these $480 beauties from this guy, will it fit?? Current
>radiator is three row (I think) with two tubes followed by one, and then
>two again. The current radiator fits fight up next to the rack and
?pinion....there just ain't no more room!
It is Cullen Bennett and Tigers can run cool. The fellow that I bought my
radiator from is Ron Davis, and he makes and sells lots of them. I was told
that he also makes them for a guy in California by the name of Dale
A?????ski (I have trouble with names too). When I had mine built, I took Ron
my old unit as a template. He said that it was the first one that he had
seen first hand. He was building them for Dale from a set of drawings. As it
worked out, I still had to cut a wedge out of the bottom hose tube, bend it
over and have him re-weld the aluminum to clear the frame on the passenger
side. There is no joking.... it IS a press fit all the way, AND it is up
against the rack housing. I even cut out notches in the lower radiator frame
to clear the bolt heads on the rack. The overall thickness is more than the
stock radiator. The new one is a two row aluminum. Each tube is 1"x 1/16"
and run horizontally. My feeling is that the key to making them work is
making a full fan shroud around the radiator. The Tiger never came with a
lower half and I believe this is why it has historically run hot. All I can
attest to is that I even put an air conditioner condenser core out in front
of it and it STILL only runs 205 degrees on a 109 degree ambient, in
traffic. When Bobbie and I came back from TU XXII, we came around the edge
of Death Valley Nevada in the middle of the afternoon with no problems. I
don't think there's anything magic about my Tiger, its just that I stumbled
onto a radiator/shroud/fan combination that works and works well. The fan is
a six blade rigid fan that I cut down to clear the rack and reset the pitch
to clear the radiator with about 3/4".
Before you spring for the big bucks and buy an aluminum radiator, try
fabricating (fitted cardboard cutout template transferred to sheet metal) a
full shroud with a six blade fan. I bet it will get the temperature down to
something reasonable. Going back to the 2.88's will also help keep the rpm's
down. Check your ignition timing too, a few degrees can make a big
difference on heat output (efficiency).
That's my two cents worth from the soap-box.
Cullen Bennett in Tempe AZ (B9472658).
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