What's the point of buying a pwr radiator?
 

Say the stock one works perfectly, and the car never overheats. Would buying a pwr radiator make sense for a daily-driven non-racecar? Even if it does keep the engine cooler, won't the thermostat make it run at a certain operating temp anyways?

I don't have one but think all-metal construction is the biggest selling point. There's no plastic tank to split.

dcb

svx radiators spontaneously split open?

From what I've seen the plastic tanks aren't exactly "Lifetime warranteed".

My teal came with a conveniently pre-split top tank when I bought it at <105,000 miles. Judging from the posts I've read, this could be the most common of all SVX afflictions.

dcb

Mine's been good stock...I think 469 dollars or 599 dollars is a rip off.

i bought mine because my stock plastic tank broke. I could have bought another stock one but I have pretty big future build plans so I wanted a higher performance cooling system. plus its bling bling

My OEM radiator broke. New one was like 350 so I said what the heck, I'll pay 600 for one that won't break, and has more cooling capacity, and looks better.
I'm also using the phenolic spacers, which cut off the manifold from the block and I think isolates it from a great deal of what would normally be dissipating heat. The PWR should make up for that.

Mine did about 2 months ago (with 131k miles on her). All of a sudden.. smoke everywhere. I thought of getting the PWR radiator but I am instead going with Motorsport's radiator ($195).

The plastic at the top of the radiator is known to crack...many people patch it up but it wont last much longer. The PWR also aides in cooling the tranny better.

The PWR radiator has a multipass cooling tube in it and the stock one only passes through once. The other advantage has already been mentioned - no plastic. You have a couple of choices for a replacement, but there is a reason that the PWR is sold for more - the construction. Some of the members who have installed them have mentioned that the car runs cooler in the summer. :)

I'm 5-sped
How? I thought the thermostat keeps the engine at a certain temperature..

You probably don't need it for the cooler part, but they do spilt in the plastic part.

When the tranny starts to heat up, the radiator does not have enough passes of the fluid to cool it down enough, so continure to heat up.

Hey big boy, ya know ya want one :)

The SVX cooling system is pretty stout stock. Yes, the radiators spontaneously split open, but an OEM replacement one seems to work just fine.

IMO, unless you're racing the car... you just won't need the bad assness that is the PWR rad.