With the exception of only a couple of manufacturers, such as General Motors, a part number can almost tell you exactly what type of part it is, where it mounts, and which vehicle it belongs to. There are exceptions, of course, but often times a part number can just about pinpoint what that part is.
Here at Champion Cooling Systems, our radiators have specific part number and letter patterns that will get you close to the type of radiator it is. While there’s no promise that the part number will tell you exactly which vehicle it fits, sections of that part number will provide information about that radiator.
In this entry of Beyond the Checkered Flag, we decode Champion’s radiator part numbers for you, to give you a little better understanding of what’s in the box.
Our flagship product lines, the Race Series is our line of radiators for the Drag Race community, while Our CS Series is our high-end radiator for specific applications. Both were designed in-house, and built at our facility.
The Prefix
The prefix of every part number will tell you a little about the configuration of each radiator. That will narrow it down to tube size, and how many rows it has, for the most part. As more and more products are developed, sometimes you have to make concessions, and that is where the rule of thumb is to check our listing for that part number to be sure about its application. However, this list below will get you in the ball park and give you a little bit of an advantage as to figuring out what you’re getting.
- AE: The 2-row standard, with 1″ tubes. We do have a couple of applications using a 1-row core, with a single 1.25″ tube.
- BC: Our Bar & Plate style radiators are more robust and can handle higher coolant pressures, as well as having more durability due to the single-tube design of this radiator.
- CC: The 3-row radiators are the standard for higher performance, providing a little more coolant capacity than the standard 2-row core. Based on the core thickness, they can have a .57″ tube for the 2″ core, or a .63″ tube for the 2-1/4″ core. Our B-Core (suffix, below) is 2-1/2″ with .75″ tubes.
- CR: The Champion Replacement is our OE style radiator. It typically has a Pin-style mounting system; these will mimic the OE radiator in design but with aluminum tanks. They may utilize the plastic mounting bracket in some applications.
- CS: The Custom Shop radiators have a 2-row, 1″ tube design. They are higher priced than our standard radiators, and include an attached fan shroud and cooling fans. These will have a standard 1-year warranty, or 2-years if used with our Inline Coolant Filter.
- EC: The Economy Core is a 2-row radiator with .75″ tubes to provide exceptional cooling; they’re slightly narrower than our CC 3-Row Radiators.
- MC: The Monster Core is a 4-row radiator with four .57″ tubes, and should only be used if the vehicle does not have air conditioning or other coolers that can hinder air flow. Typically, this is for a car that might see some track time, and has a higher horsepower engine.
- RS: The Race Series is another radiator that is built in-house, and is designed specifically for the racing community. These radiators have a single 1.5″ tube, and use a bung-style mounting system, welded directly onto the tanks. They’ll include an attached shroud, and cooling fan(s). Not recommended for street use.
- UN: The Universal Series is a 3-row design with .63″ tubes. It comes in at a slightly lower price point, and will require a custom mounting system. They’re all of the cross flow design, and have larger upper and lower rails to accommodate custom mounting brackets.
The Suffix
The Suffix in the part numbers will tell you a little about the radiator, as well. It’s typically provides information about a radiator that has a standard counterpart in either the AE, CC, EC, or MC styles, but something was modified to change the radiator. That could be the finish (our Champion Black Finish) or the radiator has been modified to accommodate an engine swap, such as the LS, Coyote, a Dual- or Triple-Pass design, or for engine swaps that were not available with the original vehicle – such as a Ford or Chevy engine in a vehicle that had a Ford Flathead
- B: This designation is typically directly following the main part number, and is designated for our “B Core,” which is a 3-Row with .71″ tubes.
- BLK: All of our radiators that have the Champion Black Finish will have this Suffix, and will typically have a natural aluminum finish counterpart. These are almost always one of our existing radiators that received the black coating.
- CH: Some people like to put a Chevy engine in their Ford, and for those who do an engine swap with a Chevy engine, this means the radiator will have the hose locations switched from the typical Ford setup.
- CY: Our Coyote Swap radiators are fairly new as of this entry in our blog, and more will be added as we see requests for other applications. These are the same radiator as the replacements that we sell, but will have different hose sizes required by the Coyote engine swap.
- DP: While most of our Dual Pass radiators are primarily for LS Swaps, there are a few that will work with other engines. The dual Pass will have both upper and lower hoses mounted to the passenger side of the radiator.
- FD: If the vehicle originally had a Ford Flathead, then swapping to a later Ford engine would be a problem. Radiators with this suffix match the Flathead style radiator in size and dimensions, but will have a single upper and lower hose fitting to match a standard Ford engine.
- FH: For those wishing to install a Flathead in a vehicle that didn’t originally come with a Flathead, this radiator will have the twin upper and lower radiator hose fittings to accommodate a Ford Flathead engine.
- LS: Our LS Swap Radiators are going to be a Dual Pass design, and will have both upper and lower hose fittings on the passenger side, and will include a fitting for the steam port typical of an LS engine.
- M: Though it’s not always required to use the internal transmission cooler, some preferred not to have one at all when they’ve got three pedals, so we now make a Manual Transmission version for some popular applications.
- PS: Many early- to mid-1960s Chevrolet Power Steering Boxes had a longer body, and we modified the lower tank to clear it on our 281 & 289 radiators.
- RHD: If you see this, then you found the unicorn (as of this entry). Sometimes we get enough requests to make a modification, that it becomes a production radiator. In this case, we had done enough modifications for the Right Hand Drive mail jeeps, that we now offer it as an off-the-shelf unit.
- S: This is only on the 1965 – 1967 Pontiac radiator, and it identifies that it’s slightly shorter core and upper tank than the standard 1680.
- SP: You won’t see SP on many radiators, but it is to identify a Single Pass design in a crossflow radiator where the Double Pass or Triple Pass is also available.
- TP: We don’t have too many Triple Pass Radiators, but you can find these in our Custom Shop Radiators, currently the Tri-Five CS5057 and the Ford Coyote Swap CS6770.
