Installation Time
(approx) 2 Hours
Difficulty Level:
Light to Moderate mechanical skill required.
Installation Guides
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Jake: Jake here for American Muscle and today I'm taking a look at the SR performance aluminum radiator from 1997 to 2004 manual transmission Mustang GTs. Now, before we dive in here, I wanted to take a moment to acknowledge that this has a bit of a complicated fitment. It is gonna only fit manual transmission cars, not automatics, and it is compatible with '97 to '04 Mustang GTs, '97 and '98 model year Cobras, and '03 and '04 model year Mach-1s. This is also all detailed on the website. So before you go ahead and click that buy now button, just make sure you check over everything, make sure it's gonna fit on your car.Now, if your radiator is in need of replacement or if you're building on a budget, adding an aluminum radiator is an excellent way to make sure that your engine runs cooler and more efficiently. And efficiency means more power plus more longevity for your engine. So if you're looking for an inexpensive way to increase your cooling capacity, keep your engine running cooler and better for longer, whether it's at the track or on the street, this is a great option for your Mustang.This is a two-row core, fully aluminum radiator. Now, aluminum is excellent at dissipating heat, which is exactly what you want from a high-performance radiator. This is also gonna provide you greater capacity than your stock system. And that higher capacity, of course, means that your engine is gonna run cooler. So if you're doing any kind of racing or if you're adding power like a supercharge or something like that, you don't want to have to worry about battling higher temperatures that comes with those extreme types of uses or higher HP numbers. So this is a great way to increase your cooling system's capacity because it's a bigger radiator, you are gonna have more coolant flowing through, and of course, more coolant means that your engine's gonna run cooler.Construction is, of course, as the name implies, all aluminum. You've got hand-welded joints all around for added strength as well. Now aluminum construction means that this, again, is gonna be excellent at dissipating that heat, but it's also gonna be able to withstand high pressures that come with more intense usage. It's also a great choice for a street-driven car that just needs a bit of an upgrade versus stock. If you've gotta replace that radiator anyway, it's a great time to make an upgrade like this.Pricing-wise, this is also gonna fall towards the lower end of the market, and even though it's not a three-row radiator, you're still getting some good extra cooling capacity, and you're not spending a ton either. Pricing here is gonna come in at right around $325, and that is pretty inexpensive for a fully aluminum radiator. Not all that much more than a stock replacement as a matter of fact. So for your money, I think you're getting a pretty good value here.Installation on this gets a two outta three on our difficulty meter, and it should take you about two hours to get it installed. This is designed to be a totally drop in bolt up installation, so you won't need to modify anything on the radiator or on your car itself. Just remember to have some fresh, coolant handy. Maybe think about upgrading your fan, your fan shroud, and your hoses while you're in there too since we have several choices for all of those available on our site. If you're gonna do a cooling system overhaul, it's a good idea to do the whole thing, and to show you the process for installing this radiator in particular, let's throw it over to one of our AM customers.Male Speaker: Okay, that about wraps that up. I'll just show you the tools I used real quick. I would use the quarter-inch drive, 10-millimeter, 8-millimeter small extension, a couple of different pairs of pliers for the clamps, a couple of flat-blade screwdrivers to get the hoses unstuck from the nipples. And that's it, that's all I used.All right, good afternoon, guys. We're here with my 2004 Mustang GT I just purchased a couple of weeks ago. Been driving a little bit and the bottom of the radiator started leaking, factory radiator. So I purchased an SR performance aluminum radiator from American Muscle, along with a new set of upper and lower radiator hoses. So first thing we're gonna do is get the coolant draining into the 5-gallon bucket. So to do this, I'm just gonna use a pair of pliers and a five-gallon bucket and go under to the petcock on the passenger side of the radiator. It's right here in the lower corner. Just loosen it like that. And then just let it go. So to keep it draining, you've gotta take your cap off, take the pressure off of it, let the system vent, and let it keep draining.While we're waiting for this to drain down, we're just gonna take a couple of screwdrivers. You can use a body tool to do this, but we're just gonna pop our push pins outta here over the top. Yep, the cover comes off nice and easy. Now I'll show you the problem. This lower isolator, it must be cracked right above it because it's dripping through here, so that's why we're changing it. The next thing we're gonna do is remove this small hose from the overflow tank. I have to use a nose on the bottom clamp. Okay, just like that.The next thing we're gonna do is remove three 10-millimeter nuts off the top of the surge tank. I'm just using a quarter-inch drive, a 10-millimeter socket on it, nice and easy. Put those aside for safekeeping, and we're gonna take out the two rubber isolator bolts, 8 millimeters. Take your isolators off the top of the radiator, put that aside for safekeeping. Hose coming off your lower radiator hose there. Same kind of clamp. Oh, we gotta extend the pliers. The same deal. Just grab it, pull it down, and then pry it off.Now we can lift our surge tank out. The next thing we're gonna do is unplug our AC pressure line here, pressure fitting just to get it out of the way. Stick a hose in the bottom here. You'll see where it snaps together. One in the top. Put a little bit of pressure on it and just pull it apart like that. That is your electrical connection for your fans. Next thing we're gonna do... Oh, we better disconnect the upper radiator hose. Squeeze your clamp together. Move it back on the hose like that. Same thing for this one on your thermostat and then you just wiggle it off the top one. I gotta pry underneath it just a little bit because it's stuck, and I got new hoses anyway, pull it off. Now we're gonna go underneath and remove the lower radiator hose from the radiator and the engine block side. The same type of clamp.Squeeze it, pull it back out of the way. And the same thing on the engine side. Okay. The bottom radiator hose is off. So now we just lift the old radiator out, watching these wires. This one's hooked to it. Okay, now what we gotta do, transfer the electric fan over to the new radiator. I'm gonna take a short pause because I also bought a water pump and a thermostat. I'm gonna change that real fast, and I'll be right back. All right, we're back from the break. The water pump and thermostat changed, now we're gonna transfer the fan over to this new radiator. We got two 8-millimeter bolts and one clip down here at the bottom. So we're just gonna loosen these two.Just like that. One, two, take this. Let's put you over here. It's gonna fit on here just right. And tighten those up. All right. Little radiator hose here. Let's pinch that together. Pull that off. Okay, so the new radiator's a little wider than the factory, so will not go past the battery box. So we're just gonna take the battery out and remove the battery tray. Take off this ground cable, get the wires outta your way a little bit betterJust like that. And move the block that holds the battery down. Must be an extra-long bolt. Okay, we did remove the battery tray, and we're just sliding the new radiator in. The new radiator's quite a bit thicker so you gotta pry on the dimple that sits down on the rubber isolator. Pry on this rubber seal here. Get the radiator free of that.Now we will put the top isolators back on, that way, it's steady, and then we will put the radiator hoses back on. Oh yeah, and I did have to take the battery out along with the battery tray because it stuck out just enough down here in this corner that it made sliding the new radiator in quite tough. The old one came out, no problem, but this radiator is just a little bit thicker. So gotta remove the battery tray. No big deal. Positive, negative. There's a hold down for the battery and then three 8-millimeter bolts that hold the battery box to the car. Okay, the radiator's in. Now we are going to put the rubber isolators back on top with the 8-millimeter bolts. You gotta pry this one back a little bit just until you get it tight. Next, we're going to plug in our fan connections, this one here. This one here, AC, and that's that. Now we'll put the surge tank back on. Those are our three 10-millimeter bolts.Like that. Then we'll take our small overflow hose, stick it back on, and we'll use our needle nose for the clamp and stick our top radiator hose back on. Move our clamps in place. Okay, we're underneath now. We got our bottom lower radiator hose hooked up the try hose or Y hose, whatever they call it. Now we're just gonna put our clamps into place, and this will be almost a wrap. All right, we're back. Hoses are installed, clamps are on, the battery's back in. Everything's tight. We're just gonna fill it with 50-50 mix of Motorcraft yellow distilled water till it's full and go for a test drive. Front cover's back on. I got some new push pins for it because mine broke. Stick them in. The coolant is full. Now we get to go for a ride.Jake: That's gonna wrap it up here for our review and install of the SR performance aluminum radiator for various V8-powered manual transmission New Edge Mustangs. Thanks so much for watching, and as always, for all things Mustang, be sure to keep it right here at americanmuscle.com.
Features, Description, Reviews, Q&A, Specs & Installation
Fitment:
SR Performance 100525
CA Residents: WARNING: Cancer and Reproductive Harm - www.P65Warnings.ca.gov
Installation Info
Installation Time
(approx) 2 Hours
Difficulty Level:
Light to Moderate mechanical skill required.
Installation Guides
What's in the Box
Tech Guides:
10 More Questions
Fits manual 4.6L V8's Only