1955 – 1957 Chevy HD Radiator

The 1955 – 1957 Chevy continues to be a staple in the hot rodding world. And the reason for it is simple, the classic styling of the 1950s is encapsulated in it’s time less style. These cars were cool in 1955 and they are still cool 2020. 

If you want a killer cooling radiator for your Tri-5, this is the piece for you. To start with, it’s built with our HD core featuring 2-rows of 1-1/4″ tubes. If your Tri-5 is going to continue to live on for years, it needs the best cooling you can give it. That’s why this Tri-5 radiator is built for you with 2-rows of 1-1/4″ tubes. With this HD 1-1/4″ tube core, you can bolt this radiator into your Tri-5 without neding to cut your core support into swiss chease to make a larger radiator fit. 

If you’ve been eyeing up a crossflow for your 1955 – 1957 Chevy – JUST DO IT! You see, a lot of snake oil salesman have taken 30 year old information about downflow radiators out of context. The common reasons the crossflow-is-better crowd involves 

The infamous ‘a crosslfow is more efficient’ myth. That’s a myth some of the radiator companies (and the Summit catalog who caters to dumb-dumbs) propogated before they had the ability to make downflow radiators. Therefore, the only way they could sell you a radiator is to sell you a crossflow! Because that’s all they were capable of making! 

The 1955 – 1957 Chevy radiator is a downflow radiator, which simply means the tanks are on the top and bottom of the radiator and the coolant flows from top to bottom. Versus a crossflow radiator, where the tanks are on the sides and coolant flows across the radiator. Hence the name. Typically the hot coolant enters on the drivers side and the cooled coolant exits the radiator on the passenger side.

So what is the half myth? Well, back in the day of copper/brass radiators, downflows were typically made with thicker materials and liberal amounts of solder were used in their construction. This resulted in a less efficient core.

This DOES NOT APPLY TO ALUMINUM RADIATORS! That is where a lot of the radiator companies have taken this and used it as a sales tactic that has no bearing in the modern aluminum radiator age. There are countless modern examples where high efficiency downflow radiators are employed, like the 2010+ Camaro. 

Features:

– 2-rows of 1-1/4″ cooling tubes

– Entropy HPX 16″ all aluminum 3000 CFM

– precision TIG welded construction

– billet CNC machined filler neck

– heavy duty plate transmission cooler

– stainless steel hardware

– lifetime warranty

Note: this radiator mounts in the 6 cylinder position and requires our relocation brackets if have a V8 mount radiator. Also available for LSX conversions.