In the old days of copper and brass radiators this was true. More rows meant more surface area in contact with the fin and consequently a higher heat rejection. So a 3 row was better than a two row and so on.
When aluminum radiators came around the rules changed. Cooling engineers concluded that by lowering the fin height you could stack more layers of tubes. In addition, using wider tubes would increase the tube-to-fin contact area. The end result was a very high performance radiator with a huge savings in weight.
The U.S. standard for performance aluminum radiator tubes is a 1.0" wide tube and imported radiators have smaller 16mm (.62") tubes. In this case a 3-Row aluminum radiator would only have a total of 1.86" of tube-to-fin contact surface which is less than the two row core with 1" tubes. The online ads for these 3-Row aluminum radiators will indicate several features of the radiator design but they avoid the issue of the tube width. DeWitts radiator goes another step and offers a two row core with 1.25" tubes or (2.5") tube-to-fin contact and this would again exceed the performance of a 4-row imported core design. So, if you are researching your next purchase ask about the tube width. That will tell you a lot about the heat rejection and the origin of the product.
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Comments
Posted June 13, 2018 by Mitch m
To late for me. New 3 row small tubes rad won’t keep up, eventually gets hot. Wish l new about it sooner. You get what you pay for. Was nice to know thanks Mitch.
Posted June 13, 2018 by Mike H
Very interesting
Thanks.
Posted September 07, 2018 by Rimsath
Thanks..
So much usefull
Posted October 11, 2018 by Niles H
I bought an aluminum radiator with 2-1" cores and it cooled better than any 4 core I ever owned. They really work.
Posted September 30, 2019 by Todd Clay
I have a 2-row 1 1/8th" and it fails to keep my 454bb cool. There’s apparently something that we’re still not being told.