96 to 97 Cobra radiator question

01silverstang

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I recently purchased a Procharged 96' Cobra with not a lot of history from the previous owner. I immediately noticed that it was missing the upper radiator support brackets, and so I went to a local pick and pull and grabbed some. Today I went out to the garage to install and they would not fit. I looked at it a bit more and realized the radiator is definitely not a 96' Cobra radiator.

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So what radiator is this from? It looks similar to the 97' radiator, but I cannot find any replacement radiator that comes without the transmission cooler lines like this one. I would love some help, as I can't get everything back together until I wrap this up.
 

9397SVTs

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Let me answer your question with a question.

Why are you messing around with stock radiators when you have a supercharger on the car? Why not get an aftermarket one that is thicker and has more cooling capacity?
 

01silverstang

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Let me answer your question with a question.

Why are you messing around with stock radiators when you have a supercharger on the car? Why not get an aftermarket one that is thicker and has more cooling capacity?

I’ll provide and answer to your question to my question. I’m concerned about space... the car has a Procharger P-1SC that mounts to the front and I don’t want to throw more radiator than it needs and run into interference issues with the blower or front accessories.
 

9397SVTs

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Fair enough.

I haven't had a stock radiator for about 15-16 years, so I can't tell you what radiator that is.
 

ViciousBlack97

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It looks almost identical to the factory radiator in my 97.
 

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01silverstang

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It looks almost identical to the factory radiator in my 97.

Either a prior owner had the cooling TSB done since it's a 96' or they attempted to do it themselves. The brackets from my local pick and pull are for the 96' radiator, so I will have to go back and pull the set off the 99-04 GT they had which looked identical to yours.
 

ViciousBlack97

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Either a prior owner had the cooling TSB done since it's a 96' or they attempted to do it themselves. The brackets from my local pick and pull are for the 96' radiator, so I will have to go back and pull the set off the 99-04 GT they had which looked identical to yours.
Yep, the brackets from 97-04 should all be identical and they're reversible from side to side as well.
 

01silverstang

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Yep, the brackets from 97-04 should all be identical and they're reversible from side to side as well.

Hopefully no other modification is needed to secure the radiator. I outlined in my separate build thread but the coolant overflow tank was empty, which had me concerned about where that coolant went. When I pulled it off, there was coolant all the way up the hose. Might check out a pressure tester and keep my fingers crossed it doesn’t have head gasket issues.
 

streetpilot

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I replaced the radiator on my ‘96 Cobra with a 2004 Cobra radiator. I reused the ‘96 brackets by flipping them and/or reorienting them to where they worked. I couldn’t say how they ended up, but I definitely made it work without modifying them. Give it a shot.
 

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