Bar and Plate (plate fin) radiators ?

Stacked plate radiators were used in a few cars in the 1960s. According to Dewitt's, a copper radiator for a Corvette can handle 3300 btu/m vs 4600 btu/m for a stacked plate radiator of the same size. If these numbers are right, I would expect bar and plate would produce similar results

I'm in the business of making repro auto parts for vintage cars, and I was interested in producing a small run of stacked plate rads. Unfortunately, the tooling costs are prohibitive for small volumes. If you have a source of bar and plate cores, I'd be interested in talking to them, as the bar and plate style may be more adaptable.

You can find some interesting links and discussion in my previous thread on this subject:

For all your bar and plate needs.


Steve Altherr or Fred Roy.

Very intersting stuff, I belive that my project will be a total sucess. I just don't understand why no one had done this.
Anyhow Im sure will find a reason if there is one once the project is complete...

Are we talking "Plate & Bar" or "Stacked plate" they are two totally different units!

Behr radiators from Germany along with AKG do alot of Plate and Bar units for automotive use. Usually at the heavier end of the market eg Bus and Truck.

We discussed the reletive merits of stacked plate as per TChronos' link.

Plate and Bar is still an expensive and heavier option compared to Tube and Fin, there are more joints to fail although they do not suffer from Header fatique do to their construction ie No header.

It's quite possible that you may see a slight increase in cooling performance although at the cost of airside pressure drop and weight penalty.

It's also possible that you may experience a higher pressure drop on the coolant side due to the internal surfaces in the waterways.

IMHO I can't see the point in going to P&B on a road going vehicle such as a car when high efficiency T&F units will do the job.

Yes "plate and bar" radiator.
Id best explain what Im doing. In the vehicle im working on there is no room behind the bumper for a front mounted CAC (Charge Air Cooler), so what im doing is a stacked CAC and radiator assembly in the space where the radiator used to be, that way we can make better use the OEM ducting to the original radiator. The CAC will take just a bit over a third of the space of the original radiator, so i need to build a radiator in the remaing space that will keep the temps at the apropriate levels.
I can go for a massive three or four core T&F rad core, but Im thinking that the P&B will do a better job under the circumstances.

What do you think finman?

There are several schools of thought regarding going to a thicker T&F rad, one school extolls the virtues of more rows in the hope that the extra "Surface" and "More tubes" will do the job, the other will equally support their theory that a thinner rad is the best way to go as it offers less pressure drop to the cooling airflow. Experiments that I have seen tend to go for mid ground, anything over 3 rows of tube seems to offer very little gain.

There is a trend with europeans to go with "side by side" or vertically stacked set ups. This gets you away from the heat pick up scenario of cores stacked one in front of another,but means you need to go for more efficient cores.

A crude method of ascertaining the water rad core required is to start blanking off the existing core with a board and running the motor whilst monitoring the temperature, start off with around a third of the area blanked off. Then a calculation of surface area can be done.

Personnally, I'd work the T&F idea further before I'd go to P&B, Look for tubes with a large aspect ratio, ie go for a 32x2mm tube rather than a 13x3mm. I know P&B offer this but with a wieght and coolant side pressure drop which I would find unsuitable.