Installing a Griffen '68 Big Block Aluminum Radiator

This radiator is capable of supporting 600Hp, which will match the supercharged 5.0 engine and A/C system very well.  The goal of this modification is to maintain a fairly stock appearance, and have the full strength of the radiator support to support the frame rails from twisting under load. As you can see from the picture below the radiator is the same height as stock, and is about 5" wider.  This radiator has a 3" thick core with two rows of 1.25" tubes and a very high fin-per-inch (FPI) count that is exceptionally efficient. 

In order to install the '67 support into the '66, the original radiator support needs to be removed.  For someone considering this swap, if the lower frame cross member is in good shape, I would not replace it.  This was a huge job as there are spot welds everywhere which required a lot of cutting, grinding and drilling.  It would be easier to cut just above the cross bar, and weld the support in.

The '67 radiator support requires trimming on the drivers side, and blending with the stock '66 radiator support on the passenger side.  I chose to blend the passenger side to retain as many of the air openings as possible.  The air filter box will reside in the area where the battery used to be.  This also allowed keeping the original stone deflector mounting stud. 

Below is a shot of the '67 radiator support sitting over the radiator.  I trimmed the 4 small block radiator mount tabs to get a little extra air flow, and make the install a bit cleaner.

In order to use the stock saddle mount with the Griffin radiator it needs to be narrowed about 1/4" to sit correctly on the top tank.  This requires modifying the hood latch bracket and upper radiator support as per below picture. 

the hood latch bracket extends down to the lower frame cross bar, and is off center.  I used a 5/16" nut-sert in the lower frame cross bar to make a clean install, and be able to use the original fasteners.

Other than the cutting out and welding in the lower frame cross member.  The rest was pretty easy.  This is not a cheap modification, nor will it provide the amount of cooling a good cross flow radiator will provide.  It also does not provide as much room between the engine and radiator, as cutting the stock core support to open it up for a larger radiator.