Croney

Was out today. 2003 STI I pulled away from a roundabout gave It some boost out came a big cloud of white behind the car, I shut off engine and pulled over loads of steam and when i poped bonnet radiator top hose spigot has cracked and blown off.

Any advise on what to replace it with, I dont want to replace with OEM then get the same again but at the same time I dont want to spend more than needed Japspeed look well priced.

jaygsi

iTrader: (46)

I just bought a cheap radiator off eBay works well. Japspeed alloy one should be fine.

The Trooper 1815

iTrader: (31)

Buy cheap and pay twice. There are some quality units out there by the likes of Mishimoto.

Croney

So trooper would you avoid the japspeed ones?

bustaMOVEs

iTrader: (31)

A cheap standard radiator is absolutely fine, I've seen plenty of 500+ running stock radiators.
You seem to have an excessive amount of pressure and something a miss there I think, maybe coolant is getting a bit of gases in there (could be a sign of gasket failure) hope not but it shouldn't blow a radiator, or maybe the the clamp was on too tight and weakened the plastic coupler

Croney

I think the clamp had been overdone and stressed it, only myself to blame I had put new hoses on a few months ago

bustaMOVEs

iTrader: (31)

That's probably your issue, as plastic becomes brittle in cold weathers.

jaygsi

iTrader: (46)

Fitted a cheap ebay one to my car and my mates, he uses his car every day, must have cover 20,000 miles with no faults and had the car remapped to 300bhp.

Croney

Update.
Iv went with a quality aftermarket replacement, got it from as performance was a bit more the the ones on ebay, but I preferred to buy from a trusted source and iv always had good advice from alyn aswell. Fitted and all seems good.
The core on my old one was turning to dust aswell, you could press your finger through the fins, I didnt know how bad it was till it was out