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I was looking to upgrade my cooling system and found that the GDA/GDB WRX stuff almost works, except for the placement of a few hoses. The most inconvenient being the top rad hose, which is in the center on the WRX. After looking some more it appears that the GC8 aluminum rads as well as the hoses are very similar. Anyone use these? I would like to have a full aluminum rad and silicon hoses throughout the engine bay.

It seems alot of fellow board members are having some serious problems with all aluminum radiators. It's been recommended to just stick with an OEM turbo legacy radiator.

As far as hoses, If you want to go with silicone make sure you stay with a reputable brand. Yes most of the GC8 stuff will work.

Any reason why people have problems? Short of bad installation, I can't imagine a larger, higher quality radiator would cause a problem. Were people forgetting to compensate for the additional volume?

No, it is poor build quality of the Koyo's and Mishimotos. If you have concerns about your current radiator, a brand new oem one will, at this point, outlast your car and have more cooling capacity than anyone on this forum could utilize (now that I said that, I'm sure someone will prove me wrong ). The SS radiator is the same part as the JDM GC8 STI/WRX use.

Legacy777 has close to 300whp on an NA radiator.

-Mike (former owner of an aftermarket koyo radiator that failed)

search for the koyo radiator failure

As far as hoses go, most of them will cross with a '92-'96 Impreza WRX. A silicon kit meant for a '92-'96 WRX (Version 1 or Version 2) will work. Not all the hoses on the manifold, but for the radiator and heater hoses.

Yeah, to give you an idea, I had been running the non-turbo radiator in Houston, TX (HOT ass summers) without any cooling issues.

Since I couldn't upgrade to a turbo legacy radiator (it's taller and I would have to cut out the lower radiator support) I found out that the 2nd gen Legacies with a 2.5 liter engine had a dual pass radiator that was the same dimensions as the first gen Legacy non-turbo radiator.

This thread has more info if you're interested.
http://bbs.legacycentral.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=48162

So is this true of all aluminum radiators, or just the koyo?

Give this a read: http://bbs.legacycentral.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=36433

Alright, I read through all of that, and so koyo is definitely out. I would assume that even using another brand from another model would fail as well? There is an 02 WRX in the garage(not mine) that has some ebay knockoff aluminum radiator in it, and it has worked fine for a few years. What exactly makes these cars so prone to destroying aftermarket radiators?

Its not the car is the companies that make the aftermarket radiators. Why is it you want to upgrade the radiator? As has been said already, the stock unit works very well, even heavily modded under harsh conditions.

The silicone hose upgrade is great but make sure you use tbolt clamps and not crappy auto store clamps because they're tear up your nice silicone. I have gc8 silicone radiator hoses and they're excellent and last forever.

I'm in the middle of a 5 speed swap, and the auto rad needs to go

There's absolutely no reason to swap the radiator unless it's bad.

Pull the AT cooler lines out of the car, clean out the AT cooler lines with some brake cleaner and cover them with a rubber cap.

Theoretically, could I run oil through the AT cooler section as a sort of make shift oil cooler?

Yeah, I think you could do that.

It could prove to be inconvenient at times tho. Like if you need to replace the radiator again in the future or if you pull the engine out.

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Its unecessary so why go to the trouble?

I've run oil coolers in almost all of my cars. I usually have it right before the oil feed in to the turbo.