With the weather starting to heat up across the country we wanted to see what goes into making radiators and external coolers. We stopped by C&R Racing to see how they produce their products and what goes into them. For the past 25 years, every Nascar Cup Champion, Indy 500 winner, and Daytona 500 winner have had something on their car from C&R Racing.
Behind the doors, at C&R Racing we could see that work was getting done. There were shelves full of parts and plenty of machines being used around them making more. From fans to radiators everything was there ready to go.
C&R Racing employs some proprietary technology such as replacing traditional roll-tube cores with its extruded tube core that is stronger and efficient. C&R Racings’s fins have folded (doubled) leading edges that can stand up much better to damage from flying debris.
“We are going install a new furnace to heat treat our cores,” said Mark Wells of C&R Racing. “There will other machines to go along with the furnace to produce new cores in-house. We just had a new Amada delivered to us last Friday.”
C&R Racing’s OE replacement radiators receive some of the same technology that goes into their race radiators. All of C&R Racing’s products are made in the USA and to keep this going they recently broke ground on a new expansion.
All of the radiators and coolers are TIG welded. Extra care is also put into the corners of the radiators to make sure that they do not break. Whether it is is an OE replacement or a custom radiator everything gets the same treatment.
C&R Racing has the capabilities to do in-house prototyping and custom builds. “There is a form to fill out for customs and we usually would need drawings and answer some questions pertaining to the vehicle,” Wells explained. “We have a custom form that can be downloaded from our website. We have numerous engineers that will either pull up old drawings or work up new drawings for the custom order.”
One part of C&R Racing’s shop that we really enjoyed was the speed shop. Places like this seem to be a thing of the past, but it is great to see that the locals whether racer or enthusiast can walk through the same doors.
Summer temperatures are right around the corner, so if you are in the market for a new cooling system be sure to check out C&R Racing’s website for all of their products.