I'm working on the engine bay of my 70 Barracuda. It's originally a 318 car and I've got an Eddy headed 440 going into it. The car is on a rotisserie and I'm stripping the engine bay.

I am going to run a 26" radiator and was wondering if it is worth cutting and moving the 22" supports outward.

Who has done this and what was your experience?
Is it worth it for extra airflow?
Does it look better?

Thanks

My 66-300 was cut at the factory for a 26". My brothers 66-300 had a 22" and after a rebuild had a cooling problem. He upgraded to a 26" with a fan clutch and shroud set up like miine and was wondering if he should cut his out, he choose not to cut it and has no problems whatsoever. Looking at it, the job of cutting a couple inches out of the support seems like it would be more trouble than worth. With the bigger area and increased capicity was enough to fix the problem. He just drilled a couple holes for the mounting bolts on the passenger side. I'm sure cr8crshr will chime in on this as I'm talking about his car.

I went from a 22 to a 26. Didn't cut the support. Cools fine.

i cut my radiator support on my 72 road runner before i installed the a 572 hemi.
job was easy. set a 26" radiator behind in the radiator support. bolted it in with the drivers side bolts. drilled 2 holes where the pass side would bolt in. eyeballed a straight line where the core ended and cut.
in the 12+ years after i did this no one has ever noticed or said anything about the radiator support having the wrong end on the radiator support.
if you want it to be more correct. drill out the spot welds and replace the passenger side end with a repo one, i think it's still being repoed. if you want to be more correct some people say the drivers side end is slightly different between the 22" and the 26" radiator supports.

doesn't matter to me eather way. my car is just a nice driver.

My car has a 26 in a 22 hole and it cools just fine. The capacity is the key, you have it with the bigger rad.

I think every little bit of strength helps, so cutting it was not something I wanted to do. XV even found that the lower part of the core support was too weak when they looked at stiffening up our cars. Any less metal above that area that likely has a similar effect.

From all the responses, I think I will leave it alone. Just makin' more work for myself, which I don't, need working on this car.

I have been considering the XV radiator support upgrade. This car was very rusty. Frame connectors stiffened it up immensely. Went from jacking up the left front and three wheels on the ground to lifting the whole left side up when jacking the left front after the connectors. The doors even opened up easier afterward.