Just need to relocate the ports and make a shroud to mount the fan onto/cover the entire core.

alex.. I have gone to using  150 CM.. side mounted rads. twice the width of standard rad.. and also use only ALLOY  ones now..  about $75 from Winning Spares in China.. later bc  ps. I also use only the metal six blade tropical fans..  

Front mounted MPi radiators are considerably smaller than sidemounted ones - much thinner in addition to being physically smaller.

The sidemounted position is hideously inefficient for cooling, especially stationary or at low speeds.

An MPi rad in the side position would boil up in short order.  Side rads can be used at the front during an engine transplant and will deal with huge amounts of heat.

Jedduh01 ,

That was my thoughts.Im curious because on another forum i read through some old posts about honda/Vauxhall or w.e swapped minis and people talked about using the factory mini radiator but everyone seemed to act like the factory style sidemounts have 0 chance of working,BUT the Mpi ones have been used and work fine as stated by others on the board which is weird to me.They seem very similiar but like you stated id imagine the cores arent as thick due to space and the fact its way more efficent getting air flow.

I purchased one one of the cheap 2 core 2" thick side mounted ones and im going close the existing ports and weld new ones on in diff locations.Make a shroud to fully cover the core and add a 10" Spal S blade.I beleive people have issues because of cheap fans,or no shroud.Hope it works,trying to free up some space.

I would wager the mpi is thinner simpler core than a Side mount.  as in rows of cooling tubes.

The MPI will get front grille blast of air. vs the side mount = probably has to deal with MORE stress of heat removal overall. 

just a thought. No evidence. 

Is the Mpi basically the same size as the sidemount radiator? They look similiar in overal core size just shaped slightly different.