Probably never thought you'd hear of a 3rd gen running too cool, but I am and need to heat it up somehow.

Installed new Howie aluminum 31x19 radiator with 22lb cap. This is the ONLY thing changed-besides the motor-in my cooling system. Still running the Proform electric water pump 3rd year now, and factory dual electric fans. Blue moroso restrictor plate (3/4" hole)

After everything was in place and car on the road, can only built 130* water temp, no matter what ambient temp is, sitting in stop and go, how hard I run it. Never goes above 130*

Not looking for help, just posting results. Motor is "supposed" to be around the 580-600hp mark-cant keep the tires slicks hooked up through 3rd gear which is'nt saying much other than ALOT more than the cars ever had before LOL, so cooling should be a little harder than my old very mild sbc before.

Gonna do some experimenting with different restrictors/no restrictor and see where that goes. I did have to beat the snot out of the pass side frame rail and drop the radiator pan 3" to get it as low as factory (actually a little lower), and now it sits further forward by about 2" than the factory radiator did.

 

haha my car never goes above 220*, when it hits 220* it drops to about 180*.

 

he said 130*, not 230*.....

are you sure the gauge is correct? I cant see an engine running that cool even with the best cooling system (well, unless it was just fired up).

try putting a t-stat in it. that will warm it up some.

 

Thermostat is my LAST option. I run an electric water pump/fans so in between rounds I can leave it running to cool everything down when we run round robin-for consistency sake. Not to mention even drilling the 1/8" holes to allow water to by-pass is still going to put alot of uneeded strain on the ater pump by holding back water.

Have'nt gotten that far yet, just rebuilt the front end tonight, screwed the slicks and FINALLY got the transbrake working. Ended up 1 side of my 3 step was bad and not allowing the full voltage to pass trough to engage the sloenoid.


I'm not the only guy running this cool with this new radiator, I have 2 buddies that built new BBC's and installed the same set-up I got, well one has a belt driven water pump and 180 thermostat and he cant get it above 170* and the other fella like mine is 150* is the hottest he ever had it this year.

I'm more concerned with oil temp, so I'm going to install a sensor in the pan to monitor that. As long as oils up to temp, the collant can do as it wishes.


It's not the gauge, I can run my fans/pump in automatic mode where nothing comes on until 160* and shuts off at 140*. I dont have the ballz to let it sit and not circulate water until the sensor reads the 160* up in the intake. But when I get back from driving-leaving the switch in manual override so everything is running, and switch it to automatic, everything shuts off-because it's not hot enough 160*. Once it sits not running and the temp spreads through the water, about 5 minutes after shutting it down the fans/pump will then turn on for a few minutes until it hits 140* then shuts back down. So it would have to be both the guage not working AND the totally separate system monitoring temp also not working before I'd believe the sensor for the guage is not right, since they are 2 totally separate systems motnitoring the same thing.

 

not to be a *** or anything, but the thermostats job is to maintain the min temp..


if you really wanted it to be consistant, you would put a thermostat back in, and then always run the engine at that temp... lets say 160....... (i wouldnt race the motor at anythign less...)


leave the 160 thermo in, and it should stay at 160..... then you can be consistant.


when i had a 11second 400 motor in my 82, i put a becool alum radiator in.
whenever the fan was on, or the car was in motion, the gauges stayed at 160... no matter what.
i could idle for days in 110* heat if i wanted, it stayed at 160.

i actually ended up swapping a 180 thermostat in since i felt 160 was too cool for a street motor...

get a good thermostat, toss it in there, and be constistant

 

maybe try sending less power to the water pump? put in a dimmer switch like is used for the interior lights so you can slow or speed up the water flow

 

Just a thought try blocking some of the fin area with cardboard until you get the temp up to where you want it (lol just like winter) I have a hard time keeping mine up to temp also!

 

Too bad the bird dont have a grill, get a big ole pleted big rig radiator cover with a dixie flag

Might get another temp kit, then I can put the electric fans on one and the pump on the other, that way they are both supposed to kick on at 160* and off at 140*, but with the fans not running it may allow the temp to come up a bit.

Staging at 130* before with my old motor usually netted a .1 increase in et.

Again,k definately not on my high priority list right now, still gotta get to the track to start fine tuning the transbrake, slick pressure, timing, jets, pump shot, squirters, etc...so long as internally it's fine it can run cool. I'm still debating to try and run it a wee bit fat while it's running this cool to see if I can get by with pump gas. Redid some compression numbers taking into account the actual bore and it puts me around 12.5:1. Motor was built with 12.0:1 pistons with 64 cc heads standard bore rating, but this is .060 and my heads cc is 69cc.