Hi everyone, my first post here. I just picked up an 87 Camaro RS w/ a 305 v8 TPI to mess around with and I'm having some issues already. I took the car for a short drive today and the temp guage (its an aftermarket guage) went up to 210 and stayed. Then on my way home it started getting hotter, by the time I pulled in my driveway it was up to 230....I turned it off at this point. I waited till it cooled down around 210 and tried to start the engine but it wouldn't fire, it just cranked. So I took the hood off to see if I had any leaks but didn't find any. The top radiator hose was slightly swelled up and when I squeezed it, it felt hard as a rock...is this normal?

After it cooled down a bit I opened the radiator cap and the fluid level was close to the top. So with the radiator cap off I started it up (it started up this time). As soon as it started, the coolant turned to white foam and started splashing out of the radiator. With all the foam, I couldn't tell if the coolant was circulating or not. I had the fan on the entire time I was driving (fan is hooked up to a toggle switch under the dash).

Notes: The air dam is missing under the car and the guy I bought it from said the engine has been modified......bored out 30 over with headers and dual exhaust, no cat.

Could there be air pockets in the coolant system or is it clogged? How can I tell if the coolant is circulating? Thanks for any help.
-Nick

 

Alright, I replaced a whole damn cooling system trying to get the engine to run cooler. So, bear with me on this one.

I am not sure what the foaming is exactly, but it seems like its air, and sometimes when the coolant starts circulating it will foam up but not much. Now, the reason you ran 210 is because you probably have a 195 thermo in there and your fan engages at 200 or 210. This is not a good combo, cuz these engines perform a lot better at 180. Your second problem is that you dont have an air damn(pun) . Get one as soon as you can, because trips that take longer and have your engine go to open loop will make it overheat. Its like the radiator and the engine are getting no air without the stupid air damn.

What I would do, is get a flushing kit that hooks up to your heater core line and you hook up a hose to it. Than you flow water through it and it will clean all the passages and it will burp the system. Than change the thermostat to 170% (although not necessary if you dont mind running at 200 or 210 degrees). Than install a switch for your fan. Just splice a T into the green line(check it on the tech articles, cuz am not sure of the color) and ground it ending up with a switch. That way you can turn it on whenever you want, and it helps tremendously, unless its 90+ degrees outside. . Fill it up with a little more water if you are still concerned, but 50/50 should do it. Get the air damn, or make one. Than go for a ride and you will notice the difference.

Now, changing the thermostat is a bit tricky because it will not function right without a tuned chip to run lower temps. Its complicated, but it will get your car a little bit cooler, or if you get the chip it will get your car operating about 5degrees higher of the thermo rating . My experience with the thermostats was quite funny, but if you want to run a thermo without getting a new tune, you should drill a little tiny hole in the thermo and it will keep your car cooler and you will see on your guage that it will maintain thermos heat in that range. The hole is just a little vent hole to help any traped air escape and thus opening the thermo when coolant reaches certain temp.
Sorry for the long read.

In a nut shell
Flush it, check for leaks, fan switch and play with thermos untill you get a desired temp. AIR DAM NOW!

 

Thanks for the info.

I'll go buy one of those "flush" kits at Autozone tomorrow and flush all that old antifreeze and hopefully air bubbles out of the system.

The fan is already wired to a toggle switch. I'll keep it on at all times using the switch.

I'll replace the thermostat.

 

Do something about that air damb as well, its been posted before how much of a change not having one makes.

 

Yeah i'm looking for an air dam right now. Thanks

 

One tip on changing the thermostat. Do it before you flush.

If you do it after, you will get some air in no doubt. Everytime you change the thermo you get some air in the system. Belive me I figured this out changing all of the ones I had.


OH, yea dont trust your guage much, its old and off.
Get one of those aftermarket ones, that use a sensor that goes on the waterneck. It will cost you about 40 bucks with the guage, sensor and new waterneck. I have one, and I run about 200/210 on my stock one and my coolant temp is 170 on the aftermarket guage. The stock one measures the head temperature which is ofcorse going to be higher than coolant, but coolant should run at 180/190 (if you have the 180 thermo in).

One more tip, you will pass emmissions with a 180 thermo. As long as everything is in decent shape and working, 180 thermo will pass you with flying colors.


AIR DAM NOW
AIR DAM NOW
AIR DAM NOW
AIR DAM NOW

Check HAWKS THIRD GEN PARTS On top of this page, they have the camaro air dam for 20-25 bucks. I ordered from them and I am currently using the camaro one on my firebird and it works wonders. Once you put it in, your car will not overheat. Unless there are other problems.

Change the thermo, flush it, AIR DAM, NOW!

 

Hey thanks for all the tips. I'm getting the air dam ASAP!!!!!! I'm not even going to drive it till I get one on. Any recommendations on a decent heavy duty electric fan I could use to help cool it down? Theres a fan on there now but its held on with zip ties. Maybe a dual fan setup wired to a toggle switch would help or will one fan be enough?

As far as the temperature guage goes, there's already aftermarket guages (volts, temp, oil psi) that sits under the hood scoop next to the windshield. I'm not sure where the aftermarket temperature guage is picking up its reading....I'll do some investigating. I'm not sure if these guages are good quality or not, they look like the kind you buy at Autozone, but maybe they are decent guages, I don't know.

 

They are way better than the stock guage, and your water temp guage is probably either t-ed in to the sender for your stock one, or if you stock one does not work than the sensor is in place of the stock one.
Anyway, if you can find the dual fan set up for the f-body than you are in bussines. If not get some of those electrick fans (I forgot the name of them) but you will see them at some of your local stores. They usually have charts of what cubic inch engines it can cool. It wouldnt hurt to overkill and get one for a big ci engine.
Let me know how everything works out with your car?

 

Well I had some time today to work on the car and here's what I found out...

First I flushed out all the old coolant which was really nasty looking. While flushing, it seemed like there wasn't any coolant passing through the upper radiator hose. I removed the thermostat to see what was up and sure it enough, it was all gunked up with dark green looking soot. I replaced it with a 180* stat and a new gasket. I flushed everything again, drained the radiator, then poured in new pre-mixed 50/50 antifreeze. That seemed to do the trick cause now the temp guage stays at around 195-200. I keep the fan on all the time so I'm sure that helps and I'm sure once I put the new air dam on bellow that will help even more when I'm driving.

I also completely bi-passed the heater core since the previous owner removed the blower motor assembly. Do they make a pre-cut plate that covers the big hole on the firewall where the blower motor assembly went? Some idiot used a piece of cardboard, I'm afraid it could catch fire since its so close to the exhaust. I checked to see where the aftermarket temperature guage is getting its reading from and found it taps into the side of the head on the drivers side.

Thanks for everyone's help

 

As it stands, on my Firebird, there is still the shaped baffle that leads air up under the radiator attached, the problem is air moving front to rear has to naturally lift to this area behind the Endura nose, and my shroud that has the 'air dam' that goes from fender to fender is not attached to fix the damaged absorber and nose section. It's likely this will remain off until I can mount my new nose though. Maybe a small section mid-center would work in the same way to aid air movement. Not sure what or how, but seems it could be fashioned.

The other aspect of my own car is the hood is not fully closed as initially a kind person hit my drvr side fender while parked and mashed it up into the hood and required two people to get it open again. It's been hell ...
Anyway, it does shut, but with constant monitoring I've left the primary manual latch up front to do the work. Along with this, I've also removed the hood 'scoop' bulge plate that block the back opening, to resemble scoops of old, though there was some question regarding this already mentioned here, I've since lost track of the original plate location.

So I'd assume air is getting under my hood from the top side while moving anyway. I also seem to have a new leak on the filler side radiator near the top, screw in metal line, didn't see this before, and the radiator had been replaced this winter. As if one problem is never enough!

hehe
BILL

 

is it just me or does driving these cars in the heat suck....

 

It def sucks. I can just feel the heat pour through the firewall/dash onto me when I'm driving. It makes all those rattles and squeaks even more irritating. I sitll love f-bodies though

 

yup im running into this same problem.my car has had no problems since i put it on the road again 6 months ago. usually it takes about 20 minutes to get to about 180 and stays there solid until i take a long ride then its solid at 210 runnin 3500rpm on highway..now this past week i took it far and it shoots to 220 in the first 20 minutes at low rpm and climbs to 260 on highway. i had to coast down all the hills on the parkway to get it to drop 10 degrees.. there is nothing i changed its completely out of the blue.
now i checked some things, my fans on ignition, no blockage in front of the radiator so i pull off the upper radiator hose from the neck on the motor while the car is still hot enough to open the thermostat and i blow into the upper hose...when i did plenty of coolant blew out of the thermostat housing which seems to me that the hoses and radiator are clear and working. and my water pump is new bosch. i even started it up to see how much coolant the water pump was pushing with the hose off and its flowing plenty of coolant out the thermostat. is this just because of hot days??? and