I have an 86 tansam with a 300 horse 350, headman ceramic coated headers edelbrock intake and avs 650 carb msd pro billet dist.....new oem modine radiator 180 t-stat single electric fan is on a toggle switch running all the time.... I can sit in stop and go traffic for an hour and it will stay around 180 but do anything off idle it starts climbing coolant is good hoses are good water pump is good thermostat is good (pan checked) air dam is in place
6 degrees initial advance 26 vaccum any ideas suggestions greatly appreciated

 

How hot does it get when it's overheating?

 

I'm not sure how hot it will go...... but I don't want to go past 220

 

You could go well past 220 with no problems. Past 240 I'd start to worry, and I wouldn't want it any higher than 260.

 

the engine still has another year and a half on the warranty and the last thing I want to do is burn it up.......

 

If you still had stock fan control, it wouldn't even bother turning the fan on until 220. It is a little odd that it's getting warm that quickly though.

 

i'd replace your thermostat even though its new. i had a faulty one and it would only open under a seriously heavy load for some reason. it would burn all the way up to 260 and i'd have to rev the heII out of it and then it would come back down

 

i had an exact same problem and could not figure it out. another week of over heats and then it started leaking water from the lower radiator hose. got a new one seemed to fix the problem. then it acted up again no mechanic could figure it out.

Eventually found out that the water pump crapped out without making any noises, no leaks, nothing until i warmed it up and saw steam coming from the weep hole on the pump. it was the stupid https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/imag...s/rolleyes.gif
pump the whole time!! maybe if your coolant looks little dirty then do a flush with a chemical flush too then refill and make sure to use anti-freeze (i forgot and boiled my water ) just a suggestion. do with it what you will.