I need to make my cooling system a bit more efficient....factory 305 has been loonng gone in favor of a pretty built 355ci motor. Earlier in the summer it would creep up to 230-240*(do not have an ECM) during light cruise and at idle. Here is what i have now(still from the 305 days), stock cast iron water pump, 22y-o radiator, alum. core plastic tanks, 160* t-stat and the stock single 16/17" sucky unshrouded fan. Here's what i plan on doing...i can pick up a '82-'85 mech. fan shroud this weekend, also a new replacement "350" modine rad from napa(heard good things about them) and a stewart stage2 alum. water pump. I will mount the stock single fan onto the radiator core using nylon ties and those foam spacing pads and then put the mech. fan shroud around the radiator. If that all that doesn't keep me cool, then i'll be stumped....what do you guys think??

 

no replies?? guess everybody's staying cool with the crappy a$$ stock cooling system these cars had then

 

late night surfing here... my opinion the mech fan shroud fits a mech fan and won't help an elec fan set up; electric fans have differnt shrounds from factory. One nice thing about winter is that cooling is less of a concern

 

Mounting the fan direct to the core is fine; but then sinking it and surrounding it with mech. fan shroud makes the shroud a restriction. If you instead mounted the electric fan in stock opening; then it (the shroud) would have a chance to work as designed and draw air across the full core.
I was going to try this on my 87 Formula but got sandwiched in traffic at alight.

 

you won't see any increase in cooling by mounting the fan back to the rad core see if you can figure out how to mount the ele. fan more where the mechanical one ran the idea is to draw the air acroos the full length & width of therad more surface area is cooling the coolant the way your talkimg about mounting everything will make no differamce at all the fan will still only be moving air over the same small area it is now Now what I'm about to suggest worked for me on my 87 firebird I went to the salvage yard and pulled the cooling fan and shroud of a linc mark 8 this isthe most powerful eletric cooling fan there its a 2 speed to make sure your getting the right one make sure it has 3 wires. I wish I could take credit for this idea but comes from mr mark Stiloe (spell?) builder of all those killer 1st gens the caution is it takes a big hit to star it 40 plus amps then it settles back to more like15 to 20 moves over 3000cfm on highthe famounts directly to the shroud and the shroud covers like85 percent of the core I live in s texas winter doesn't mean much any more last tues the high was 81this summer we had 45 days of 100 or better temps ran the ac all the time including a 45 min delay for haz mat spill on IH 10 E BOUND SAW MAX OF 230 AND IT HELD THERE UNTIL I got going again oh and one more thing is the factory airdam in place this does 2 things helps direct air up into the rad and creats a bit of a lower presure behind which helps draw air thru the rad also look infront of the rad where it mounts to the core support you see there is about 1 inch gap that will let air bypass the rad and go around the sides off the assembly line there were long thick foam rubber strips that filled that gap they were just held on with an adhesive on the strips I've only ever seen them on one car a babbied turbo ta at a car show this was years ago last century in fact i'm using the exact same setup for cooling today on my 91.you probably won't beable find a relay over 3o amps it wiil not live long in this app I used a ford fender mounted starter relay it only takes 10.5 volts and less than 10 amps to operate its designed to take over 100amps thru the contacts it is my opinion the car will be dust before theres a problem with it is so over engineer for this load by a factor of at lest 10. the ultimate solution back in the day was summit all alum rad that fit wih only minor mods the catch is no built in trans cooler so if yOur my uncle and you scrapped the A/C you cut the fittings of the inlet and outlet of the condenser and use it as super-mega size trans coolerdo a search on the cooling board go back a few years try "summit radiator" as a search key words and see what comes up. good luck and stay with it i still like my 91 better than my sisters 07 lexus 250i althoe i will say this that litlpe 2.5l i6 moves it with way more authority than you would ever expectof coarse the 7 spd auto my be helping cause it will drop down a cog pretty willingly which kicks the revs up about a 1000 from say 2500 to 3500wich seems to drop the engine right into the fat part of it's torque band handlimg is really responsive almost to much on the edge of being kind of darty need slow gentle hands start jerking the wheel around and your going to find a ditch pretty quick my 91 is a formula with ws-6 pkg with lower springs and full poly suspension and bilstien shocks & struts all around also a wonder bar, STB,SFC STILL NOT QUITE AS RESPONSIVE AS THE LEXUS BUT CLOSE MY FIRBIRD IS ALMOST 500LBS HEAVIER PLUS ITS ON CRAP TIRES RIGHT NOWTHE LEX IS SITTING ON 250 EACH YOKOS THATLOOK ALMOST NEW IT RIDES LIKE A BUCK BOARD EVER IMPERFECTION IN THE ROAD IS FELT AND HEARD STILl DUAL CLIMATE CONTROLS MEAN THAT ON A RECENT 5 HR TRIP NOARGUING OVER I'm hot ;I'm cold like we have since childhood which I would have lost it's her car I'm just ballast unless there a flat I don't have to do anything. Hope somthing in this long ramble is useful to you synthetic oil helps plus it will give you a peace of mind more and better portection at high temps. Last bit don't wasr your money on relines water wetter or royal purple's purple ice I tried both at differebt times and saw exactly zero change somthing suggested by the prestone rep was to run a 70 30 mix of coolant water 70 percent 30 percent antifreez turns out plain water us a better conductor of heat than a 50/50 mix of coolant never tried it. As a last exspensive resort google"Evans waterless coolant "in the old IMSA GTP CLASS GROUP 44 RACING USED IT EXCLUSIVELY THEY RAN A STOCK BLOCK JAG V-12 FOR PWR WITH CUSTOM TWIN CAM 4VALVE HEADS AND THAT ENG WOULD TOLERATE ALMOST NO OVERHEATINGTHE IN STOCK FORM IS ONLY ABOUT 326 CID THEY POKED & STROKED OUT TO 6.OL SAME SIZE THE SBC PWR TEAMS WERE RUNNING USING ALL ALUM BLOCKS AND THE CANTED VALVE HEADS HEADS THINK BBC VALVE LAYOUT IN A SBC HEADANY WAY THE POINT IS ONCE THEY STARTED USING THE EVANS COOLANT THEY DIDN'T START WINNING DUT THEY DID START FINISHINGLIKE THE OLD ADAGE GOES "IN ORDER TO FINISH FIRST, FIRST YOU MUST FINISH"

 

corvettes had it, but think a new radiator will do more then complicated fans.