Im having some cooling issues with my setup. Its in a 89 pontiac trans am its a 383 cubic inch motor with a pt88 turbo .96 housing. At cruise my afrs are in the low to mid 13s and at 45mph at like 1500 rpms in 70* wweather the car runs 200* F. If i see boost, <7psi it will go to 210 and thats the highest ive seen it. My cooling system is a griffing 3 core radiator with dual be cool 11" fans, and proform $160 electric water pump, i do not have a thermostat but instead i bought the three restrictor plates and put the middle one in. The block is a stock studded 350, it has been hot tanked and pressure tested as well as it ran fine with the old setup. My intercooler is infront of my radiator as well as a b&m transmission oil cooler. Timing is at 34* and pulling 2/psi, the engine only has about 30miles since built.

I will swap out restrictor plates for the smallest one and see what happens.

I am guessing my water pump is a piece of crap because at idle or if i turn the car off the temps will drop to 160-180* I would really like the car to run no more than 180* at wot. Third gen firebirds are downbreathing cars, could it be the intercooler is blocking cool air?

any advice or help would really help, thanks

This is what the setup looks like

 

where is the intercooler. maybe 2 11 inch fans are not pulling enough. but at 210 with all that in front isnt that bad.

 

Is your timing locked out at 34 degrees or is that at full advance. If so when does it reach full advance and what kind of boost do you have at that point? What type of fuel are you running? Is it running lean? Just some places I would start. I am by no means an expert with turbos but I'm pretty sure you might want to be running a slightly lower timing advance. I know 34 degrees on naturally aspirated motors is +/- the sweet spot (situation depending). To much advance will def. cause over heating and detonation. Hope you get it worked out.

 

Thanks for the advice but I know the timing and fuel curve isn't the issue I have at 34 degrees when not in boost but I am retarding close to 2*/ psi as well as I am runnin in the low 11s afr at wot on 93 octane and meth injection. Its a very conservative tune right I'm guessing the problem could be the fans not pullin enough air or thermostat problemm maybe ill have to settle for those temps. I'm gonna try a 180 stat and see where that gets me

 

I had the same problem with my csi electric water pump. I ended up going with a stage 2 stewart mechanical water pump, and have never had any overheating problems (I even took my car out this summer when it was 110 outside, and never overheated).

 

I had the stage 2 stewart on my 383 with stock rad and stock TPI fans, never overheated either.... it wasnt until I did the turbo engine with a different thicker rad and CSR pump did I start having overheating issues. Alot more fan flow witha shrouded fan setup helped my situation but its easy to overheat if the fans are not constantly on.

I think the 35-37gpm electric pumps just dont provide enough cooling flow to really cool the setup, but also with thick rads, you need powerful fans to draw air through them.

Mezzeire makes a 55gpm pump I may try next since its a direct swap on my motor. I think that will help