My car has an early 70's Vette engine with a mechanical fan and it's missing the lower half of the fan shroud. It consistantly runs between 230 and 240, so I picked up a big single electric fan from a four banger Firebird. It'll bolt right in without modification, but will it be sufficient for my 9:1 350? I'm running a brand new stock replacement, single core, 5.0 aluminum radiator

I also picked up a fan switch from a 90's 1500. Should work.

 

I run a single fan in my 84 with a 350, 9.1 compression, 315hp and it runs fine. These cars were designed to run "hot", for emissions reasons.

Have you run a infrared thermostat on your radiator to see if you're actually running hot? Could be your gauge is off. I know for a fact mine reads about 20* hot compared to the fan switch turn on...

 

I would try an aftermarket gauge, otherwise it looks good to me. I am running the SW555 switch that comes on at 210F

 

There have been times that I felt my radiator after a short drive and it is fairly close to ambient temp. The headers get friggin HOT though. Melted my buddies timing light connector and it was a few inches away! My temp sensor is right under the headers, so I'm thinking it might be getting thrown off by the heat. I need to hollow my cat out. i think it would help cool the headers down. It's been ratting since I bought the car.

 

I've got a stock RS L03 305 fan. I would bet money it's the exact same single fan in the other cars.... but the 4 banger was so many years earlier it may not be.

Either way, my 9.5:1 Vortec 350 runs nice and cool at 170F in the summer with all stock stuff except a stock replacement type 3 core radiator (or maybe 3 row? I forget).

 

I don't run any fan with my 2.8, long as the car is moving it never needs to run 180-190 steady. only at very long lights or drive thru's do I turn it on.

how
removed ac rad and use an aluminum air dam. most have chewed up or destroyed their air dam on curbs.

[ before that, 220-240 with fan running always]

aluminum wont chew up, just makes a great scrappin sound when you pull to far forward.

 

About what angle is your air dam? The stock ones are pretty much straight down. Seems like a 45 degree angle would pull in more air. Mine has a vertical crack in the center, but is otherwise fine. I did order a new one. Just haven't put it on yet.

 

sstock mount, does have a little lip on the tip as [ have ya ever done roofing, or seel the drip edge they use?] I took a section of that, and stompped it flat, all the bends n fols they put into it make it very ridgid.

 

The angle doesn't really matter. It's a bit counterintuitive but it creates a negative pressure zone behind the airdam, which forces air to flow through the radiator to get there. Aluminum is cool, but one of hte things about using plastic is if you hit something HARD, the plastic breaks, not your frame.

 

yep youll break your frame WTF???

 

Lol thats what i said! Aluminum vs steel, steel wins!

Then again, it depends on how thick the aluminum is...

I just used zip ties, if i hit something itll just break the zipties. Really helps cooling cause you can angle the stock airdam real far with the zipties.