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My 87 TA clone ran fine with a 521 BBF but with a turbo'd 5.3 LS and a large intercooler, trans cooler and AFCO racing 19x31 rad my temps increase a good bit on hot days. Before you tell me my temps aren't bad you need to know that every bit of increased engine heat, affects IAT which the turbo compounds and I run 10-11psi daily on cheapest 93 pump no name gas. I run a 160Tstat and a flow kooler HV water pump, Afco dual 1" core 19x31 racing rad, infront of that is a large tranny cooler 27x17" and my 12x31x3.25" ebay intercooler all in the stock ish location stacked. I have a good set of OE traverse fans (dual 13" set to come on individually at seperate temps 180on/170off and 190on/180off. Cooler day 70s the other day I was at 170ish cruising locked converter on the highway, sitting in light traffic would get to 190-200ish. On a hot day a few weeks ago 90+ it was in the 190-215 range I think. Temps creep with light throttle and slow movement. I think its just the amount of stuff stacked in front of the rad plus the FM turbo and crossover right behind the fans. The fans are trimmed and fit/cover 100% of the rad core and they pull some serious air., I use a custom air dam that works well given my highway temps are always low.
Ive thought about putting a pusher fan to suppliment, relocating the trans cooler, opening the underside air duct work, and even cutting my bumper for air flow.
Heres a pic of what I was contemplating doing... I dont think it would matter much as my issue seems to be cooling well below highway speed which suggest fan airflow which I can't really increase. So i thought about making it easier for the air to enter IE bumper mods, added pusher fans etc.
Make sure your air dam is on...
I think I see it below your nose...
Anywhoo... I have a Knight Rider nose, with BIG openings, a couple of fog lights, holes in the metal bumper and even with this, car heated up... put air dam back on, back down to normal...
I recently picked up an 84 TA bumper cover that I want to look into modifying the metal backing plate so I can duct those openings to the radiator and put a chrome mesh over them. Hoping this will allow for elimination of the lower scoops while running an SBC and if I go to a BBC later this might help there as well.
I'm sure you know this but the impact bar would need to be removed for this to work. Could you go to two smaller intercoolers mounted in the side skirt area, duct air into them and then out into wheel well? Cool brakes at same time. If no muffler you could move trans cooler to back.
Your temps are not horrible, do your fans run all the time? Can you go down to a 160 or 180 degree themost, stock ls is 187. If you keep it from heat soaking to begin with it may not heat up. Also you could open up the hood, the power buldge hood has a solid filler that you can easily put a screen in place. Or a cowl hood. At low speeds you may be pushing more air into the engine bay than can easily flow out.
I run a muffler so I can’t relocate the trans cooler. Right before winter I swapped in a derale dual fan setup, dual 13” fans and I made my own 3 relay 2 speed controller. The new derale fans cover 90% of the core with about 1” on the sides being open. But with both fans coming on at low speed and then high speed I hope it makes a difference. I only ran it one time but it was cool out like 60* so of course temps were lower.
I also fabricated my own new crossover reducing from 3” to 2.25” which opened up the area behind the fans a lot so I hope that helps.
then I removed everything and invested in my own tools to blast and coat. So I just finished coating my whole hot side with Cerakote ceramic coating so I hope that helps! I won’t be going back to wrap as my #2 primary cracked 3/4 of the way around and I had no idea bc of the wrap.
i posted this in the CXRacing install thread, but i'm planning on doing something similar to the MSE Trans Ams - see picture below. they had openings in the lower front ground effect. i want to use the solid bumper inserts in my 1984 TA. if worse comes to worst then i could always use the factory louvered inserts (which i don't think look as good). did you build your own dual fan setup or did you buy a kit? care to share links to what you're using?
i posted this in the CXRacing install thread, but i'm planning on doing something similar to the MSE Trans Ams - see picture below. they had openings in the lower front ground effect. i want to use the solid bumper inserts in my 1984 TA. if worse comes to worst then i could always use the factory louvered inserts (which i don't think look as good). did you build your own dual fan setup or did you buy a kit? care to share links to what you're using?
That could look good. I saw some pics of fiberglass noses that had larger fog light openings as the bottom was increased in length to be more efficient aero wise. I wouldn't run it without the rest of the kit as it wouldn't fit the stock GFX since the aftermarket bumper hangs lower.
The dual fans I had were from a chevy traverse and they worked really good. Cut to fit the 27.5" core of a 31x19 rad perfectly. I thought they were pulling low amps (aka low CFM) like 8-9amps running. So I purchased the Derale dual fan setup (kit of shroud and dual SPAL fans) but for ***** and giggles I bought a dedicated AMP/Watt meter instead of using my regular HF meter to test for running amps. Got my AMP/Watt meter the same time my Derale's showed up so I tested both the traverse and Derale fans. Apparently the traverse fans were running 13amps running (high restriction on a flat surface) and the Derale's pulled 14.7amps running. So they Derale's pull a little more amps which is always good. The Derale shroud also has pressure relief vents which the stock shroud did not.
In the above pics the one of the meter shows ON ONE MOTOR is 14.86amps at 12.27v (this is a small lithium motorcycle battery with a 15amp charger on it to help with voltage drop). The interesting thing is that it calculates watt power and Watts and the Derale motors (they are SPAL and says it right on them motors are 300w motors but are only showing 182.6w being used while running. I never looking into what the WP (watt power) was being 477.2wp. The traverse fans used swept blades but the Derales/SPAL use the same cutting blades that the Mark IV fan uses and Ive always found them to be the better of the design.
EDIT!!!: Googles and found out that Wp is Watts Peak... so the motor peaked at 477.2 watts.
Last edited by customblackbird; Dec 3, 2018 at 09:51 AM.
Reason: Found out what Wp = watts peak
I'm sure you know this but the impact bar would need to be removed for this to work. .
I'm not sure about complete removal, but yes it will need modified to allow for duct work to pass through it. Probably want to design the pass through to be welded to it for added rigidity. I'm not saying it will be fun, but I don't think it is impossible .
