I have recently gotten my car running again, and it seems to be running really hot to me. I have a new temp guage and it reads 210-220. I took out my thermostat to see if it would drop the temperature, but its still rises past 200. The coolant is flowing in the radiator. I am not running a computer. Any ideas what my problem could be?

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83 Z28, 305(LG4), T-tops, T-5 Transmission, Centerforce Dual-Friction Clutch, Hedman Shorty Headers, Hooker Cat-back, Weiand Stealth, Holley 600, MSD 6AL, MSD Pro-Billet Distributor, Computer Delete, EGR Delete

 

you need the t-stat in the engine, it should run hotter with out one. have you done anything besides remove the t-stat? clean the radiator ,is the air dam intact, right mix of antifreeze?

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ICON Motorsports
1st & 3rd
MM Black Diamond 538 F&AM

 

From what I've been told, that's normal operating temp.

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1992 RS 3.1L Bone Stock

"Yeah, it's a V6 SO WHAT!?"

 

How would the car run hotter without a thermostat...

Yeah, i've heard 200+ degrees is normal operating temp, but that is with a 195 or 180 thermostat in the engine. I would expect mine to be well under 200 degrees without having one in.

 

Without a thermostat water flows through the system continuously, so it doesn't stay in the radiator long enough to get cool. You're actually lucky that it hasn't gotten hotter than 220. Some race engine setups have a pipe of a certain diameter to restrict flow just so, so that the system will stay at optimal temp while the car is racing. But since you don't have that setup you need a thermostat.

 

That doesn't make any sense =P. You would think that the more flow you had going thru the radiator, the more heat it would dissipate. This might not reduce the temp of the coolant as much as a lower flow rate but its the amount of energy transfered between the radiator and the surrounding air that counts, not the temp of the coolant in the radiator. I would rather have the coolant in my radiator at 180F and 230F in the engine with a high flow rate than 120F in the radiator and 260F in the engine with a lower flow rate (hypotheticaly speaking). Obviously you can get to a point where the coolant is flowing fast enough to create a noticeable amount of heat from the friction against the tubing but I doubt that any automotive water pump would reach that limit.

 

Well, the reason that I removed my thermostat in the first place was because it was running even hotter with one in. I had a 160 degree thermostat and the car ran 10 degrees hotter than it does now without a thermostat in there.

 

Pull your radiator, and make sure you don't have a bunch of junk stuck between the radiator and condenser. Also make sure your fins are clean and not bent. Do you have a
viscous drive on the fan? Has it been replaced recently? Maybe your fan is just freewheeling.

 

If you were running a 160 thermostat with no other cooling system mods, the engine will get much hotter at a stop since it will take the fans forever to cool things down enough for the thermostat to open. So it may be that you have no problem at all, other than needing the fans to come on sooner if you want to run at 160. But at speed with no thermostat it's basically a contest between the heating power of the engine and the cooling power of the radiator. If you're experiencing these hot temps at speed with no thermo, then it seems like you do have something that's keeping the radiator from working efficiently.