Hello everyone, small problem, fresh rebuild on my stock LG4, bored .30 over put Edelbrock Performer, Holley Street Avenger, XE256H Comp Cam, Flowtech Headers (That dont leak), and still have stock mechanical clutch fan. When the car is Idling or running the temperature seems excessively high. Im running a 160* stat, which means on my dash my temperature should show below 105, but it its constantly running between 105 and 120. My question is do you think the headers are causing the temp sender to read higher than what the coolant level is? when I check the hoses and what not with a temp gun there a cool 75* - 85* ? any inuput would be greatly appreciated

 

The guage could have gone bad and is reading high.. I had one do that. The engine temps were nice and chilly, but the guage read hot all the time. Stick a mechanical guage in and see what happens.

 

The gauge worked fine before pulling the motor, although I did buy a new temp sender and it does seem to warm up alot faster (could be all the mods), but I wrapped the sender with header wrap today and put my air dam back on , seems to be alot better although the gauge still reads 105*cel. and it should be lower than that with the stat I have in there. I think I will have my supply shop double check the number on the sender they gave me, also I had a blown gauge fuse on first start up, but there was more than one thanks to a numbskull who managed to short the main wire to the fuse box when putting in the starter, everything works fine after replacing 3 or so fuses, so the gauge might be bad like you said but I will see what the parts shop says first.

 

take off the radiator cap and warm up the engine to whatever reading it is at and then use a laser temp finder on the radiator coolant and see what it reads. even though i have a 160 stat my motor still gets into the 180 zone, regardless of fans running or not, just the nature of a camaro. don't forget i also have an aluminum radiator, dual fans, and a cowl hood to vent some heat as well.

 

Well depending on the ambient temp, im assuming you live somewhere fairly warm you will run hot. Thats just the way these things are, very little airflow.


The headers will increase the underhood temps though, so they could be slightly contributing to the high temps.

 

Could be a problem I seem to battle any time I touch my cooling system... air bubbles. If you have an air bubble in the wrong spot, it can basically bring coolant flow to a stop and make the temp shoot up and stay untill the bubble 'moves' and flow begins again.

They can be a pain to work out of the system if you have one... try draining it and refilling it. What I always end up doing.