Re; Engine Cooling in States with high temps - how do you do it? * Many guys in cooler climates seem to have trouble getting their rides to run cool /not run hot. not overheat , etc. How do you guys in high temp states such as ; Texas / Calif/Arizona/ Florida keep your rides operating in a satisfied temp range? Especially Small Block Chevy guys - describe your cooling system 1) Do you use; elec fans or mechanical / Shrouds. 2) Do you use - Royal Purple Ice additive 3) What thermostat do you run ? 160 ? 180 ? 195 ? ?
None of the many ol cars I drive have any problem. I dont have shrouds, no electric fans, no royal purple, 180 thermostat. Often the fan is 4 or 5 inches from the radiator. To tell the truth I am surprised but happy that I dont have to take measures. My daily drivers are my avatar, 35, 39 Ford pickups, 1950 Crestliner, 57 chevy, 59 Ford, 60 F100. This is Texas, OK, Louisiana and sometimes Ark.
Good clean water jackets , clean radiator, proper engine timing. I use a 180 thermostat. The engine is more efficient than at 160. A good mechanical fan . Or an electric fan . Air management is key for the air to flow through the radiator and not around it. We cooled a late model dirt track car with a 4 inch by 12 inch hole and ran 75 laps at 90 plus degrees. We used a 5/8 restrictor instead of a thermostat.
You Southern and S.W states must know your stuff. Here in Pennsylvania and in general what I see on HAMB there are lots of guys trying to get it right
Flatheads are known for running hot. I just ran from Colorado to Wichita, KS and back (1,000+ miles) and ran 190 degrees 99% of the time in 75-95 degree heat. As noted above, a clean cooling system with good seals is essential. I use a bottle of "water wetter" in my cooling system, and a proper belt with proper tension is key. Another thing that is often overlooked is a proper gear ratio in the rear end; if you're doing a lot of highway driving, overworking the engine at cruising speed by having too high of a rear end ratio can definitely cause overheating. Going too fast for too long is easy to do when we go from our new daily drivers to our old cars. I've found that taking my time and enjoying the ride is more fun than sitting along side the road waiting for my engine to cool. I've never run a small block, but I would think that these tips would help any drivetrain stay cool.
I lived in Lake Havasu City Arizona and owned a car lot there, back in the eighties. There was a span during one summertime when we had 100+ days in a row over 100 degrees. It was not uncommon to reach 115 degrees, or more, during the day. Nights would drop down into the low 90's. You'd usually burn your fingers just by grabbing a metal door handle, but overheating was just not a really big deal. No traffic, so never any idling at traffic lights, and if you kept a car in motion, everything seemed to be fine.
For the REAL test...... and nothing but= Pick the hottest day tolerable, and go for a ride. Do yourself traffic, some freeway, and mountains if you can. This will be the ONLY way to see what your current system can handle. There is no recipe for optimal performance...... I wish it was paint by numbers, but it isn't.
I switched to running Cooling Component's Electric fans and shroud on any small block chevy car I build and with A/C and it cured all my heat problems. They made a believer out of me .Just sayin.
This may help or discourage you, but from what I've found, other than the basic stuff, it's often trial and error. Seems like each modified engine has it's own sweet spot. What works for one, may not work for all.
The '30 pickup in my avatar runs a 283 SBC, aluminum radiator, 4 blade mechanical fan, no shroud, 180* thermostat, 50/50 antifreeze/water, no special Royal Purple nothing, and even on the hottest days it runs 180 - 190 all the time, stop and go, or running 70 down the highway.
This question has always baffled me, there have been car in Texas, California Arizona, and Florida for a hundred years! Most overheating trouble I have heard of comes from human error. Not flushing blocks, radiators, or changing thermostats. A local man built a killer big block that overheats for his Nova. When I asked about it he admitted he just used the small block radiator that was in the car, never flushed it and just put the thermostat the parts man handed him and had no idea if it was a 160, 180 or a 190.
Although from Virginia I have spent a good amount of time in the "hot" states - 115 plus at times running my flattie powered avatar. 160 or 180 thermos she runs cool - no special gadgets, water enhancers, and a mechanical fan. For the flathead guys, I dug a one gallon pail of sand out of that motor before I put it together - that and and a 5 speed with a .86 5th gear, 32" tall tires and a 3:54 banjo rear. At 85 I'm at 2800 rpm, 48 lbs of oil pressure and 170 degree temps with ambient temps of 115 plus. Bubba built the Pertronix II crab, new style water pumps and an alt inside the generator housing. To me, removing the sand and gearing it right keeps my temps down at speed.
We all know the engines with a reputation for overheating, but are there any engines that have a similar reputation for running cool?
It gets over 100 in the summer where I am in NY. We have regular heat waves, 90+ for days to a week. My cars run cool, 180 unless I'm in traffic for a long time. I had a steel fan and the car would run 200 in traffic and even 220 if I was stuck. I went to a good flex fan and shroud, runs 180-195 in traffic. My electric fan comes on at 195 and off at 175, a good insurance policy.
Funny what my old radiator guy said about the old radiators in old cars - we were talking flathead's - he said most would stop by a stream to top off a hot car.....never once cleaning that creek water out of the radiator or block ! Another think he said was most run a to high a pressure cap - he always like to be at 15 or below with a puke tank just in case.... What some have said....be sure that blocks clean first.
Driest country on earth down here and it gets damn hot from time to time. A good radiator, engine fan / shroud, recovery tank with correct radiator cap, appropriate thermostat and coolant rather than water. Good airflow and radiator aprons to capture or direct all the air flow through the radiator and not around it. I added louvres to under fender splash aprons allowing air to exit freely from engine bay.
Is there a significant advantage with a vented cap & a full radiator verses a radiator that is normally an inch or two low on coolant? It would seem so but I have yet to do any reading...
Vented cap? You mean a pressure cap that relieves at a preset pressure into a overflow tank, and then siphons the coolant back into the top tank as the coolant cools off? The advantage is a consistently full system that doesn't pollute the atmosphere, instead of one that periodically pukes coolant onto the ground, then runs low and then gets hot.
I have spent my fare share of time in the country and it was not just the old flathead guys who topped off with branch water. LOL Small block chevies are easy to cool. Making sure that the block is clean is a starting point, but most of your heat comes from the heads and they need to be clean as well. One thing to remember and it doesn't work as well with an open hood car and one with a hood is that air is like water or electricity, it follows the path of least resistance. You need to make sure that the air has to pass through the radiator and not around it. On a fender car this means not removing any of the shrouding in front of the core support and making sure that the hole where the radiator sits is not larger than the radiator. That doesn't work with an open hood car so you have to come up with other ways to force the air through the radiator. I use high flow water pumps, and quick acting or performance T stats. That helps a ton. One of the things to remember is that it is not just heat but also humidity that is your enemy. The way that your radiator dissipates heat is by evaporation, just like a refrigerator or your body, in high humidity situations it is just as hard to cool one as in a high temp situation. I would much rather try and keep one cool in Phoenix @ 105 ands almost zero humidity as Kansas City @ 100 and 90% humidity.
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