Got it

 

That is correct. I never measured it but It looks like 2 to 2 1/2 inches lower.

 

ok cool, if removing the thermostat doesnt work I can fab something up.

 

the suspense is killing me...did you remove the stat yet?

now...drink later.

 

Not yet. Probably tomorrow some time. Its been a busy week for me

 

Just curious if you have the heater hoses ran and if you have installed a shut off valve in line to stop the water flow to the heater core?

This tends to cause issues with a good number of vettes.

Neal

 

Reading this post makes me think about the air flow through the radiator and under the car:

Here's my thinking, let me know what you think (anybody)

Stock fan clutch and shroud setup - At cruising speeds (probably above 45mph or so) air should be divided, some air going up through the front of the car and across the radiator (assuming all seals are in good shape), and some air passing under the car creating a low pressure region just behind the spoiler/air dam. This low pressure region aids air flow (high pressure in front of radiator and low pressure below shroud and at the end of the shroud). The stock shroud creates a small wind tunnel about 12" to 14" long.

Replacing the stock clutch and shroud with an electric fan setup - Electric fan shrouds are short in length 2" to 3" for mine, the air flow under the car, after it passes the spoiler/air dam could be going up between the front of the engine and the radiator, creating a high pressure area behind the radiator that inhibits flow across the radiator. By increasing the length of the front spoiler/air dam, pressure in front of the radiator is increased, increasing flow through the radiator.

Makes me wonder if adding a piece of plastic to the bottom of my radiator, going back towards the engine, similar to what the stock shroud looks like from below the car, would help air flow across the radiator?

Any thoughts?

I'm gonna have to give this a try on mine and see.

Roger

 

No shut off in mine. Everything is routed like it should be

 

I think I MAY have found some of my heating issue, I am sitting here bored waiting/hoping my replacement power steering hose shows up so I thought I'd pull a plug to see what it looks like, I have a new crate motor with just over 500 miles on it, well the plug looks like I just put it in with the exception of a slight white haze on the ground electrode, I'd say it's running too lean causing excess heat, am I right in my thinking?

 

You can't judge your mixture by the color of the porcelin on the plug. The haze may just be fuel additives. I know I had a link for reading the spark plug at one time. Do a search here or on google on reading the plug. Very useful tuning tool.

 

Thanks, the haze was not on the porcelin, it was on the ground electrode. I took a picture of it but don't want to post it here, I've already stolen enough of AZ's thread.

 

I removed the thermostat and it helped a little more but it was also only about 70 today so that may have helped too. From what I read about running lean, it heats up the engine but nit parts of it that would affect the motor to the ;extent it would overheat. Instead it would overheat individual parts beyond the range that they can handle and those parts would burn out. Does that sound right to anyone else?

 

Have you put a spring in that lower radiator hose yet? If not that could be your entire problem, especially with a high flow pump. Water flow restriction will definately cause you some overheating problems.
To answer your question, yes running too lean will tend to add more heat to the equation. It could make individual components hotter as you state like valves, pistons, spark plugs, maybe to the point of detonation or pre-ignition. The individual components can handle quite a lot of abuse before you will see obvious symptoms of failure so you may not know it's going on for some time.
Any added heat is going to add heat to the water temp as well. Most of the heat goes out the exhaust, however the water is still exposed to the additional heat from the combustion process through the heads and block.
If you have put in that spring then what is the configuration of your exhaust system. Any big restrictions like an old catalytic converter?

 

I didn't do the doing but I had someone step on the gas while I had the hood open and it was in park and didn't notice the hose collapsing. I will have to check on the diameter of piping but the exhaust is custom built and goes straight through. No smog equipment what so ever.

 

It's probably all right then. Still might want to check and make sure that a pipe didn't get smashed or kinked restricting exhaust flow.
On the bottom radiator hose You can squeeze that hose anytime and feel the spring inside. If you can't feel the spring or the hose squishes real easy then you need the spring.

 

I have found that to much timing in my car makes it run hot in the summer..in texas....I saw that you mentioned it keep running after you turned off the key... How much compression are you running? If it wont stop when the key is turned off I would Check timing or improve the quality of the gas.... Question I must ask, You dont have anytype of BRA on the car do you? I had one for awhile but it blocked some of the air flow. I feel for you I have a 71 and have had cooling issues for years. Finnaly solved it by running two puller on the inside and 1 pusher on the outside.. Alu rad and heads and thought I still had an issue... then did as discussed in the thread and used a IR gun on the motor only to find out the gauge is wrong.

 

Install an engine oil cooler and get control of the oil temps, this will add capacity to the cooling system.

Drop 50* from the oil temps and you should get control of the water temps. If you were to install an oil temp gauge I bet you would see that on the interstate your oil temps are even higher.

Neal

 

I have no car bra and my gauge is reading correctly. I may have to try the oil cooler in the future if I can't figure this out but money is tight for me right now

 

I think I need to just leave that one alone

yeah I've thought about doing that along with an AMSOIL remote filter, just can't figure out where to mount either of them...

 

My car did the same thing, temps just kept climbing as the speed increased.

Oil temps would also climb with speed, as in 250* to 260* and higher.

The water temps were right behind the oil temps trailing along. I fought this for a couple years installing 3 different fan setups, AFR tuning with a wide band tuner, timing in every configuration I could come up with, vacuum advance no vacuum advance, 3 different water pumps, 3 different radiators, modifications to the nose of the car for better air flow to radiator and the only thing that brought the temps down to a manageable level was the engine oil cooler.

When I look back at the thousands of dollars spent to try and keep the engine cool and compare it to an engine oil cooler that can be bought for around $250 I got to look at it as a lesson learned.

You obviously need to make sure that all the components in the cooling system are working correctly and verify the oil temps to make sure this is your issue. If the water temps would be higher than the oil temps than I would say you don't have an oil temp issue.

I also spoke with a engineer at Hayden an he also told me to check the oil temps to see if they were the problem.

Now I'm running a 496 and I think the .060 over bore has allot to do with my temp issues.

I agree with Tom D. that each over heating issue is different from car to car but when I finally got mine fixed were I could drive the car and enjoy it I was at the end of my rope on trying to figure out what was causing the problem so when another forum member recommended installing an engine oil cooler (after verifying high oil temps) I was open for just about anything.

Today it doesn't matter what the outside temps are my car stays at T-stat setting of 180* nor does it matter how hard I drive the car.

After reading all the cooling issue threads on the forum day in and day out it sure seems as if the C3 had a marginal cooling system from the factory.

Just offering up what worked for me after endless attempts to fix mine.

It sure is great to know you can take it out for a run and not need to worry about the engine temps.

Neal