Cooling is a factor or moving air and getting the hot air out of the engine compartment. Has anyone tried removing the "splash pans" or access covers to the heater core and the charcol cannister on the bottom of the car? Seems that would crate a better airflow to get rid of the heat.

 

I have an electic puller fan and flex fan just for that reason. My shroud is all hacked up from my radiator installation so a lot of air gets pulled around but i feel it helps cool the engine compartment. I could get the engine a little cooler by getting a new shroud and seal kit but the hottest it's got so far is about 210 so I see no reson to.

 

but at the cost of making our purdy engines dirty ! :eek: that is a :nono:
:lol: :lol:

 

Ahh, hot vettes, my favorite topic.
I've been trying to figure this out ever since I installed headers and my engine bay temp jumped and heated my feet uncomfortably.
After insulating everything in sight, I've now given up on that and am addressing cooling the bay.
My plan is three fold:
1. Get the hot air out #1. This includes louvers in my LT-1 hood on the flat portion about 8" ahead of the rear edge. I did a yarn test to check air flow in this area and I had laminar flow up to 90 (where I stopped the photos). This seems to work at speed when I have positive pressure in the engine bay. The bad news is that it draws the hot air around my TPI runners.
2. Get the hot air out #2. I'm slowly moving to clear all the stuff from in front of the side gills. The passenger side is almost totally blocked with AC accumulator and AC hoses.
3. Increase air flow- esp at low speeds. Mech fans at low idle do not cool and do not draw enough air into the engine bay to force hot air out. So I'm on the way to install dual Spal 11" electric fans to "blow like a tornado" at low speeds. The Spals snuggle up to the radiator and point down and back instead of straight back so I'm going to add a piece of stainless from the bottom of the Spal back, up and across the front crossmember to direct air flow toward the headers. This may work great since the two fans align with the headers.
A side benefit of the Spals is that I will be able to inhale cold air coming over the top of my radiator frame to feed my TPI air filter.
4.? If all the above don't work, my last idea is to install 4" elect exhaust fans sold to reduce the engine bay heat on C4s. A couple of these inside each gill would move 1600 CFM of header heat.

What have I missed?

 

Didn't miss much. You can change radiators, stuff the cracks, add fans, change t-stats, mix the water, use water wetter, but a basic issue is if you don't get the heat out of the engine bay I think it becomes cumulative. The hotter the engine the hotter the air, then the air adds to the engines surface heat and the metal can not expell the heat. Keep us posted on the projects to remove heat. Thanks for the input.

 

actually c-2 side pipe big block cars do have the splash shield. Since I have a original car I know this to be true. :cheers:

 

flynhi,i have nearly solved my heat problems on my 74R,i have NO radiator shrouds or shields on either side.....i have a large 7core aluminium radiator with a large single fan puller mounted rated at 2100cfm flush mounted...since i have no aircon or p/s there are no restrictions at the front of the engine bay.......i was amazed how much extra heat the custom 13/4 headers generated despite the jet coating......i am finding that the increased airflow around and through the radiator means that the side vents are actually evacuating a significant volume of hot air whereas previously all the shrouding and sealing prevented much of the airflow and seemed to effectivly create a low pressure area under the hood that as a consequence not much hot air was sucked/pushed/blown out the side vents...john :chevy