With our desert 110 degrees right around the corner, can i get some ideas to help my 88 run cooler? Aluminum radiator? after market oil coolers?
Routing more fresh air to the cabin? Anyone ever routed fresh air from front end to inside?

 

Try takeing the top shroud off and give it a good cleaning they are big vacuum cleaners.

 

Make sure the air dam is in good shape, make sure the air that is drawn up to the radiator doesn't have a path around it.

 

Roller rockers will reduce oil temps by about 10 degrees. High flow water pump. Reprogram fans to turn on earlier. New DeWitts radiator.

 

What temps are you seeing now? C4's are designed to run a bit hotter than other cars to keep emissions low. GM did a lot of testing of the cooling system design on C4's at their proving ground in Mesa AZ where they encountered 110+ temps and also as high as 120

As mentioned, check for dirt and debris in the front of the A/C condenser and in front of the radiator. You can use a vacuum to remove a lot of that junk. You can also use a garden hose to push any material out from between the fins and tubes. Go easy with pressure here!

Same with the lower air dam pieces. IF they are banged up or missing, get replacements.

When was the last time the cooling system had a flush and refill? With the OEM style coolant ("green" ethylene glycol) it's a good idea to do a flush anf fill every 2 years. Can't hurt to replace the upper and lower radiator hoses. Aldo consider replacing the thermostat (use the factory opening temp) and a new pressure cap.

Also when you run the A/C, the cooling fan will run all the time. Make sure that is happening.

 

well, to cool the engine, ALL THE COOLANT HAS TO GO TO THE RADIATOR. I know everyone thinks that when the thermostat opens that the end of the story right? wrong.

The factory small block was designed to operate in all conditions, even in the winter in Manitoba...not exactly the problem you're faced with is it?

Pull the water pump. On the passenger side of the block, directly below the lower mounting bolt hole is a similar sized hole. This is a water passage designed to take water from the discharge side of the pump and send it back into the suction side of the pump. Why? to keep warm water circulating through the block on those freezing Manitoba morning start ups. Plug either the hole in the block or in the corresponding hole in the water pump body.

Yet another coolant circuit that contributes absolutely nothing to cooling the engine is the heater circuit, Hot water from below the thermostat goes to the heater core....which has no air flowing through it unless the heater is "ON" (not exactly what you want) and then (again) returns to the suction side of the pump. Put a valve in the line TO the heater core and keep it closed during the summer.

Replace the thermostat with a restrictor plate; these are sold for dirt track, oval track racers...cheap and foolproof. For the winter reinstall a thermostat ...and remember to open the valve to the heater core!

Invest in a high quality high flow water pump with a curved vane impeller,,,not a stamped tin impeller.

and lastly, see if there is a combination of crank pulley (larger, not smaller) and pump pulley (smaller, not larger); this is the exact opposite of performance "underdrive" pulley sets but will overdrive, i.e. run the water pump slightly faster at any given engine speed.

Except for overdriving the water pump, these mods are all tried and true from the olden times when NASCAR stock car racing actually used stock motors, but have been overlooked or forgotten.

On a side point, if cooling a corvette is a problem, at one point I owned a 75 chevy Monza retro fitted with a 345 horse crate engine. Even in the best of conditions, those cars were a beast to cool and it gets pretty damn hot in the Sacramento Valley during the summer...but with the above mods, cooling was never an issue.

 

T-stat modulates per temperature, regulating flow. I found Robert Shaws flow way better than the stock Stant.

Ensure the radiator is clean inside, too; perhaps a flush/fill is enough, but I find the current flush liquids a bad joke.

Not a huge fan of mods on a stock motor (see GM testing post above). I think I wasted $$ on aftermarket radiator and pump, as the real solution to cool this beast motor, was the Shaw stat.

 

There is little question that a bigger aluminum radiator will be able to dump more BTU's than the factory rad can. There are a number of good aftermarket rads for the C4's (do a search on this topic and you'll find a lot of info_ - - I put one in a track car - and even with pretty hard driving - the coolant doesn't go much above 190. Just be aware that every aftermarket rad requires some modification to the mounting hardware.....

As several other posts have pointed out - the area between the A/C condenser and the rad tend to accumulate crap (leaves, other junk) - so getting anything that's in there out will certainly help.

Fresh coolant is never a bad idea, but since plain old water is better at heat transfer than Ethylene Glycol - try not to add too too much anti-freeze to the system - you don't need protection to -32 where you live. Some Anti-Freeze is a good thing (a 25% mix - should do the trick and-will provide protection down to about 0 F) - the anti-corrosives in the antifreeze are needed, and adding a bit of Water Wetter - or similar chemicals that tend to reduce surface tension and improve heat transfer will probably help as well.

 

high flow water pump. A bottle of "wetter water". Keep a thermostat in it. Without it, water move to fast thru the radiator to get rid of the heat. Don't know about NASCAR using restrictors instead of thermos, the old way was to use washers with the hole drilled a bit larger to pass the water thru. Take the top shield off the radiator? good idea. I wouldn't be surprised if a 1/4 of the flow was blocked by leaves and other crap. If all else fails and the car starts to overheat, turn on the heater, roll down the windows and hope traffic gets moving again.

 

IS that the easiest way to get to the space between the radiator and condenser ?

 

sorry, there ain't no easy way

pull the radiator and even after vacumning and water washing the radiator core, be prepared to spend a long time with a dental pick removing about a thousand grains of sand, dead bug carcasses and who knows what from the radiator fins;

if its any consolation the radiator is easier that the a/c condenser since you'll have to do the same thing to the a/c condenser, but the a/c condenser will still be in the car.

 

In Phoenix, I made sure that the radiator on my 88 was flushed, put in a 160 thermostat and two bottles of wetter water. After that, I put a low temp switch on the aux fan (see Ecklers) and used a Summit Racing low temp chip to control the primary fan. I would get to 215 in stop and go traffic on a 113 degree day. Easy peasy.