I am not familiar with how the cooling systems on a motor work, so I have some questions, if they seem lame, sorry...

I got rid of the heater assembly and the amount of hoses has dropped abit. There are still a few that I wonder if they are even needed or are just there for heater and other accesories.

Off the back of the intake manifold there is a small metal rod for water, the hose goes into a heater line. Off the front of the manifold there is a hole that goes from the Throttle body, which comes from the heater line I think (not looking at the car right now). Then there is a hole in the side of the block for the oil cooler, which the other line goes to the waterpump.
My question. Since I have no heater, I am planning on running a remote (and real) oil cooler, and plan to not run water through the Throttle body... Are any of these needed? Do they play an important roll in cooling the engine? Are they main escape/flow passages for coolant?
Or can they all be blocked off? And just have the Upper and Lower radiator hoses?

Thanks, and like I said, sorry if the question seems dumb, I have never checked into the cooling system like this before, and have no real idea how everything works together..

Matt

 

Yes, they can be blocked off.
One of the heater hoses does go through the throttlebody, and the thought behind that was to bring the throttlebody up to operating temps faster in cold weather, not a factor for you apparently. It might also prevent icing in winter driving, by the way.

I don't recall either. I'll have to go look in my IROC. But you could run a hose directly from one end to the other, bypassing not only the heater core, but also the throttlebody. You don't need that, unless you do a lot of winter driving.

I'm not sure what the relation is to the oil cooler part of your question. But Summit racing does sell a variety of oil coolers and they're not very much. You can also buy a remote filter mount kit and get the oil filter to a more accessible location while you're at it. Then just route the return line through the cooler and back to the engine.

Hope that helps.

 

The thing is, I have no more heater core, no more heater hoses, etc. I am trying to figure out a way to get rid of as much ugly mess as I can... I love the way the engine bay on my dads 65 looks, so simple... but I want all the fancy FI stuff ;).
The oil cooler is a water cooled thing, one off the waterpump and then one to the block. I dont know what way the water flows. Some point soon I want to do a real oil cooler with a radiator style setup up front. and get rid of the water cooled oil cooler, so if I can close the hole in the block off it would make things easy.
Also, most the electric water pumps dont seem to have that second line in them, so if I CAN get rid of those lines it'd make buying the water pump I want ok.

As for the weather, it snows maybe once a year, but never sticks... coldest I see is about 25 if that cold... the heater was taken out since I never used it ;).

Matt