BartonekDragRacing

(10 mile drive at the most, stop-n-go traffic, 2k RPM goin about 25-30mph)

I have a 85 Camaro w/a 505 alum. headed BBC...I drove it home @ lunchtime (93 degrees) and it got to about 225 deg, oil was at about 240 (comments on oil temp?). I dont recall off the top of my head if I have a air dam in the front or not. I have a flexalite 220 puller (dual fans), a tranny/oil cooler mounted infront of the radiator, Be Cool radiator, antifreeze/water mix. It didnt get to 225 right away..maybe about halfway there...

Is there a additive I can add? Ie water + ??

What is this "freeze it" stuff I read about but nobody knows where its sold at?

I'm stumped.. maybe sell the flexalites for the new summit fan that flows 5000 cfm ? My current fans flow about 2100 cfm.

-Alex

OneSickS10

My motors not as big as yours but I've got a 400 in an S10 and have had my share of cooling problems also, i know what its like racing to get home or whereever you're going so you don't overheat.. I hated traffic lights and don't even get me STARTED on the people who push the cross walk button! Any how, you're on the right track with a BeCool radiator, i moved my tranny cooler from in front of the radiator to under my front bumper, mine is mounted on the lower lip of that front bumper cover so that the air coming in that little gap where most people would put fog lights is, cools the tranny fluid its mounted horizontally. . Also, if you have underdrive pullies on it.. get rid of them! They can slow down the water pump by 25 / 35%. Which means if your water pump moves 50GPM, it now only moves about 37. I eliminated my under drive pullies, and put on a CSI electric water pump that moves 37GPM and my truck NOW idles at 175 / 180, and when im moving it drops to 160 (thermostat temp) the electric water pump draws about 8amps @ 12volts so its hardly noticeably.. you CAN run electric water pumps for daily drivers so don't think that they are just for race cars, lot of people turn their heads when they hear electric water pumps but i know LOTS of people who run them on dailys and love them. Its super quiet and very efficient. I used to run 3 electric fans, dual 10" pushers (flexlite) and 1 permacool 14" puller, I can now run just the dual 10" fans as PULLERS because they have their own shroud without it overheating. You can try water wetter, but all those additives want 100% water, not sure where your from but im guessing with a big block in a 3rd gen it DOESNT see snow, or rain.. and you probably dont drive it in the winter. Just might want to add some antifreeze to keep out corrosion. Hope this helps.

Also if you have any coolers built into the radiator like a tranny cooler or engine cooler, might want to disconnect those and just use remote ones, whatever fluid your cooling in the tanks of the radiator might just be transferring its heat to your coolant and raising the coolants temp

BartonekDragRacing

good suggestions!

I have a March pulley kit..I'll have to look it up in my receipts to see if they are underdriven pulleys or not.

What I was thinking was buying a Derale electric fan..flows 4000cfm and is $199 in summit.


if the pulleys are underdriven, I'll get a CSI electric wp setup first and see what happens... (I kinda want a electric wp, so thats a good excuse LOL)

OneSickS10

1 other thing, you might want to consider Perma-Cool, their fans move some SERIOUS air. I might be selling my other 14" fan since i no longer need it.. it moves 2950cfm if your lookin for a pusher? Its unshrouded.

http://permacool.com/

BartonekDragRacing

well..found part of my problem..lol.. my radiator was a little wimpy 1 core, 1" row BeCool.. so I bought a 2 core 1 1/4" row Griffin alum. radiator... I let the car sit and idle for a while until it got to 180.. so then I took it down the street @ 2pm.. it was about 91 degrees. It got to 195-210..not bad.. oil temp about 220. Then I turned around and started heading back.. went to 225, oil temp 240. If this had been my old radiator it would of got there alot quicker..

Tell me if this sounds right...

When driving and my oil temp about 200, it seemed as though I had no problems cooling...the hotter the oil, the hotter everything else got.. Since I have a remote oil cooler mounted infront of the radiator w/almost 1" gap between the two, I was thinking of mounting a 10" pusher fan to the front of the oil cooler hoping to keep the oil around 200.

onesicks10:
btw, I do have underdrive pulleys..(March) and my waterpump is a edelbrock alum water pump (mechanical) which flows 20% more then stock..well, that should negate the underdrive pulleys.

doug791

Which means its flowing about stock, so if you went to the normal pulley it woudl move 20% more then it is now

Damon

Bart- the main problem I have found with cooling on 3rd gens isn't the raditator- it's airflow through it. That's about 75% of the problem most of the time. My brother's 87 GTA with an aluminum-headed 400 would run hot in traffic with the stock dual-fan setup. Not to the extent yours is, but scary-hot. Big radiator only slowed the process.

We ended up using the stock dual fans on the back plus 2 additional pusher fans on the front. THAT finally cured it. It would stay within 15-20* of the stat temp even in on the hottest days.

Also, the plastic air dam "chin spoiler" under the rad support does more than just force air up through the rad on the highway (although that's an important function)- it also prevents hot air coming off the back of the rad from "recirculating" to the front of the rad again when sitting still and idling or going at modest speeds with the fans running. A critical part on a 3rd gen cooling system.

We didn't have a temp gague on the oil but the car used the stock "sandwich" style oil cooler that has coolant from the heater hoses passed through it to provide some measure of oil cooling.

Later 4th gen cars has a radiator system that was very similar to 3rd gens (put aside the reverse flow cooling system of the engine itself for now) with one important difference..... the fans would move a HURRICANE of air when they both kicked on. GM did some SERIOUS engineering on the 4th gen coolang fans/motors/blades. LOTS of airflow, but not much noise or current draw. If I knew this back when we were running the GTA I would have adapted a 4th gen cooling fan setup onto our 3rd gen instead of running supplemental fans. They're available from your local junkyard for cheap. They may not totally cure the problem with your big cube motor, but they're a good start.

You need CRAPLOADS of airflow. Way WAY more than you've got now. I suspect you'll end up doing some or all of what I suggested above to keep that rat cool. No kidding- TONS of airflow. There's no way to over-do it with fans on a 3rd gen. As much air as you can move before your alternator won't keep up.

Obviously, forget about underdrive pulleys on your setup. That's just asking for a taller mountain to climb.

BartonekDragRacing

Damon:
I talked to March Perf. and they gave me measurments of underdrive pulleys..so if I have them they gave me a part # to their regular crank pulley that will negate the underdrive that way I dont have to buy both the crank and wp pulleys.


I will see if both those take care of the problem. If not, a 4000cfm fan will be headin' on over to my place.. lol

OneSickS10

if you can't find a 4th gen setup or decide to go another way. I just picked up a "Zirgo" electric fan off of ebay, for only $95. It moves 3300cfm (16"). Most of these electric fan companies recommend 4500+cfm for a V8. Might want to look into them, that's a LOT less than buying it from Zirgo.

97WS6SCharged

You may want to pick up a bottle of Purple Ice for that monster. I've used it on several of my cars, including my blown LT1 car and my old S10 with a 406. You can bet it will be in my new S10.

breakthelawinaz

i use straight H2O and something called water wetter in my big block SS. i hated using glycol propol (sorry i like being technical) because the temps were like 10-20* higher with it, and straight H2O would cause rust, plus im running an aluminum H2O pump and a griffin alum. radiator and a mechanical flex-a-lite flex fan (it is supposed to be like good to 10000 rpm, and it pulls some air!) she runs at about 180-200* which is pretty good for a 14.5:1 iron headed big block!


*Eric*

BartonekDragRacing

how hot does it get up there in PA? Here in TX its pretty hot. I never liked water wetter but I'll give that a shot... What is normal operating temp of oil ?

BartonekDragRacing

one minor detail... I forgot to mention it was block filled... but I dont believe its is completely filled though... I need to look at the build sheet to confirm this.

breakthelawinaz

up here in the wonderful PA (i hate pa) it gets around 80-90* which isnt reall cool, but still rather warm and i dont have problems. i have the block fllled to the bottom of the freeze plugs and it still works good.
i dont know about the oil temp, i should get a gauge for that huh? good luck, if all else fails get on to a wide open road and just rug it, that will get the air flowing...


*Eric*

IROC-T

Another trick for cooling that might help you is the rubber on the back edge of the hood ,I've found that just by removeing just up to the third holding tab of that rubber strip lets out a lot of trapped heat. I also found that if you take off more than that you can't get cool air from the outside to the inside if your useing the vent.