as the title states... driving home tonight cruising home in 6th gear i look down at the temp and boom its at 220 n climbing..... thinking quickly that it may be a stuck piece of gunk in the cooling system i drop it in 5th and leave it there for roughly 15 secs at 2K. temp drops almost IMMEDIATELY... wtf??? i had a v6 that had cooling issues and i did about everything to that be4 i found the prob... but this was a prob i never had be4.... ne advice as to what to check or nething....and if its WP then thats being replaces by a EWP. please help asap... im home from work now ill check asap on here if someone can help more AIM is proc2k3

p.s. 180 therm installed... and that was 6 months ago no probs.....fans have not been reprogramed to turn on earlier yet, however it was at the top of the temp guage... the area where you KNOW its not suppose to be

 

well. since the Water pump is basically an RPM driven type of thing on a non-electric one I would say that may be the problem. at the low rpm's it is not able to move enough water to cool the vehicle efficiently. So getting a new one might not be a bad deal. I am not sure what the flow numbers are on the stock ones

 

Is it low on coolant?

 

just checked coolant level again... and yupp its fine... right to the line for fill while hot. and i have got NO coolant coming out of weep hole. should i try flush 1st??

 

Wait til it cools off and run it without the cap...be sure its flowing good, check the splined WP drive behind the pump....that could be stripped

If thats good I would say the WP is shot

 

will do...MD...would it be a good idea if shot... to go ahead with the EWP. have ya heard nething about it? and is it just me or i kno its probably been discussed many times but WTF IS WITH GM AND THERE WATERPUMPS!!!! my dads 96 imp SS has been there done that 3 times... its about every 50-60K it craps out

 

my car used to do this too.
it turned out to be a bad head gasket and a sticky thermostat.

 

Stock T'stat in an LT1 is 180degF, so you don't need to reprogram the fans.

Is it possible the air dam under the front bumper cover has fallen off?

 

I had this happen when (If I remember right) I had a tstat going bad. I know it sounds crazy but maybe at higher rpms the pump has a bit more pressure to open the stat. I remember being close to home and if I beat the fire out of it she would drop down to normal, then if I shifted up it would skyrocket in temp.

I suggest a new stat, cheap
If that doesn't help look into the pump

 

Probably isn't his airdamn since he can drop gears, maintain speed and it cool.

I would recommend a flush and running some water(water hose pressure) through your heater core. The fins on the wp might be eroding as well.

 

In 6th gear, the engine is turning so slowly that the water pump flow is reduced. Drop to a lower gear, and the RPM's go up, along with coolant flow.

 

How old is the water pump and how often do you change the coolant?

 

ok update... got home from work tonight and its like clock work after about 3 minutes of steady driving in 6th gear at cruising speed there it goes climbing like a cracked out monkey. starting to think its just the water pump DUE TO: tonight when car was started *yes its been raining for the last 3 days* but i had my car in the shop at work (circuit city) because i had my system retuned. start it up to pull it out of the bay and BELTS ARE SCREECHIN AND SQUEALING. weep hole???? tomorrow im off so it may be changing day 2mrw.

2nd. i got the car in Reading PA, not a close trip. i got it from a corvette dealership there and after getting it home is when i did the look at every nook and cranny and never bothered to check the coolant... its not dexacool??? WTF? its just reg coolant.. would that be part of my prob, or if im gonna replace the WP neways should i just refill with reg coolant b/c honestly dexacool = $hit

Water pump looks original has the same about of grim build up as alt and intake mani. 13 yrs old and i mean only 50k miles but ....13 years old cant be good 4 a pump

 

My logic behind this was that even with increased coolant flow, if his airdamn was off, it still may have trouble cooling.

 

Why don't you go with a 160 stat and have it programed. Also, as was mentioned. No air dam=overheating. Low Coolant=overheating, bad cap=overheating, low rpm in 6th=overheating, bad radiator=overheating, wrong anti-freeze ratio (sb 50/50), bad stat=overheating, bad pump=overheating, head leak=overheating.