neil350

Drving to a friends house I wa stopped at a Light for about 20 minutes, the car was acting normal, temp goes from 220 to the real high point and comes back down. Any case get moving and get on the freeway and it will not drop below 220 at all. But its not going in to the read, get off the freeway still at 220, mind you I'm moving prety quick so it should cool it down. Get in my friends neighborhood look down at and its right before the red. I turn the car off and get my code reader, stick it in to turn the fans on and let the car sit for a few moments so it can cool down. Any case I pull the ait pump fise to trigger the ses lights on the way home, car never went above 160 the entire way home, I did notice if the cars sitting if you stick the key and turn it forward in the gauge will move its way all the way over to the red, pull it back and the take the key out, it'll make its way down to again. Kinda curious, the car runs hot, but never like this it usally cools it self off while moving.

Blue96z28

How old is your thermostat? Problems like that are almost always related to the thermo....They have a 170 at autozone, that is the right part for the LT1 its not the standard SBC one. IMO 170 is an excellent mix btwn cooling and be able to warm up fast in the winter for daily driving. If your thermo is even slightly old, I would replace it just for fun, only takes about 10 minutes.

brandboZ28

Also make sure your sending unit is good. There are two of them. I cant remember which does what but there is one in the waterpump housing and one towards the front of the drivers side head. One is for the gauge and one turns on the fans. Like I said, I just cant remember which does what.

neil350

Thermostat was changed in 02 with a 160 T-stat, so it has maybe 18K miles on it at very most.

FryedClutch

my temp gauge is always goin crazy but the temp gauge is controlled by the sender in the drivers side head and im perty sure mines screwed up cant be more than a 15 dollar part and easy to change so i would prolly think it was that if you know your cars not runnin that hot

IrocManiac

It's entirely possible the thermostat has gone out again. My dad went through several on his LT1 car.

neil350

I just thought it was weird how the needle moved to the almost red part with the key forward.

Blue96z28

With that being what it does, its most definetely either the sending unit or the gauge itself, its not supposed to do that. I dunno how these units work, but I believe the old ones used to be like a "variable-ground" or something to that effect, the more the connection is grounded by the sending unit, the higher the temp will read, maybe yours is either broken or shorted out somewhere......?

neil350

I just picked up a new T-stat, no harm in changing it since the one in there is 3 years old. I stopped by MTI, since they still have a few left in stock, I was talking to one of the Techs and he was saying his 97 does the same thing so it may just be a gauge problem in relation to LT1s. No clue, my cars always ran hot but i have read numerous TSBs sayingt he temp gauges on LT1 cars are highly inacurate in that they read higher then what the temp trully is. But then again Lt1 gas gauges also read high, so I cant find it hard to believe the temp gauge is also less than par. sigh

Blue96z28

I dunno man, I realize that my car is 96, and yours is a 93, so there most likely different gauges, even though its supposed to be relatively the same...But mine does not do that by any means, the gauge reads the temp with or without the engine on. For instance, if the car is fully warmed up when I turn it off, it will stay around the temperature even with the key off, and then get lower the longer it stays off, until it drops all the way down. IMO something is defentely wrong, yours should not do that.....its gotta be the gauge or the sending unit, or a short somewhere in between.

neil350

Yea, some thing is up, doubt it has ashort any were, may be the sending unit.