my charger with a 440 does a similar thing. moving it will be locked in at about 170-180. at idle it will creep up, but if i turn on my electric fan, it stabilizes..im running a mild 440, be cool direct fit rad, flowkooler waterpump, 160 tstat,fixed flex fan, shroud, and a 16' pusher electric on the front. tranny runs through a seperate cooler, and not through the rad.

i, too, am running a rebuilt, carbed motor. block was tanked, etc...


i still don't like it. I don't want to have to use an electric as a crutch. I have always suspected the flowkooler or any high performance pump. I don't know why, but maybe the stock pump in the stock housing moved the coolant the most efficiently. maybe slapping on a superduperdeluxbignuts water pump screws that up..maybe they cavitate or just move the coolant too fast. lots of r and d went into this stuff years ago and we go throwing these parts on because it looks nice in the summit catalog.

I read a story of a guy with a kitcar cobra or something like that years ago who was running a smallblock ford that would just not stay cool. ended up that he was running a 'not quite right" water pump. got the right one and his trouble went away.. so maybe it's possible to be running a "stock" pump and still have the wrong one?

what's real strange is there are guys here running big motors on puny radiators with no trouble at all. no shrouds, stock systems......