when you slow down the eng is making even less heat but you have way way less air flow/less water flow & less timing. As said you need more timing (I run 19 on a bone stock 85 318) & what is your pulley ratio (I'm assuming at least 1-1 if not overdriven, even better). what is your in gear idle speed (which is what it is seeing at the stoplight). Idling, how much suction do you feel on your hand in front of the rad? (some C bodies it felt like a tornado in there). for a shroud app, the fan 1" away from the rad seems a bit close to the rad (how wide is the shroud?). FOR SURE get a 180 stat in there, You want it to get out of the cold extreme wear zone FAST & a 160-180 stat has NO bearing on the running hot temp on the other end of the scale (210-220). Short version: you may just need more rad. Champions are pretty good nowadays & cheap, if you dont mind the square non rounded top tank. Holler how it turns out/what fixes it.

I have a Classics Industries OER reproduction replacement radiator in my 70' Charger now due to I was having issues running hot. The longer I drove it the hotter it got. The new radiator solved all of my issues. I can idle in Woodward Dream cruise traffic all day long now. I also had a custom radiator made for my 70' Challenger race/street car. Handles almost 1000 H.P. cruising on the street just fine.

Daytona: Don't have a clutch fan, no room. Have the factory fixed 7 blade 18 inch #2863224 fan. Car is a big block 69 A-body so it only has the factory 22 inch radiator like they came with back then. But the rad was recored to 3 core.

Robert. According to my Sun Tach I have the idle @ 1000 RPM's when its in Park and it drops to about 800 RPM's in gear. As for the pulleys, they are the stock factory 440 engine pulleys, whatever that ratio is. Fan shroud is also the factory shroud made for the 22 inch A-body big block radiator. As for suction, if you hold a piece of paper close to radiator it will suck it up and hold it to the radiator. Now if that's enough air flow or not I'm not sure. As for the fan being 1 inch away from the rad I too was thinking that's a little to close. I have a slightly smaller fan spacer I'm going to try, but its only going to pull the fan back another 1/4 inch. So it will then be 1 & 1/4 " away from the rad. Truthfully I don't think its going to make much of a difference. I will advance the timing back up to around 15* and install a new Milodon high flow 180 stat in place of the 160 stat. Other then that I'm out of ideas, except for buying a different and new 22 inch rad. Thanks.

I still think you have the wrong core in the radiator. Do you have the factory .70 spacer between the water pump and fan? Before taking ANY advice from people here who have never had a factory big block A-Body, please talk with Bob at Glen-Ray, I can't emphasize that enough! I have had factory big block A-Body's for almost 40 years now, not many other models have the same issues they do.

Can you try another guage? Maybe your's isn't reading correctly

What happens when you put the transmission in neutral? Revs should come up, does temp come down?

Rhino. Jim, Appreciate all your help and advice. I will give this Bob @ Glenn-Ray a call. I do have a .70 fan spacer, but its not on the car at the present time. I tried a 1.06 spacer and a #2863224 fan (that fan has more pitch to the fan blades) hoping to pull more air into the rad, but it hasn't helped in cooling much. I'm going to reinstall the factory .70 spacer and pull the fan back a 1/4 inch where it belongs. You make a good point about the BB A-bodies radiator tube size. I never knew they had 1/2" tubes in them. That may help alot. Have you or anyone here reading this post ever shipped out a radiator before? I've never shipped one. What's the best way to pack & send one out? And with what carrier? Would hate to have this #065 rad damaged in transit. Again thanks for all your advice.

I always pick up my radiators from Bob, and have a couple of his packing boxes and foam that he packs them in. All you need to make sure is that the tanks and sides get protected, a rectangular box with whatever foam you can find. I am lucky that where I work has boxes with electronic components packed with lots of foam that they throw out so I take it home. I usually use UPS when I ship them.