Hey guys, fresh 440, 11.5-1, indy top, good size factory radiator running twin high cfm fans and electric water pump, just fired and run down the road for 15 miles yesterday and its getting up in temp, we pulled up at 205 to let it cool and then headed home. No thermostat at the moment, has a washer in it with a 5/8+ hole.
Is a 180 thermostat going to be better ?

Are your fans pushers or pullers? Can't tell in the pic. I always run a 180* stat. If your fans are pullers, you should have a shroud that covers the core competely.

Take the washer out. you do not want less flow, you want more. Putting a washer in the coolant flow is like putting a piece of cardboard in front of the radiator with a 6" hole cut in it.

take washer out and try again . I don't run a tstat in my Satellite . have mopar performance clutch fan and 12"electric on front of radiator

Tex

treed darn it

Tex

Yes Rick they are fully sealed pullers

But a thermostat reduces the flow as well

Yes they do, but not down to a 5/8ths washer hole restriction.

A thermostat is not designed to make it run cooler, it is designed to make it run hotter than it would without one.

Yes a thermostat is designed to get the engine up to a desired temperature range and keep it there.

hi
use a 180 stat and make sure you have the wire spring in lower rad hose !

I've seen just the opposite in the Mohave desert in SO CA, cars with no thermostats ran hotter in the summer than they did with one in it both 160 and 180 F made the cars run under 220 F when they where running hotter than that with no stat before trying one
The consensus was the coolant wasn't spending enough time in the radiators to allow heat transfer into the outside hot air
How where the Winternationals and Pomona ? PM me on this

That´s not needed with an electric water pump.

As said toss the washer (in your head see how much less the 5/8 will flow as opposed to your 1.5/1.75 rad nipples for instance). Use a good (Milodon?) high flow stat 180 or 185 to get the eng out of the cold/fast wear zone as quickly as possible. If the washer ain't it (& I'd be surprised if it ain't) then as said the fans are inadequate or are blocking airflow. I'm assuming the rad was flowed or at least checked out a bit (running a garden hose in it is a good backyard test for flow). Holler how it turns out.

This is all wrong. Most here don't understand how a cooling system works. A lot is trial and error, but some type of a restriction is needed for most systems. You have to slow down the flow so it stays in the radiator long enough to dissipate the heat. If it just flows threw it cant pull the heat out of the water. if the fans and water are efficient for the application then the radiator is not pulling enough heat out and you would need a more efficient core. I am not a big fan of electric water pumps and fans for for street use. I find that a good belt driven pump and clutch fan shroud and good rad is all that is needed for street.

A fresh engine may be a little tight and possibly run hotter. 205 doesn't sound all that bad.

FWIW...Meziere says not to use a thermostat w/ their electric water pumps.

I am a cause and effect type of guy. So it's a new build, let me ask a few questions. what's the total timing? do you have a vacuum advance on distributor? if you do is it hooked to ported vacuum or manifold vacuum.


Joe

This is my favorite topic of all of them. You cannot have too much flow. The "not spending enough time in the radiator" will cause it to get hot is not true. Either that, or all of the heat transfer studies, research, and papers written at the University of Minnesota (the leading school on heat transfer) since 1887 are wrong.

The physics in that radiator, are the same as the physics of a radiator on the moon. I say this as there will be others that will list exceptional examples to this theory. But physics are physics.

That is all easy for me to say, I've a friend whose engine overheats and just can't figure out why yet.

Best of luck to you.

Two simple reasons engines overheat*, not enough radiator, not enough air moving through the radiator.







*This is assuming no other problems, timing, water pump moving enough water, other mechanical problems.

Sorry, but you are giving out bad information. The last thing you want in a cooling system is a flow restriction. Keeping the coolant in the radiator longer also leaves the coolant in the block and heads longer, where it gets hotter. Now the radiator has to remove more heat from the coolant. Do we restrict it more, and let more heat into the coolant?


As said above, it's either an airflow issue or a coolant flow issue.