[dawg]

any updates?

[kirkschopped67]

Yes here are the updates. The first thing is the timing was retarded. I advanced the timing and the temp started to fall with in a minute or so. On the highway it was over 230 degrees. It dropped down to 212 degrees. Still not happy with the results; I did a spark plug test. I ran the truck at 35 mph for a 1/2 mile and shut the engine off and coasted to a stop. Right there I pulled a plug from each side and found that it was still running to lean. I made an appointment to take it in to a Hot Rod shop where I live to have the jets changed. Out of the box there is no way that all these parts are going the be able to work together without being adjusted.

I did go to a car show this weekend. I had to set in line for about an hour. The temp stayed at 183 degrees and it was 102 outside. Advancing the timing really helped. I will have it tuned and I believe it will solve a lot of problems

Thanks for the help, I needed it.

Kirk

[sunsetdart]

Running without a t-stat with a water based coolant is a no-no, ...reason why is that a water based coolant needs to develop pressure for it to work properly. Without the t-stat the system does not get up to the correct pressure.

[kirkschopped67]

I had pulled out the t-stat that morning, but I did not run it. Someone knew what I was thinking. So that night I went and reinstalled the t-stat. I figured that the t-stat was not the problem and It would not fix it . The timing and the jets in to be adjusted to work together.

Kirk

[Bryan59EC]

Less tha 13volts at the battery really screws up the gage readings as well.

low voltage/bad connection will show a high temp (in my case 30*)
It will also cause a low oil pressure reading (as much as 20#)

I spent 2 years beating on an overheat condition that was really just a bad alternator.

My 454 in the 59 ---base timing at 18*

[sbchevfreak]

Originally Posted by sunsetdart

Running without a t-stat with a water based coolant is a no-no, ...reason why is that a water based coolant needs to develop pressure for it to work properly. Without the t-stat the system does not get up to the correct pressure.

Not exactly. Even without the t-stat, pressure will develop. The reason for pressure ais basically to crank up the boiling point of the coolant's water base. For every 1 psi pressure increase, the boiling point goes up 3.25 *F. What running without a t-stat does is allows too much flow through both the rad and the engine. This prevents heat saturation of the coolant. The coolant does not stay in contact with the heat bearing areas of the engine long enough to absorb enough heat energy, and then does not stay in the rad long enough to transfer any heat energy to the airflow through the core. This causes a compounded effect of some heat removed from the engine, but not enough released to atmosphere. You then end up with overheat, as well as localized hot spots in the engine.

[kirkschopped67]

sbchevfreak's


Thank you for the post. I did not know how it works. I now understand why we need t-stats now. I am going in for a tune-up at a local hot rod shop. I will post the out come and how well the truck performs.

I am having second thoughts on the torque converter that was chosen for me. I will post about that later today, because I do not believe this application is correct for the driving I want to do.

Kirk

[sbnova]

If you have a flex fan try a solid 5 blade fan. It solved my problem in my sbc. I could idle all day at 180 as soon as i got on the road the temp shot to 210 and up. Changed the fan and the engine wont go over 180.

[RWENUTS]

sbnova. If you look in the top left corner of all posts you'll see a date on it.
This thread is 3 years old. Likely the problem was solved a long time ago.