Bob, sore subject buddy. :acme: By the way I think your killer fan clutch was louder than the car!
George, I know yours is about as modified as they come.
Everyone else, what I mean is this: stock cubic inches, stock compression or less, headers and such.
The reason I bring this up is because most of the motors I build and run, I found and this is just my opinion, that they run best with the stock stuff that came from the manufacturer that spent millions on engineering the cooling system. My low eleven second full street car ran a stock cooling system fan and all. The one thing I found was that most radiator shops sell you on the wizbang 27 core radiator when a stock one is more efficient. You can cram more crap in your five pound box but its still a five pound box. By putting a lot of rows in a radiator you actually start to block the flow. When you start upping the compression, put a big cam in it (250 degrees or more), adding cubic inches, and add headers you change the dynamic of the car. Then all bets are off and you are stuck engineering your own cooling system (like George was forced to). The reason I bring all this up is because I take a long hard look at what I am doing when I find myself reinventing the wheel for a stock cubic inch car. In my experience I go back and install quality stock parts (all of them) the car runs cooler than ever. These cars weren't meant to run 160 degrees, they were meant to run between 180 and 200. Obviously when you are pushing the compression to the limits of pump gas the car needs to run cooler to keep it from detonating. We have run back to back dyno test and have found that motors actually make a little more power when they are up to operating temp! Of course its different in a car since underhood temps influence intake air temp. My point is that the stock cooling systems are more than adequate for what we a running for power. A total system approach using quality parts is the way to success. :cents:
Careful.......it strikes without warning!