JB_BA Posted May 28, 2003 Share Posted May 28, 2003 My sbc 350 seems to have trouble keeping its cool. I installed an electric, which helps a little, and the car is fine driving 55 - 60 around town, but stopped at a red light my car's temp may go up as much as 10 degrees...stop a few times and your over 200 pretty quickly. Can anyone recommend a good solution. I have a brand new $500 radiator, so that won't help. Can anyone recommend a good fan, w/ a shroud preferably. Or, is it possible/economical to install multiple fans? Or is there perhaps some other way to cool this thing down? I've only had the car a few days, and I'm ready to take it cruising without having to worry about overheating. Thanks, JB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spdsk8r Posted May 28, 2003 Share Posted May 28, 2003 JB Do a search. There is MUCH info here on the Taurus fan, the fan of choice for discriminating Hybrid Z owners. Hope this helps. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike kZ Posted May 28, 2003 Share Posted May 28, 2003 What kind of electric fan did you use? Is it before or after the rad? A lot of us use the Ford Taurus fan, it's powerful and has it's own shroud. Also did you make sure to bleed all the air out of the system. A small block should be able to go up to 230 with no problems. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Your Car is Slow Posted May 28, 2003 Share Posted May 28, 2003 What sort of liquids do you have in the cooling system? Id recommend trying something called Water Wetter (also known as engine ice, radiator relief, etc etc). Mixing a bit of that with a distilled water only coolant (I cant recall the last time I used antifreeze as I live in florida) and that should signficantly reduce the running temps. If it still wont stay cool at a stop...you might want to look into another fan. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JB_BA Posted May 28, 2003 Author Share Posted May 28, 2003 Yes, there isn't any air in the system. Taurus fan eh? Ok, off to Ebay I go. Thanks, JB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BAlford Posted May 29, 2003 Share Posted May 29, 2003 Hay, this rabbit is up again. I had the same problem and fixed it. I had no problem last summer after I fixed the problem. I have my A/C working this year. We have not got into the real hot weather yet in Texas this year. I have ran the A/C this year with the outside tempature at about 90 degrees. The engine has never got above 190 degrees so far this year. You can fix the heating problem this way, but you may wish to fix it with some harder or more expensive way. If you are interested let me know. http://waskomtexas.com/zcar/re_car/engine_cooling.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2Forty Posted May 29, 2003 Share Posted May 29, 2003 What kind of water pump are you running? I have a Flow Kooler on my 88 Vette and the temp stays around 210. I also put in a bottle of Water Wetter. If your 350 is a newer style then you have to bleed the air out of it. Takes a while. Sort of have to "pack" it with coolant. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZROSSA Posted May 29, 2003 Share Posted May 29, 2003 JB, You have the blue zed with the long nose , dont you? Is there ducting from the front of the nose to the radiator so its sealed to the inlet? If not it might be worth it. Douglas Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest dambro Posted May 29, 2003 Share Posted May 29, 2003 Ihave had great luck with the flex-a-lite recommended by JTR. I think its called Black Magic. I live in Tucson and my temp is steady even at idle. I don't have A/C though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JB_BA Posted May 30, 2003 Author Share Posted May 30, 2003 Yeah, I have the "blue long nosed" one. I'm not sure about the water pump, I haven't checked it out yet. I've only had the car for 4 days, so I've been focusing on getting the temp guage, and some wiring issues fixed. Now I can completly focus on the cooling. I'm thinking with a fan out of an SHO it'll drop the average temp to about 175 or 180...right now I'm averaging about 190. Every now and again after extended driving in town it gets up to 200 - 210. Still safe, but large increments. I'd be happy if I could get it to hang at 180. Thanks for the help, I'll try some of that "Ice Water" too. JB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest greimann Posted May 30, 2003 Share Posted May 30, 2003 As Balford said " This rabbit is up again" Ha Ha. Here is a thread comparing the Taurus vs the Black Magic. http://www.hybridz.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=10138&highlight= The short answer is the Taurus is more effective on LOW speed than the Black Magic. And if bought new, the Taurus is less expensive. Buy Taurus Fan Here Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Anonymous Posted May 30, 2003 Share Posted May 30, 2003 just a quickie. how hot (temperature) can a sbc 350 before overheating? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest greimann Posted May 30, 2003 Share Posted May 30, 2003 just a quickie. how hot (temperature) can a sbc 350 before overheating? That is a quick question, but I think deserves a long answer: It depends. The traditional thought of overheating is when coolant starts spewing out of the overflow bottle causing a very visible display of steam and fluid mist. You can see immediately that something is wrong. This can vary with the pressure rating of your radiator cap and the altitude. Any other condition that causes the engine to stop performing the way it normally does could also be considered overheating. A temperature reading that is 10 or 20 degrees above your thermostat rating, and the engine is running normally in all other respects, is not considered overheating. I would take a stab at it and say that 220 -230 deg F is about the maximum a street motor should run in the most severe conditions, although coolant spew might not happen until 260-270. Anything beyond 240 and the cooling system is not up to the task and needs work. Running 10 to 30 degrees above thermostat rating is a reasonable range. Personally, I feel comfortable running under 200. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
two40 Posted May 30, 2003 Share Posted May 30, 2003 My sbc 350 seems to have trouble keeping its cool. Mine has trouble keeping heat. Wanna trade? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BAlford Posted May 30, 2003 Share Posted May 30, 2003 I don't have much in training in science, I am only a commercial artist, however if an engine is running too hot, it seems that either the engine is making too much heat for some reason or the cooling system is not dumping the heat produced. Is this not about true? When you stick a big engine in a small space such as under the hood of a zcar it produces a lot of heat, right? The space also restricts the size of the raditor. If we could put the raditor from a Mack truck under the hood would it not cool the engine? If the is true then some place between the raditor size of the original zcar raditor and that of a Mack truck raditor would cool the 350 engine, Right. Now, if the engine is running properly it will produce x amount of heat. If you can not get enough raditor capacity under the hood why not place the additional capacity elsewhere? Under the finder. http://waskomtexas.com/zcar/re_car/engine_cooling.html I look at a problem and then look for a simple solution. The above solved the problem. Why do so many people try to to make this so difficult? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pop N Wood Posted May 30, 2003 Share Posted May 30, 2003 Not to disrespect anyone, the idea of adding auxilary radiators in the fenders is interesting, but IMO is an extreme fix. If your car can't keep cool with a standard sized radiator and known good fan, then you have something else wrong. The simple approach is to hunt down and fix what is broke first. From reading many a post on cooling, most cooling issues get fixed by getting adequate air flow, not adding bigger radiators. Assuming that all the obvious things have been checked (theromostat good, no air is system, lower radiator hose not collapsing at idle), then in this case replacing the black magic fan is definitely the place to start. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan Juday Posted May 30, 2003 Share Posted May 30, 2003 Not to disrespect anyone' date=' the idea of adding auxilary radiators in the fenders is interesting, but IMO is an extreme fix. If your car can't keep cool with a standard sized radiator and known good fan, then you have something else wrong. The simple approach is to hunt down and fix what is broke first. From reading many a post on cooling, most cooling issues get fixed by getting adequate air flow, not adding bigger radiators. Assuming that all the obvious things have been checked (theromostat good, no air is system, lower radiator hose not collapsing at idle), then in this case replacing the black magic fan is definitely the place to start.[/quote'] Jim is right on the money about air flow. In fact you can trade radiator size for airflow size. This is why a Camaro V8 engine will keep cool with a Camaro V6 radiator. An engine operates with with a water temp of 160* to 240* with an outside air temp of never more than 115* in the extreme. At a minimum of a 45* differenial you can still cool that motor adequately if you can move enough 115* air over it. Air flow is the real answer. The fan is only one part of the air flow equation though. You can move a ton of air but if it doesn't go where you need it it's wasted. A good well designed shroud is at least if not more important than the fan. It should cover the entire core of the radiator and have smooth transitions with no gaps or holes. This is why the Taurus fan is so effective. It has an efficient muli-blade fan with a very well designed shroud that fits our radiator size very well. I've never heard of anyone here getting rid of their Taurus fan for something better. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BAlford Posted May 30, 2003 Share Posted May 30, 2003 I just got back from a 10 mile run on the interstate at 70 mph with the A/C running. The engine never got over 190 degrees even when I got back into town and drove under 30 mph. When I first got the car running I tried all of the suggestions on this board nothing worked. The heater cores worked ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phantom Posted May 30, 2003 Share Posted May 30, 2003 Air flow has a lot to do with the cooling efficiency of the engine. If the radiator is not tight to the frame around it and the fan is not shrouded then air will tend to flow around the radiator rather than through it. Also, if the underside of the car is not properly shrouded air flowing under the car can come up into the engine compartment producing a high pressure area in the engine bay and reducing air flow across the radiator. That is what that chin pan on the Z cars was installed for. I'll bet half or better of the Z's on this site don't have that under body chin cowl any more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JB_BA Posted June 1, 2003 Author Share Posted June 1, 2003 So does that mean I should have one fabricated? Or lower the car? JB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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