Engine temp

[eticket]

Having trouble cooling my carburated small block chevy. I have a oil cooler with fans, Very basic engine set up making 480HP. Temp gets to 230F, I am running 2 gallons of coolant and distilled water with the factory radiator.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[V8Dom]

eticket said:

Having trouble cooling my carburated small block chevy. I have a oil cooler with fans, Very basic engine set up making 480HP. Temp gets to 230F, I am running 2 gallons of coolant and distilled water with the factory radiator.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.

4 things to check first.

is thermostat stuck?? you can check by seeing if rad is hot or still cold..if cold when engine up to temp then change thermostat. dont remove it completely as this circulates the coolant too quickly. A short term fix is to remove centre of thermostat and refit outer case..

is temp gauge correct? try a digital temp gauge

have you got an airlock?

is water pump circulating the coolant?

how old is the negine. Old engines suffer from block galleries as block is cast iron..

hope this helps

Dom

[DHGTR]

I had this on my sbc. Turned out to be faulty temp sender. Are you getting spitting water and steam, is your water level dropping?

[eticket]

V8Dom said:

eticket said:

Having trouble cooling my carburated small block chevy. I have a oil cooler with fans, Very basic engine set up making 480HP. Temp gets to 230F, I am running 2 gallons of coolant and distilled water with the factory radiator.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.

4 things to check first.

is thermostat stuck?? you can check by seeing if rad is hot or still cold..if cold when engine up to temp then change thermostat. dont remove it completely as this circulates the coolant too quickly. A short term fix is to remove centre of thermostat and refit outer case..

is temp gauge correct? try a digital temp gauge

have you got an airlock?

is water pump circulating the coolant?

how old is the negine. Old engines suffer from block galleries as block is cast iron..

hope this helps

Dom

No t-stat, I thought that this may be a problem because the coolant was moving to fast through the radiator so I put a reducer in to slow the coolant but it had no effect.
My temp sensor is correct as I have a radiator cap with a gauge on it and it matches the gauge in the car.
I do not think I have an air lock, how would you check?
I have an expansion tank and when it gets hot enough it opens the cap pressure and releases to the tank.
I do have a bow tie cast iron block but the engine only has about 2000 miles on it.

[eticket]

DHGTR said:

I had this on my sbc. Turned out to be faulty temp sender. Are you getting spitting water and steam, is your water level dropping?

I have an expantion tank that when it gets hot it releases to the tank, so yes I have spitting water and steam.

[Steve_D]

eticket said:

........I have an expansion tank and when it gets hot enough it opens the cap pressure and releases to the tank.
...........

Is this in an Ultima?

If so then I think the statement above sounds wrong.
There should be a swirl pot with a blanking cap (ie not a pressure relief cap) and a small diameter pipe going from the top of that to the bottom of an expansion tank. The expansion tank should have a pressure relief cap and vent onto the ground. In normal use the swirl pot should be brim full and the expansion have no more than a third full when the engine is cold. Some run with even less in the expansion tank i.e. empty. When hot the expansion tank will be almost full.

Steve

[MarkWebb]

Swirl pot has 2 big pipes and one small. Expansion tank has 2 small pipes only. Caps look similar but are completely different. One is a straight cap. The other has a spring loaded pressure release inside. Spring loaded cap should be on expansion tank.

[Paul.B]

When is the car over heating? Only at idle? High ambient temps? When car is moving along freely?

How old is the Radiator? Is it a 4 or 5 core?

Is all of the Rad getting hot?

?

?

?

Some more detailed info would help.

Paul.B