500 miles later with my DIY 318 rebuild...

T56MaxTorq said

Looks good! What was the cause of the engine fire?

About the cooling fan - what fan did you go with? A lot of folks on here lately have been troubled with electrics. Mostly they’re too small and unshrouded. (That hot rod video is unrealistic in a way that the manual fan is given a bad report because it is doing more work by moving more air vs the electric fan) You may be ok in the 5th ave, but if you hot rod it around town the coolant temp may become uncontrollable this summer.

Click to expand...

What caused the engine fire...short answer is stupidity. I left a gas soak paper towel in the engine bay and when I closed the hood and took the car out for a test drive the paper towel lodged itself around the distributor and poof. By the time I put out the fire the entire engine bay was toasted.

As far as the cooling fan... It is pulling air and is inside a fan shroud. Built by Hayes and draws 1200 cfm of air is does the job. When in a traffic jam during a hot day the highest temp I recorded was 240* F.