Thanks for reminding me to follow up with this thread, I replaced the radiator with a 2-1" core radiator. That made no difference in the temps and in the meantime my fan blades from summit arrived. I had ordered 2 different ones, an 18" 6 blade and a 17" 6 blade steel blades. The 18" was to big so I put the 17 inch on. It fit but I wasnt comfortable with it being that close to the hoses so I went back to summit only to find they dont sell a 16" fan which I thought would be a perfect size so I ended up ordering a 15" 6 blade steel fan. Ive put probably 40 miles in 3 drives since then and the fan cools fine while I am moving, however if I stop at a traffic light for only a minute my temps will go up to 210 and slightly higher while sitting. If I can get back in open road they will again come down to about 185-190 and thats on an 88* day. If im driving first thing in the morning or later in the evening the temps will run around 175-180*. I have changed the thermostat again to a 160* but i believe that once its open it flows continuously. Ive struggled with the fuel lines absurbing to much heat which has caused some driveability issues as well. I have wrapped them with a thermal type heat reflector wrap and that has helped some but I am going to have to make some shields where the lines go up into the engine compartment because they are only about 1.5" away from the header. I plan on searching to see if I can find a 16" fan and if not I am going to go back to the 17" fan. Im also going to put the electric fans I had on the original radiator on the front of the radiator and use them as pusher to help with air flow.
I plan on making a shroud for the steel fan but first I want to get a fan that will work better.
There is not enough room for a fan clutch.
I made that bold so people dont waste time telling me that I should try one. I do not have 2.5" from the pump to the radiator and i have not seen one shorter then 2.57" I think is the shortest!
So its still a work in progress. During this winter I plan on going to my aluminum Edelbrock heads with my 2x4 intake set up. That should also help with some cooling but you never know.
One thing i would like to have some information on, for those of you running a 408, if you could shoot your head temps on the front freeze out plug area of your engines once they have been driven and let me know what they are. I find that my drivers side head seems to always run 40-50* hotter then my passenger side head. Thats a concern i havent figured out yet! Maybe its a normal thing?
Im also going to start to try making some tuning adjustments to see if that will help at all.
As we all know each car is different and it becomes a trial and error process but thats what makes the journey fun!
Thanks Rod
