FINALLY!! its cool!

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mopower440

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Long story short, ive got a mild 440 in my dart and ive always used the original to the car 22" radiator for the 318 that it had. On hot days it would run hot..It would take it a while to get there for some reason, but it would finally go past 210-220 and try to keep climbing so i would have to park it until it cooled down. It also had the original shroud and was using the smaller water pump pulley and the larger 4 groove crank pulley. It had the original type 6 blade water pump with a flex fan that moved quite a bit of air. I ordered one of those billet alternator brackets a long time ago and also a 440 source aluminum water pump housing. I finally decided to install it all. The alternator bracket would not work with the water pump pulley i had on it so i had to get a set of the 1 groove non-A/C pulleys and that had me worried because the pulleys were the same size at 1:1 and that was going to slow the water pump and fan down compared to the way it was with the smaller pulley..and the thing already liked to run hot, especially at idle and low speeds.. Anyways, i also decided to buy a new aluminum cold case radiator with the 2 rows of 1.25 inch tubes. With the cooling issues i had, i really thought hard about getting the bigger 26" but Chris at cold case said to give the 22" a try, so i did. I also installed an 8 blade water pump and an original 7 blade fan in place of the flex fan. I also got a high flow miloden 180 thermostat. SO, today i finally got to try it out and i am totally in disbelief at how cool this radiator keeps the car! Going down the road it runs at 170-180..and thats with a 180 thermostat! sitting there idling for a while it will touch 190 but will quickly drop down with a little throttle. I drove this thing for a few hours today and was so happy i could drive it without it creeping up to the uncomfortable hot zone! This radiator kicks serious but! Today wasnt the hottest day of the year compared to some, but it was still warm enough. Quite happy with this radiator!
 
mopower440 said:
Long story short, ive got a mild 440 in my dart and ive always used the original to the car 22" radiator for the 318 that it had. On hot days it would run hot..It would take it a while to get there for some reason, but it would finally go past 210-220 and try to keep climbing so i would have to park it until it cooled down. It also had the original shroud and was using the smaller water pump pulley and the larger 4 groove crank pulley. It had the original type 6 blade water pump with a flex fan that moved quite a bit of air. I ordered one of those billet alternator brackets a long time ago and also a 440 source aluminum water pump housing. I finally decided to install it all. The alternator bracket would not work with the water pump pulley i had on it so i had to get a set of the 1 groove non-A/C pulleys and that had me worried because the pulleys were the same size at 1:1 and that was going to slow the water pump and fan down compared to the way it was with the smaller pulley..and the thing already liked to run hot, especially at idle and low speeds.. Anyways, i also decided to buy a new aluminum cold case radiator with the 2 rows of 1.25 inch tubes. With the cooling issues i had, i really thought hard about getting the bigger 26" but Chris at cold case said to give the 22" a try, so i did. I also installed an 8 blade water pump and an original 7 blade fan in place of the flex fan. I also got a high flow miloden 180 thermostat. SO, today i finally got to try it out and i am totally in disbelief at how cool this radiator keeps the car! Going down the road it runs at 170-180..and thats with a 180 thermostat! sitting there idling for a while it will touch 190 but will quickly drop down with a little throttle. I drove this thing for a few hours today and was so happy i could drive it without it creeping up to the uncomfortable hot zone! This radiator kicks serious but! Today wasnt the hottest day of the year compared to some, but it was still warm enough. Quite happy with this radiator!
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Sounds great, but add a couple hundred h.p. to that engine and it will be marginal.
I went thru the same thing with mine -
 
Thanks for sharing this info on the radiator. At some point I will be adding a 500 hp big block to my dart and will need a good radiator like that. I always tend to go overkill, so I will most likely go with the 26”.
 
duster360 said:
Thanks for sharing this info on the radiator. At some point I will be adding a 500 hp big block to my dart and will need a good radiator like that. I always tend to go overkill, so I will most likely go with the 26”.
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Been out in it all day today and it is very hot and humid today and it still stayed really cool. It wants to run at 170 when moving and it MIGHT touch 190 when idling for a while. I dont know how to act now that i can drive it all day without it creeping up to the uncomfortable zone!
 
Sounds good....I have sent a PM to cold case to get one ordered for me
 
I thought this was about weather. Was gonna say "you're crazy, it's gonna be dang near 100 hear next week". LOL
 
man, you changed so many things at one time its impossible to tell what actually did the trick.. glad its running cool though.
 
abodyjoe said:
man, you changed so many things at one time its impossible to tell what actually did the trick.. glad its running cool though.
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well, I know, BUT, I went backwards on the pulley size, so I know that didn't help. I think the only other thing that could have helped is the factory fan over the flex fan possibly? Its just crazy because before it would just climb and climb until I finally had to park it, and now, even with a 180 thermostat, it wants to run at 170 when moving! you can tell when the thermostat closes because it will go to 180 and then drop right back down when it opens again. I love it!
 
i don't know.. that new fan could be moving alot more air. slowing the wp could have helped too by leaving water in the rad long enough to actually take the heat out (engineers sized the pulleys the way they did for a reason) or your old rad was just toast...

it runs cool now. thats all that matters.
 
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