Run electric fans all the time?
OK... so even a steady 30 mph isn't enough air to do away with the need for a fan?? I always thought that was fast enough, but apparently not!
My temps do not climb at higher speeds, they just don't go down (like yours do). I expect to run just above t-stat temp when doing 60 mph, and that is not what happens, either with the old 26" copper rad or the new 26" aluminum one, and a high-flow stat.
The water pump is slightly underdriven (stock non-a/c pulleys). I'm going to replace the pump with a Flowkooler high-flow unit, and will also then find out what's in there (hope it's not a 6-vane a/c pump, I can't recall).
But 0.95 is the standard non-a/c pulley ratio (i.e. 5% underdrive) for big-blocks with the eight-vane pump. Which is what I had, and also in agreement with the chart you posted earlier.
There is no 1:1 unless I get some custom pulley setup. Will it be worth it for 5%? I'll be shifting at well over 6000 rpm and don't want the pump to cavitate, either.
The Flowkooler 16-fin pump just arrived and it's a nice looking piece. It should move a lot more water than the standard pump that came out. I'll pop that in tomorrow and see how my temps do (with the fans back in).
Ok, so it looks like I missed where you said you have a stock pulley, because you just kept saying underdriven. I don't consider the stock .95:1 pulley underdriven because it's a stock pulley. Yes, I understand that
technically it is underdriven. But when you kept saying underdriven I assumed you had an aftermarket underdrive pulley and that's a whole different thing. That's on me.
You also said you didn't know what your water pump was. The terminology also gets confusing, because the factory used "standard" for the 8 blade pump and "AC" for the 6. Well, if you go to buy one now the 8 blade pumps are "high flow" pumps, not standard.
So, sorry for the misunderstanding. I do run a 1:1 pulley because I do have an aftermarket pulley. I wouldn't worry about the 5%, but you do need the water pump flow capabilities matched to the pulley drive ratio. If you have a .95:1 pulley and an 8 bladed pump then you do have the correct ratio, but that's not how I understood your posts.
Don’t get caught up in all the OE ratio/impeller crap.
Speed the water pump up, use the highest flow volume pump you can get and forget the impeller numbers.
Of all the industry people I’ve contacted not a single ONE, not ONE gave a crap about how many impellers were on the WP.
They all said overdrive the pump and use a real high flow water pump and be done.
You aren't dealing with a bunch government regulations and bullshit fuel economy crap.
Speed up the highest flowing water pump you can get and find something else to tinker with.
Well that's terrible advice. Would you like to name name's and list the "industry people" you spoke to so we can clarify that overgeneralization? Because you absolutely have to pay attention to pump performance and pulley ratio's.
The number of vanes on the impeller isn't a good way to measure the pump performance, I'll give you that. But most of the pumps we are talking about aren't rated in GPM and the OE pumps
can be separated by the number of vanes so that's commonly what's used. Now, maybe your industry people have the actual GPM numbers and therefore wouldn't use the number of vanes to categorize pump performance because GPM is the better way to do that, but saying it doesn't matter isn't accurate.
And just overdriving to the maximum and running the highest flow water pump isn't necessarily the best solution. The OP is talking about running his engine over 6k. Why do you assume efficiency had anything do do with the 1.4:1 ratio pulley being used with a 6 vane OE pump instead of an 8? Because most of those pulley ratio's and water pump specs were pre-'70, and efficiency regulations weren't really a thing then.
Running a massive overdrive on a high flow pump is not what you want to do, especially at 6k+.
