70 Still getting hot, what else to look for?

Lars said
I have a pretty mild setup that still seems to be getting hot. Stockish 360, probably about 10:1 compression, mild cam (Comp XE 268 IIRC), J heads with stock valves and an old Edelbrock single plane. I have a home made shroud that covers the fan blades and will suck a shop towel up against the grill, a Summit 2 row aluminum rad, a flex-a-lite 18" fan and thermo clutch. Everything has about 2-300 miles on it. Yesterday with an ambient of about 80 degrees the car almost hit 210 (idling in front of my shop), which is way too hot considering the 180 stat I have in it. The intake seeps a little bit of coolant around the stat housing do to being warped, its not bad, but you can see the staining on the intake. I was wondering also if it would be a good idea to switch to a recirculating system over the puke can setup I have now, as the top few rows of the rad are never covered in coolant. I was afraid I had popped a head on my trip to the track cause the car hit about 240 in traffic, but I checked the oil and it looks brand new, no chocolate milk. Any ideas?

Just one thought on your overheating. First is it overheating in traffic or when you are driving down the road? I have a 69 Swinger 340 and no matter WHAT I tried I just couldn't get it to run cool in traffic. After trying every cooling trick in the book I stumbled on the cause. If you have a fiberglass hood like mine and it does not have a rubber seal (like the factory hoods) on the underside of the hood that mates with the rad support, hot under hood air will come out from under the hood and will be sucked back through the rad and will be heated up more and then back out and back through the rad and eventually the car will overheat. I temporarily used foam pipe insulation held onto the rad support with zip ties. What a drastic improvement. Give it a try it's a cheap test. Good Luck