Overheating again...

Paul619

New Member
Aug 19, 2004
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yeah again my mustang wants to overheat....... grrrrrrrrrrr.... I had it tuned and now the air-fuel and the timing is right.. why is my car overheating. is the radiator to small in this thing or what? can a stock radiator handle any kind of power... what is going on?
 
Paul619 said:
yeah again my mustang wants to overheat....... grrrrrrrrrrr.... I had it tuned and now the air-fuel and the timing is right.. why is my car overheating. is the radiator to small in this thing or what? can a stock radiator handle any kind of power... what is going on?

Need more info. Whats the car and whats the problem?
 
Standard checks:

- Make sure coolant is still good
- Make sure coolant level is good
- Check the Thermostat
- If you have an electric fan is it working?
- Make sure the radiator cap is holding pressure properly

Are you positive it is overheating or are you just looking at a gauge that says it is? If you are just looking at the gauge it could be your coolant sensor is not working.
 
ssppiitt said:
Standard checks:

- Make sure coolant is still good
- Make sure coolant level is good
- Check the Thermostat
- If you have an electric fan is it working?
- Make sure the radiator cap is holding pressure properly

Are you positive it is overheating or are you just looking at a gauge that says it is? If you are just looking at the gauge it could be your coolant sensor is not working.
it is defintly overheating it is a 289 with trickflow heats and a stealth manifold and a bunch more stuff. definitly flowing coolant too. any ideas?
 
If you have a 2 core radiator , no it wont handle any kind of power.
Go to a 4 core for no problems, if you have lots of power like near 400hp and up then I would go aluminum. Is your fan shroud on and is the fan 3/4 in the shroud. Dont take out the thermostat, its there to hold back water flow and alow the fan and radiator to cool, and to bring the engine up to operating temp. If your running a fan clutch check that you have the right one. get a thermal one and put it close to the radiator, about 3/4inch to and inch is max.
I have seen people change there water pump to a reverse rotation to run a serp belt or a left side inlet and foget to mount the fan correct.
 
TOM B said:
If you have a 2 core radiator , no it wont handle any kind of power.
Go to a 4 core for no problems, if you have lots of power like near 400hp and up then I would go aluminum. Is your fan shroud on and is the fan 3/4 in the shroud. Dont take out the thermostat, its there to hold back water flow and alow the fan and radiator to cool, and to bring the engine up to operating temp. If your running a fan clutch check that you have the right one. get a thermal one and put it close to the radiator, about 3/4inch to and inch is max.
I have seen people change there water pump to a reverse rotation to run a serp belt or a left side inlet and foget to mount the fan correct.

i have a 2000 cfm electric fan how do i tell how many cores the raditor has?
 
Count them. You can see them best from the top front, each tube is one core, also check your electric fan blades, you could have the blade on backwards as they can be fliped for different mounting locations. If its mounted backwards it will still suck air through the rad but not enough, check your directions or go to there web site.
 
TOM B said:
Count them. You can see them best from the top front, each tube is one core, also check your electric fan blades, you could have the blade on backwards as they can be fliped for different mounting locations. If its mounted backwards it will still suck air through the rad but not enough, check your directions or go to there web site.
ok the fan was spinning the right direction, put it on the front of the radiator just to see what it woud do pushing and yeah I fliped the blades around to they spin right and still the same thing. once it builds up heat just cant scrub it off..... grrrrr. i looked up the part # on the fan they send me the wrong one and it is a 1500 cfm. this mainly happens when i get one the freeway and then never gets rid of the heat. it will just get hotter an hotter. you really think that changingback to the stock fan is going to help? why would it get hot on the freeway? hope I didnt blow a head gasket again..... brand new heads, that would really suck. you think that 1500 cfm is enough? oh yeah it is a 3 core. what else could make it overheat?
 
Paul619 said:
ok the fan was spinning the right direction, put it on the front of the radiator just to see what it woud do pushing and yeah I fliped the blades around to they spin right and still the same thing. once it builds up heat just cant scrub it off..... grrrrr. i looked up the part # on the fan they send me the wrong one and it is a 1500 cfm. this mainly happens when i get one the freeway and then never gets rid of the heat. it will just get hotter an hotter. you really think that changingback to the stock fan is going to help? why would it get hot on the freeway? hope I didnt blow a head gasket again..... brand new heads, that would really suck. you think that 1500 cfm is enough? oh yeah it is a 3 core. what else could make it overheat?

according to that, i would definately be leaning towards head gasket, OR the famed "put the head-gasket on backwards" incident might have happened. You definately should be able to cool it, especially on the freeway where the fan doesnt even matter. Only thing I could think is somewhere the water passage is blocked, like the t-stat isnt opening up all the way, or your waterpump is wore, or rad is plugged up. My 67 sig rig runs up to 235 in traffic and streeting, but on the freeway wont budge above 170 :D
 
65fastback2+2 said:
according to that, i would definately be leaning towards head gasket, OR the famed "put the head-gasket on backwards" incident might have happened. You definately should be able to cool it, especially on the freeway where the fan doesnt even matter. Only thing I could think is somewhere the water passage is blocked, like the t-stat isnt opening up all the way, or your waterpump is wore, or rad is plugged up. My 67 sig rig runs up to 235 in traffic and streeting, but on the freeway wont budge above 170 :D
i didnt get the head gaskets wrong they were clearly labeled and we were actually joking about that. I had the radiator rodded a few months back and there is some stuff in it again not bad though had a new water pump in it it is a miloden high flow if that matters. i am beginning to want to drive this car off a cliff...... :mad: nothing can ever go right, cant even drive it 5 miles without something going wrong now.

on a side note when i got home from my test drive and turned it off it just started boining like crazy if that means anything. it wasnt overheating when i pulled in my drive but when i shut it off you could hear it go nuts. never heard that before
 
T/stat maybe. At freeway speeds your engine should be pretty cool. Mine only gets hot from sitting in traffic, and just cruising at 50-60 cools it right back down. But I have a stock 289 w/4 core rad and fan w/no shroud.

If you're getting pissed, I say spring for a nice aluminum rad, and get a shroud if you dont have one. I hear the shrouds help a lot. Sorry I don't know much about the electric fans.
 
The first time I had the same problem it was the radiator, you need at least a 3 row, if not 4. Otherwise it just can't get rid of the heat fast enough. Mine would be fine til it got hot, then just not cool down, like you said yours does.

The second cure is more involved, but it definitely helped my car after some performance upgrades. I drilled the heads to match the steam holes in the block. Looking at a bare block there are 1/4" holes above the cylinders, these are to allow steam that gets trapped above the cylinders to escape, and water to flow for cooling. If it's getting trapped there, it'll just build heat in the engine. I used the head gasket as a template to mark and drill four holes in each head.

One caveat, I've got cast iron GT-P heads, not trick flows, so I'd check carefully to make sure there is water passage above where the holes need drilled.
 
mustangracer said:
The first time I had the same problem it was the radiator, you need at least a 3 row, if not 4. Otherwise it just can't get rid of the heat fast enough. Mine would be fine til it got hot, then just not cool down, like you said yours does.

The second cure is more involved, but it definitely helped my car after some performance upgrades. I drilled the heads to match the steam holes in the block. Looking at a bare block there are 1/4" holes above the cylinders, these are to allow steam that gets trapped above the cylinders to escape, and water to flow for cooling. If it's getting trapped there, it'll just build heat in the engine. I used the head gasket as a template to mark and drill four holes in each head.

One caveat, I've got cast iron GT-P heads, not trick flows, so I'd check carefully to make sure there is water passage above where the holes need drilled.
thanks for the advice but i already drilled the block for the steam ports when i had intstalled the heads. grrrr i hate my car
 
If he's got a 65-66 car, then , no the stock radiator ain't gonna cut it. The overheating on the freeway just proves that. If the radiator was large enough for the HP level, then the engine wouldn't overheat at freeway speeds, even without a fan. If Paul has a 67-70 car, then he really needs to swap in a new big block radiator to handle it. That was one thing Ford skimped on in the 60's was radiators, they were just not big enough in the Stangs and also the same in other small to mid size cars.
 
If you have tried everything, my suggestion would be to remove the electric fan and try a regular aftermarket 5 blade fan. If you have the factory or 2 row radiator, the electric fan can't cool the water with your motor's HP #'s. The electric fan would work fine, but with a larger 4 row radiator.

It is easy to swap, try it, and do a test run. At the time, I had a 289, TFS heads, cam. yada yada yada, and 370 RWHP, with a 3 row radiator and electric fan. I tried everything and became frustrated just like you sound, but could not keep the operating temp below 220-240. That is not nec. overheating, but def. loosing HP.

Removed the electric fan and put the 5 blade back on (as close to the radiator as possible), and my temp never got above 200 again.

Even if you do not want to keep the regular fan, if you do the swap and your temp goes down, you know that everything else is alright, and you probably just need the larger radiator. Just a suggestion and it worked for me.

Good luck.
 
Well i put a flex fan on this weekend and no more overheating... good call people thanks for your help.... now the only prob with the fan is that it gobbles up some power grrr.

on a side note i got to fight with summit to take back a bunch of stuff that i dont need anymore, i was shocked when they were rude to me... I spend about 6 grand with them in the last couple months and they are still jerks wtf