It sounds to me like you need more cfm, something in the 3000 range. Many of people on this forum have switched over to Ford Taurus electric fan and it can be set up to be a 2 speed fan. It takes a little bit of work to get it all the right parts to do it but I have not heard of anybody having any issues. It is probably more work than you would like to get into but results dont lie. If interested http://mmb.maverick.to/search/55724324/?q=taurus+fan&o=relevance&c[node]=3
Idled for a long long time with hood closed (grill was off, but shouldn't make that much of a difference). Needle stayed put right where it's at in the attached photo. Was 85 out with a 60% humidity. I also flipped the trans cooler 90 degrees because maybe it was trapping an air bubble at the top (cross flow cooler)? But highly unlikely as I've seen dozens of them installed with both fittings straight down. $20 in fittings (sadly no "tube style" 90's available at local store) and 3 hours working on it, worth the peace of mind, especially since I also had the fan blades oriented in the "pull" direction, flipped them to "push". Not that big of a deal, but will push more CFM. Need to drive it still, doubt that corrected the over heating issue though. When it was warm with thermostat open, I revved it up to see if the lower hose was collapsing (idk how else to check for this), and it didn't budge.
Sorry went back and saw that the tranny cooler had its own fan and deleted post but must not have deleted it before you saw it. Fan and shroud look great but would be better if it had more cfm . I know you will get it figured out
Drove probably 15 miles (mixed stop and go 35-40mph and maybe 3-5mi 55mph highway) and it started getting hot. I don't think the fan will cool it down at idle either. There's a lot of air out the back of the fan, but not much pull through the front of the radiator. I bought a 3000cfm Virgo fan. Don't think it'll help, unless these cars just have poor air circulation through the radiator at speed, or my current fan is causing a restriction.
Fan made no difference, as I figured, waste of $100... Gets hot after about 10 miles of 35-40mph in town traffic (also hot on highway). Would keep climbing if I let it.
The fan that you have on the trans cooler, has that been there through this whole process? The reason I ask, is many years ago, I added a fan to the trans cooler on my 65 falcon, to help keep the heat down from the high stall converter in the car. I also had an electric fan on the radiator. Radiator fan pulling air from the rear of radiator, trans cooler fan pushing air through cooler into radiator. While the trans fan helped a little on the cooling of trans it caused more issues with overheating while going down the road. Fan blades block air space while going down the road and reduce airflow. I would say if it stays cool while at idle, your fan is sufficient. If getting hot going down the road you need to get more air through the radiator. I believe it's Griffin that makes rubber flaps that allow you to cut rectangle openings in the corners of the radiator shroud. This allows more airflow through radiator while moving, but seal of when going slow to allow fan to pull through the radiator.
Doesn't appear that airflow is the problem. You're gonna have to look at the whole system. What are you running for waterpump? What size is the waterpump pulley? ...
Cooler's been there since the start, whether or not the trans cooler has a fan, it's the same amount of heat moving through the radiator, and the trans cooler is like 1" off the surface of the radiator. Gates 43272P water pump. 1980s mustang 5.0 serpentine belt system w/ p/s bypassed, and a/c compressor acting as an idler (for now, eventually want a/c). Bought a ir temp gun (didn't have a chance to drive it since), but at idle front and rear of engine are like 180 (hard to temp the heads), radiator has like 30-40 degree difference from top to bottom. So, like just more reassurance that the head gaskets are on correctly.
Still an issue, swapped thermostat, tested old and new thermostats, both good. No air in cooling system. Had hood closed, was 90 outside, and it was starting to overheat. Think beforehand I had the hood open when I said it didn't overheat idling. So maybe it's an airflow thing? The crites headers are a really tight fit. Idk, think I'm going to drive it with the hood off, see if that changes anything. Outside of that I'm stumped, and will probably tear the car apart and either scrap it or start doing body work if it's not as bad as I think it is.
I have an E-waterpump, when at idle the E-fan will cycle on and off at the low set temp...185* had an E-waterpump on my 347 and it performed the same way.
I mentioned dropping the timing because you mentioned the detonation issue, detonation causes heat and heat causes detonation. You still haven't mention the heads but when you have a good set of aftermarket heads with efficiant chambers they need less timing. As an example, all of my Winsors make their peak HP in the 27*-29* timing range with way more compression then your running. Also 200*-210* operating temp is normal for a Winsor so it sounds like your good there. The detonation issue you mention is not, you should focus on that, try dropping the timing or running higher octane fuel.
Blueprint HP9009 Heads. I had timing around 27 prior, still overheated then, so I bumped it up as retarded timing can cause overheating. I'll try bumping it back down to 29. 200-210 is not normal when you have a 180 thermostat.
