Rat Bastid said

I don’t know how old that tech page is. Maybe it’s 10 years old. Who knows.

What I do know is part of one part of one of the tech pages (I’m not going back through to see if what you quoted was part of or not) was discussing FLAT HEAD FORDS an what was done to them and why.

Like most things, what was done to the FHF (for good reason BTW) was wrongly applied to everything that came after it. And that’s exactly how **** like slowing coolant flow down keeps getting repeated.

I know you are looking for some thread to grasp to make slowing coolant flow down the correct thing to do but it is wrong.

My attitude is what it is because this same thing comes up on a regular basis and it gets damn old trying to educate and clean up the same error over and and over and over.

I could post another 20 links from 5 other manufacturers and you would quickly read them, pull out some quotes you think fit your myth and then spend 20 paragraphs defending the myth.

You will never learn because you refuse to accept that you won’t let go of the error.

And every time I see this error I will call it out.

There is a reason why guys are fighting cooling issues. One of them is not getting coolant and air flow correct. And that is get the coolant flowing as fast as you can (within reason…you have to keep the belt on and not have the mechanical fan explode if you use one) and do the same with air flow.

So…if someone wants to sit down and PLAN their cooling system (thats what should be done) this is what I would tell them to do.

1. Get the biggest 2 core radiator that will fit. It needs to be aluminum. Why? Because copper/brass may reject heat better than aluminum but what it can’t do is be made to is be made into shapes like 2 large (1 inch or bigger) cores and have enough strength. While you give up a BIT of thermal efficiency with aluminum, you gain that back and then some with it.

2. High flow water pump. I don’t care about the arguments about why the FSM says about how many blades with AC or non AC and all that. You want as many blades as you can get. The exception to that is the Flowkooler pumps because they use a different design. Either way, a quality high flow pump is a must.

3. A QUALITY high flow thermostat. IMO the best one (and only choice) is the Stewart Components thermostat. They are fully open by their rated temperature and they are very accurate. At the same time, you should be considering what temperature you want the engine to maintain. Again, my opinion is that any of the engines we discuss here should NEVER get over 180. Thats it. Any more than that and you are pissing away power. How so? You make the engine way more detonation prone. You can’t run as much compression. You end up retarding the timing to help reduce detonation, which can cause higher engine temperatures. If you want to run unorthodox compression ratios on pump gas then the goal should be 160 degrees and no more. You can run 12:1 (and probably a bit more if you are real careful and want to get your tune down to the gnats ***) on pump gas. Premium of course but it’s still pump gas. And that makes power. Everywhere. And driveability.

4. Fan selection. This is critical. I run a mechanical fan. I may try an electric fan down the road. If you are going to do an electric fan, make sure it’s a QUALITY fan, not some cheap assed junker. I hear the Ford Contour fans are what you’d want and that’s what I’ll try if and when I do it. For a mechanical fan, I use a stainless steel flex fan. I do not use any other. I have done testing in the past and what you save in HP from a thermostatic fan over a fixed fan you lose in temperature control. You need to move some air and I don’t like having the fan engage and disengage based on the temperature some engineer thought was best for a run of the mill engine.

5. To that end, you need to do whatever it takes to at least (at the VERY least) to find pulleys that are 1:1. The water pump should turn no slower than crank speed. Ever. Unless you are shifting at 8k plus RPM and you are worried about the fan exploding (you should be with an overdriven pump). Other than that, get the pump (and the fan if you have a mechanical one) as fast as practicable. I’m at 6% over and I’d love to double that.

If more people were educated in this area to the facts and science of it some of the companies that manufacture pulleys would make them. When I first started calling around to find pulleys every company said the same thing. We get one call for overdriven pulleys for every 200 calls we take for UNDERdriven pulleys. When guys still have bad thinking on this, why would anyone invest in pulleys to speed up the water pump?

The last thing is coolant. I know all the long hairs out there will say water is the best conductor of heat as a coolant medium. And it is. But the issue is my engines are expensive. And water (especially when it it heated and cooled hundreds and thousands of times during its life cycle) is corrosive to the block and heads.

Plus, I drive my junk year around so I need some protection from freezing. I have driven my car on days where the high temperature was in the high teens. Straight water will not allow that.

So you should be running something for winter and corrosion protection.

I am using Evans for several reasons (I’m not sponsored by them, I don’t get product for free and I’m not married to the owners daughter…all of which I’ve been accused of) and two of them are freezing and corrosion protection.

But a HUGE bonus is Evans coolant does not require system pressure to increase the boiling point of the coolant. You have have 220 degree coolant temperature and you can take the cap off while the engine is running and you won’t get burned half to death from hot coolant exploding out of the radiator. That right there should make you consider the product. From a pure safety standpoint.

There is also another bonus from running near zero system pressure and that is with near zero pressure (you may get 1, maybe 2 PSI but probably not) is the fact that it’s easier on the coolant lines, core plugs and even the head gaskets.

With near zero system pressure the load on those parts is significantly reduced. Running 14, 16 or 20 PSI as some guys do is harder on the hoses, core plugs and head gaskets.

If you follow these simple guidelines, you can drive your car right through downtown hell on the hottest day of the year and not have an issue.

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