Hey all,
I have been havin a cooling issue in the summers here in southern nevada/henderson area, we get some brutal heat here and these old cars dont like it much.

I have a yr old rebuilt 355 with a lil over 9.6 compression and an aluminum griffin type radiator 22 x 19 in size, it has the dual 1" cores.

I have been lookin at fans but really wouldnt know how many CFMS i need, i mean i wanna get the biggest and baddest, but the funds are limited. i want to use it as a pusher, for when i am stuck at lights, it will do fine, then hit the first long stoplight and the temp jumps up over 210 and then wont go back down no matter what.

i do have a 7 blade flex fan (about 3" from rad) and a half shroud on right now with a 190 thermo, but i cant keep the car away from 220, 230s.

also, the water pump and hoses and all that are same age as engine, 1 yr.

i appreciate any help i can get.

8) You could use something like a Flex-A- Lite Black Magic Electric fan. It's proven to be a good unit. Also Red Line makes a product called Water Wetter. An additive that will make the system run a lot cooler. They say up to 30 degrees cooler. I know some of the local stock car drivers tried it and running Water Wetter with straight water some had to put in flow restrictors because they ran too cool! :cool:

Right on!
I did try water wetter in a nova i had, pretty much the smae engine and radiator, but i didnt see any diff...

i just didnt wanna purchase a fan and have it not be enough CFMs then i am stuck with it, but i will research some more and see what comes about.

many thanks!

8) Could you be running just a little too much timing in her? A 355 shouldn't be that hard to cool! You might consider doing away with the mechanical fan and going with just a good electric fan. I know you said your budget is tight(who's isn't right now with the gas prices) but they could get a lot tighter if you don't get the temp down! :(

Hey...I know all about those Nevada summers, I used to live an hour west of Vegas...a little place called Pahrump. Anyways I was having the same problem you are, except I would real quickly jump up to about 250 and start blowing coolant everywhere. Just recently I went out to the junkyard and got an electric fan out of a 1994 Firebird, fit perfectly and it sits at 190 degrees all the time now no matter how long I idle it for. Might be worthwhile to find one for yours and bolt it on.

The Lincoln Mark 8 or Ford Taurus fans are kick ass, they pull around 4000cfm, way more than any of the Flex-a-lite aftermarket fans for the same money. Do a search on pro-touring.com for the mark 8 fan, there is a TON of information including wiring tips, soft touch fan controllers, fittment etc..

I used a couple of boneyard Ford Taurus fans as pushers in front of the condenser/radiator($20 for the pair). I left the stock thermal fan in place but I did go with an aluminum radiator.

I can sit in stalled traffic on 100* days with a max of about 210.

Here's a link to my set up, bear in mind though, there are more than one way to mount the fans to suit yourself.

http://albums.photo.epson.com/j/AlbumIndex?u=4007431&a=31263310&f=