Trying to Stay Cool - FIXED!!!!

[Cudajason]

To each their own....but I would never use a restrictor on a street car. Race car? Sure.
If everything else is in good shape, your car will run better with a t-stat. If it runs better with a restrictor, there is another issue left unresolved.

Just my 

Yeah fair comment.

I figure I will try this for now. Did not see a lot of flow with the t-stat.

I probably have to flush everything again too.

[YellowThumper]

Worthy of a test as you are deep into it. Thermostats are already restrictors. Even when wide open.
The junk you continue to see is probably showing because of residual vinegar that has soaked into the loosened items. Would suspect (unfortunately) you will need many more. I recommend going longer and longer between them though. Problem lies where you will need to eventually start adding coolant with the water.

[Cudajason]

Worthy of a test as you are deep into it. Thermostats are already restrictors. Even when wide open.
The junk you continue to see is probably showing because of residual vinegar that has soaked into the loosened items. Would suspect (unfortunately) you will need many more. I recommend going longer and longer between them though. Problem lies where you will need to eventually start adding coolant with the water.

yeah agreed, I think the vinegar liquified what ever crap was left in the block.  I have a good two months until I have to put antifreeze in it for the winter, or drop all the water and pull the freeze plugs to clean it out more.  we will see.

I agree the t-stat is a restrictor, so it should function in the same way just take a little longer to warm up.

[HP2]

All the t-stat does is hold water  in the block until everything comes up to temp and opens to allow flow. Once its open, a t-stat acts just like a restrictor. A restrictor will take a bit longer to reach that ideal temp because it allows flow from the beginning. This may not be ideal in a street car because of the extended warm up period and inefficient running characteristics a cold engine has, but in a car only used for warm weather recreation, I don't see it as a big issue. If you plan on driving in the winter, it certainly could be problematic.

[Scooter]

Only downside I can see running a restriction only is you might run into the same issue people have when they just remove the t-stat.. the water does not stay in the rad long enough to cool it effectively and the temp gradually rises. might be lessened quite a bit using a restriction.

My2c. 

[HP2]

That's why restrictors are available with different sized holes to allow more or less flow as needed for cooling.

[Cudajason]

That's why restrictors are available with different sized holes to allow more or less flow as needed for cooling.

@HP2 agreed.  I am starting with the smallest, my hope is that it keeps things too cool, then I will go one size up.  We will see!

[Cudajason]

The update...went for 100 mile drive today.

It was a crisp cool morning, the car ran down the highway at 190 / 195, for most of the hourlong drive, 55mph or so most of the way. 200ish once we hit town. The AFR meter read a very rich 10.5 most of the way.  Pretty happy with that. Side note, the A-500 is awesome. 55mph 1600 rpm or so...no chug nothing just smooth sailing! Drop to second, and look out!!!

After everything cooled down we checked the water, yuck, pretty rusty coloured.

The drive home, little warmer, car struggled to stay under 210 on the highway, 220 when I got on surface streets, and it rose quick.

My best guess is that is the crap in the water that is coating the rad and limiting its efficiency.  Mailing because it seems to run cool right after I flush it and fill it with clean water.

I am open to other ideas, different pulley, plugging up all the gaps around the rad etc. But I feel like as long as that crap is floating through the water it will not stay cool.

[jimynick]

I'd try to find a real rad shop and have them remove and flush that rad. Once you get a clean bill of health for the rad, you've eliminated one big variable, and then you can go from there. For what it's worth, mine barely got off the bottom of the heat gauge, but it's got a new, 3 core, 26" rad in it and maybe you'll have to go back to yours, too? What a PITA! Good luck! 

[Cudajason]

Well, time to continue the ongoing saga of my cuda pissing me off...today the tale of two drives.

Took my son to his first day of school in the old girl.  It was pretty crisp this AM, say 65 F.  I took a little 30 min spin and the gage was reading 210.+  Full disclosure, I put a new electrical gage in over the winter / summer, so out comes the IR temp gun.

Everything looked pretty good on the gun, top hose / water neck 180.8F.  bottom hose 179F, upper hose 167F.  I would like a bigger spread on the rad hoses, but the actual temp seems lower than the gage.

Went for a spin, this afternoon, much warmer, 75F and within a 15min drive the gauge was reading over 220. 

Out comes the IR gun, reading 251.3 at the upper house / water neck....   bottom hose was 143.6 upper house 229.1.

What is even scarier is you can clearly see the coolant boiling, in the filter (I am running the filter to try and clean out some of the crap in the system).

The video below was taken with the car not running.   

As a refresher, I am running a factory record 22 in rad, with a shroud, clutch fan with new HD clutch, water pump is new and has good flow through the filter and rad.  I am NOT running a t-stat, but am running a moroso coolant restrictor.  I have run a t-stat in the past, same issue.

Based on the temp differences it looks like the rad is working???? but it just will not stay cool, so maybe not. I am not sure what my next step is.

I have flushed the block and rad, several times, tried vinegar in the system.  I was thinking of trying Evaporut and see if that helps.  I may also just go with a new 26 inch aluminum rad.

[anlauto]

Gen III HEMI time

[Bullitt-]

  #s from your radiator temperature drop seem pretty good.   Something that came to mind is a head gasket leak where gases are getting into the cooling system, bubbles in the hose, something I've never had to deal with ..
Many videos about testing but this one seemed more on target

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVDsreabEr8

[Cudajason]

Gen III HEMI time

I have to admit, that thought has crossed my mind...  of even trying to find a running junkyard 360 magnum engine (cheaper then the hemi).

  #s from your radiator temperature drop seem pretty good.   Something that came to mind is a head gasket leak where gases are getting into the cooling system, bubbles in the hose, something I've never had to deal with ..
Many videos about testing but this one seemed more on target

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVDsreabEr8

Thanks man, I will have a look into that too.  there may be something else going on here.

[Dakota]

Progress sure comes hard with these cars sometimes.   I agree with Bullitt about there likely being a leaking head gasket bleeding exhaust gas into the coolant.   Here's an article from Advance Auto about leak testing to help identify where the leak may be occurring.   If you put air pressure into a cylinder through the spark plug hole and see bubbles in the coolant, it'll narrow down the search.   In the U.S., there are free loans of these testing tools available from several of the auto parts stores.  Hopefully something similar is available to you in Canada.

https://shop.advanceautoparts.com/r/car-projects/leak-down-test-what-is-it-and-how-to-do-it

One other somewhat random thought:  I replaced the thermostat housing on my son's 2011 Jeep (3.6 liter Pentastar engine) a while back and had issues with it overheating afterwards.   Turns out there was a pretty large pocket of air trapped somewhere in the block.   The solution (thank you YouTube) was to run the motor with one of these funnels filled with fluid in place of the radiator cap along with squeezing the radiator hoses to push the air out. 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B085759CPH/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[YellowThumper]

I agree with the block leak tester.
Low cost and will at minimum eliminate the guessing.
I had same issue with another old car I have. Chased overheating on and off for 20 years. Multiple radiators and fan arrangements later. That ended up being the problem.
Overheating with short drives at some times and not with others.
Could never keep the overflow tank full as the overpressurizing would push Coolant out. Put larger overflow tanks in and same thing happened.
Always randomly.
Second to that, I would definitely confirm radiator flow is proper thru the cores. Such a large disparity from top to bottom temperatures makes me question if radiator is actually cooling that much. It is possible the the lower temps are that cool because the hot water is not getting thru it.

I also had this same issue on the car I described previously.
Bad (non flowing) radiator caused temperature spikes and over pressurized system. By the time I replaced that, the head lifted and blew the gasket. Thus continuing my misery for the next rounds of identifying root cause.