Thread: Got the '35 back on the road, but I got problems...

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Well, This might be long, sorry. I finally got my sportsman II heads out of the machine shop, stuck 'em on my .020 over 350 with some .015 shim gaskets and took her down the road. Power is much better than my old 186 camel humps and the car has never ran so good. Before I was running 9.7:1 compression with .068 quench and it was detionation city....now with the Sportsman II's and the shim gaskets I'm running 9:1 with .043 quench. everything is perfect with one exception..........It all started long before the head swap, when I wrapped my headers and installed an Edelbrock water pump back last summer. My car always ran cool unless I idled around in traffic a long time, but even then it never boiled the water I figured I'd wrap the headers to reduce the under hood temps and increase water flow a tad and wrap up this slight cooling problem...a few minutes after I fired it up the temp gauge pegged at 250 but the engine wasn't hot. I drove it a good bit and even during the winter it never came off 250 when it warmed up even though the cooling fan cycled on and off like normal. I blamed the problem on the fact that the sending unit was in the rear of the passenger head and the headers were holding more heat in the heads after I wrapped them. I decide to move it to the intake but I had to wait till the head swap so I could drill the intake while it was off. Well, I swapped the heads, drilled the intake, installed a new sending unit in the intake, and I've still got problems. The sending unit for the fan is in the intake on the driver's side and the unit for the gauge is on the passenger side. I just drove it 15 miles with a 160 degree thermostat and it never reached 200 degrees until I stopped. When it idles it moves up quick and the fan takes longer than usual to kick on. I checked the temp of the heads with a laser temp gun and right after I switched it off the temp of the heads right next to the spark plugs was in the 190's on the driver's side and nearly 230 on the passenger side with the passenger rear being the hottest. I guess this is why there is such a difference between the temp at the gauge and the temp the fan kicks on, the engine isn't running the same temp on both sides. Now I don't know if there is an issue with the water pump or on of the shim head gaskets leaking. I ran the car pretty hard up to around 6000 rpm I couln't beg it to hit 200degrees and it's not pushing out the water, though it is boiling, bubbling, gurgling or something after I switch it off, but not boiling over. I've rechecked the part number on the pump and it is correct and it seems to me if it were a head gasket those wide open blasts to 6000 out on the highway would cause an increas in temperature and puke out all the water. I'm thinking about putting the stock pump back on to see if it helps before I yank the heads again, what do ya'll think? I'm trying to get it ready for the show at Pigeon Forge next month but I've got to get this fixed befor I can make the 1000 mile round trip...thanks guys.

Here are a few pics of my setup.

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It's not normal for a sbc to run hotter on one side is it?

I'm no expert but I would never expect one side of a SBC to run more than a couple of degrees hotter than the other. My first thought was that your shim gasket may be blocking, or partially blocking a water port on the hot side. It seems to me that you have to be dealing with some kind of flow restriction, either in the head or with the gasket. Just my thoughts...

Don't this beat all......I put my 14 year old el-cheapo rebuilt Carquest water pump back on the car and it hasn't been hit 200 degrees or boiled the water since. I've got a 170 dollar Edelbrock that ain't worth throwing in a gully. The passenger head was around 40 degrees hotter than the driver's side with the Edelbrock pump and with the stock pump they are the same temperature. I just drove the crap out of it for almost two hours and it never hit 200. I let it idle for a pretty good while and the cooling fan cycled on and off perfectly with no rise in temperature. What should I do now?

I've never heard anything good come from wrapping headers. I have rpc coated sanderson block huggers on my sbc (1968 sb, 2.02 fueling heads, 350hp) and have never had an overheating problem. Sure it gets to about 220 sitting in heavy traffic on a hot (95+degree day) but that's about it. I have more space between my fan and my engine than what you appear to have but I don't have a fan as efficient as your cooling component unit either.

Now it might be incorrect but i was told years ago that wrapping headers wasn't necessarily a good thing especially on a street car because it can keep more heat in than you might actually want. Fine for drag cars, but maybe not for street cars.

Like I said, that could be wrong, and I am sure there are many engine specialist here that can correct my bad learnings.

You snuck the new post in on me, but since you did, it sounds like you need to ebay that edelbrock pump.

I'm just curious if somthing is wrong with the pump or if it isn't working well with the rest of my setup. I'm going to talk with the folks at edelbrock next week and hopefully they make it right. or at least tell me what the problem is so I can make it work correctly. It is advertised to help equalize flow through each side of the engine but this one ain't doin' it. As far as the wrapped headers...I havn't run it enough to know if I like it or not. the fenders aren't getting as hot and that was one of the goals. All the sheet metal around the engine was getting very hot before so I'm trying to eliminate some of that.

That Edelbrock is not a reverse flow pump by chance?

Nah, the original pump was purchased for a '66 impala and the Edelbrock is the #8810 which is short style, standard rotation, advertised to fit '55-68 cars, '69-70 vettes, and trucks through '72. It has 8810-2 cast into the back of the pump. Should be the correct one. Funny thing is it's a "high flow" pump but it only overheats at idle....my stock one is high flow at 6000 rpm, I was trying to get more flow at idle.

Well, I'm so stoked I had to get a picture of this.........this is a shot of my temperature gauge after idling for almost an hour. I turned the fan off and let it get up over 200, turned it back on and it cooled back down within a couple of minutes. Edelbrock told me today to send the water pump in so they can check it out. gauge resized.jpg

Well, here's a picture of the problem with the Edelbrock pump. As you can see in the port, where the water flows through, the casting is completely closed off. No water flow at all....hard to believe this passed inspection.

Hmmmm, so much for Made In America.....

It seems someone at the foundry forgot to put a sand core in that mold.

If Edelbrock does not make it right, try Flowkooler (http://www.flowkooler.com/). I had one of these on the 350 before switching to the LS1 and it worked great.

Glad you got if figured out

Pat