I have a ’69 Camaro with a fairly new 350 crate engine. The engine is the 290hp GM product. The intake is an Edlebrock Performer with a Performer 600 (1406) carb that replaced a Holly 4010 600cfm. The exhaust is a pair of headers, not coated or wrapped. Ignition is handled by a Mallory Unilite/ vac. advance with a Hyfire spark box. Inital timing is at 8 degrees, 34 all in. Most everything else in the engine compartment is stock, water pump, radiator, shroud, fuel pump and pulleys. The fan is a flex, but it is one of the heavy duty ones, with large blades.

It has always run a little warm, especially during these Texas summers. Since installing this new, stouter engine, my water temp will not stay below 190 on the freeway unless the ambient temp is just above freezing. It'll hit 210 easy during last summer. I will be replacing the radiator with an aluminum one in the next few days. Probably with a inexpensive Jeg’s branded one. The one I have now has some corrosion. I’m sure the bright idea of lightly spraying the radiator with some semi-gloss black when I was re-doing the engine compartment to make it look nice was really a pretty stupid idea.

I had to drive way out to a job site last week, and when I finally got there my car would barely run. It died several times while trying to find the construction site. I tracked down some of the problems to vapor lock and a bad coil. To confirm my suspicions, I let the engine get really hot and when it started running rough I noticed bubbles coming into the clear filter I have. When I would spray the fuel pump and lines down with a garden hose, the filter would fill up and it would run a bit better. It would still run rough, and then it died a couple times. I had a feeling the coil was getting too hot. When I pulled the POS Accell coil off the oil in it gurgled. I swapped it out with an old Mallory coil. It would vapor lock but it didn’t die, and it ran smoother.

My questions are; do ya’ll think just a better radiator will stop the fuel from boiling? Or will the engine compartment be even hotter from more heat dissipated from the radiator? Am I problably going to have to take other measures?
(The fuel line, pump, and header proximity is pictured below)

I also have a question about vaccum too. I had been trying to tune my old worn out Holley two-piece and I finally gave up on it. I wish I would have replaced it years ago. When went do the idle mixture adjustments I noticed my vaccum readings were really low, like around 6-7 at 600RPM. I’m located about 600ft above sea level. The duration on the cam is 222/222. I was hooking up a T-adaptor in the vac line from the manifold port on the carb and dist. Last night, when I went to confirm these readings, I didn’t use the T and just hooked it straight. I was getting a reading of 12-13 at 600RPM and about 15 at 1000RPM (then vapor lock set in and I couldn’t get a good reading). I found that the dist advance module was leaking. I don’t think that is supposed to be happening. From what I’ve been reading, these numbers seem a little low too. Am I correct?

Sorry about the length, but I think more info is better then not enough.