Thread: Insight needed.

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Hey guys. Ever have these things that happen or are happining that you work on and think about that you would just like to talk about and get some insight on?

I have a few and I cant take it anymore. I have to talk about these things and I need your thoughts on any. Read ahead.

I had an 87 S10 ext cab that I converted about 8 years ago over to a power house with money poored into a small block,tranny and all that could go along. Lets just say that this S10 could run a mid 11 with 29 inch offroad tires on it. I was growing tired of the truck and about 6 months ago I had a real good reason to junk it. I was pulling an empty trailer that weighs about 5000lbs and pulled out of a parking lot into the highway and and hit second gear way to hard. Needless to say I exploded the tranny and everything close to it. Driveshaft,tranny,flexplate,starter,tranny and oil coolers (they were under truck) were all gone. not to mention the huge hole in the floor. This was the coolest thing ever. Anyways I got the truck back home and took all the good stuff out and went looking for my next project. I ended up buying an 84 K10. Sweet truck that was 100% stock. I mean everything. I have in the last 5 months redone everything. Truck is sitting high and look awesome. Here comes my problems. Brakes work great except I cant lock them up. They dont pull, have no air and pads are amazing. But stopping this thing with any kind of weight behind it is not happening. The E-brake works great. What should I look for? Best I got so far was to replace front rubber brake lines because they could be weak and pinching closed. They look fine even though they are a little strecthed from the lift. Another is cooling. Give me a break. I kept the S10 under control. I cant get a grip on this thing. I replaced worn out 305 with my 420hp 350 from my S10 and replaced factory A/C with aftermarket unit since I run March serp set-up. A/C working great. Here is the deal. Up front. Considering this truck has the room this is what I got going on. Starting with grill. Oil cooler with fan, Tranny cooler with fan. A/C con, Rad. Did I go wrong there? The Rad is a Griffin race 2 core 1 1/4 core. I have a 4600cfm fan set-up. Lord this fan set-up could cool a dragster. I can give part numbers for anything. So really there is four fans up front all moving in the same direction. With-out A/C on I can keep my cool and run around 180 but with the A/C on I get up to 210 and thats when I am freaking out. Should I take that tranny and Oil heat out of mix and move it past the rad and locate on frame rail in the back? Timing is not an issue. Yes under hood heat is there considering headers and all. Also not to mention the 3500 stall converter. But Oil and tranny temps never exceed water. So my thinking is how can the oil and tranny coolers be hurting the water temp if there cooler than the water. Or could it be there stopping the Rad from cooling down as much since the air is at tranny and oil temp. Jere is the last thing bugging me. I had my tranny guy build me this tranny. (need a good guy let me know. He will build you a beast and sell on ebay if you want. He builds monsters for less than you would ever think) and I went with a 3500 stall converter and I set things up so the converter will lock when I want it to. The floor shifter I put in includes a switch that I flip when I want the converter to lock-up. The tranny is a 700r4 so having O/D is huge. I geared the truck with 4.56 gears so the 3500 stall would work out great. Here is the question. If you were in Thrid gear floored and sitting at 5500 rpms and locked your converter and the motor bogged would you think you have a jetting issue? Or what would you think? Keep in mind with a 3500 stall converter and 4.56 gears running at 5500 rpms your really only at about 30-35 mph.

Give me your thoughts guys. I'll take them. And of course I can answer any questions. I do all my work myself and know everything I did and bought.

Mike

Well, I'll try to give some suggestions relative to the cooling issue. I am not familiar with the radiator you describe, but you state 1 1/4. Is that the thickness? If so, it seems a little thin to me. Just because it is a "race" radiator, doesn't mean it will cool well on the street. Race radiators only have to go 1/4 mile at a time.

Also, the headers are probably helping to heat up the engine room. Maybe try some header wrap designed to keep the heat transfer down. I am not normally a fan of header wrap because it causes the headers to rust faster, but in this case you may need it.

How is the temp going down the road versus sitting at a light? You may have a situation where the air is being blocked from exiting the hot engine room. I swapped a 5.0 Mustang engine into a Jeep Commanche pickup, and I had to do the old racers trick of putting shims under the rear of the hood to create a gap there for heat to exit from. Until I did that I had a problem keeping it cool, but that helped a lot.

Air conditioning also drags down the motor and creates heat, and your 3500 stall converter isn't helping any. I would first make sure the radiator is large enough, and then make sure you have a way for the heat to exit the engine room. Usually overheating is not caused by just one thing, but a combination of lots of little things that contribute.

Don

A bog is usually from a lean condition and a lean condition will cause heat.................a bog from rich will be pretty apparent from the smoke.

Thanks Don,

I will provide more later today but in hurry now. Going to work.

The Rad is not 1 1/4 thick. Its core's are 1 1/4 thick. Times 2

Does it boil over? 210 really isn't that hot if that's the max it hits. Many of the old GM cars turned the fan on at 108C which is 232F degrees I believe. Admittedly an engineering screwup but they wanted those engines to run hot for emissions.
Anyway, this might be an arguable oversimplification but if it doesn't get hot enough to loose coolant then you really don't have a heating problem. I agree that a 2 core might not be enough radiator.

5500 in third and a bog when you lock up? I am having a hard time visualizing why you even know that. What kind of driving situation encounters that in a 4x4?
Not hacking your tranny guy per se but you generally get what you pay for and if you bought a cheap tranny chances are good that you got one. The only 700R I drove much would overheat quite easily on a long pull when the converter was unlocked.

Thanks Billy,

Well 210 is the point I will not allow it to exceed. Will it go above 210? I dont know. I wont allow it a chance to get any higher. My money means to much to me. As for the tranny cheap is not a question. I did get what I paid for. Built to my specs. I had the converter made to my specs too. You have never seen 5500 rpms in third gear? Ever been to the track?

The Tranny is in no way under question from a heat standpoint. The Tranny temp is under control. I have coolers in place to take care of that. I understand that a non-locked converter makes more heat.

When you modify a tranny to allow you to lock the converter when you want is allows you many things. I really dont want to explian it all now but I think most of you know what I have done. With knowing that you dont know how or where I got my tranny I wont take offense considering I offered to hook anyone up with this guy to build them a tranny I will say that my tranny guy Wayne has built the trannies for all my projects for the last 10 years or so and when I have him build me one I make the trip to his shop and pick them up myself.

I am really think I will look into what Shawn has said about running a bit lean. I think I will check my jetting out and see where I'm at. I might have jetted it lower than I thought I did.

I didn't mean to offend you, the part about getting a "cheap" tranny was an observation. Cheap and good are generally not bed partners.
Yes I have been to the track but just not in a 4x4 I guess.
If you are running a 12-14 psi rad cap you can run up to 225-230 without being in any danger of damaging something. On our dirt cars we usually ran a 22 pound cap and considered 250 to be shut down temp but if you were in the lead and got the white and it was on 250 you would stay on it for sure.
I think every 1 psi raises the boiling temp 2 degrees, can't remember for sure.
Also consider the coolant. 50/50 mix is the standard but water has better thermal conductivity that antifreeze, but then antifreeze has a little higher boiling point. We have used a water wetter agent that breaks down the surface tension of water and lets it conduct heat better on race cars

I took no offense. No worries. I run a 16psi cap and there is no way I would run a small block over 210. First off the first thing that tells me that you are getting to hot is vapor lock. Your engine is telling you it is to hot when you have vapor lock. Vapor lock while running is the worst. Water wetter is a waste of money I think. Tried it a few times with no results. Of course others might have good luck with it.

I know this is kind of apples and oranges, but when we were racing 1/2 mile cars, the guys trying to run the big chevy 4 core radiators would often have heating problems. We went to a Modine aluminum, dimensionally smaller, and never had a heating problem again.

I have just ordered a cowl hood. I hope this helps. I know it did on my Camaro.