engine cooling mods

looking for recommendations on what you guys use to keep your coolant temps in check. right now my cooling system consist of: stock radiator, fresh coolant mixed at about 70/30 with distilled water, reisch 170 t-stat, factory fan set to come on at 200 and off at 190ish, revised db casting heads, racebronco hood (tons of air flow) and a canton expansion tank.
im in new orleans and it get HOT and humid here so my cooling system gets taxed. also i run a tvs and the car makes 600+ so i know thats not helping either. my fan seems to come on alot. when it does i can watch the temp gauge go down and it will cut off but then it goes right back up and kicks on again. no air in the system. i believe everything is working properly just not sure if there is anything that will help it stay cooler longer? radiators, better water pump ect...? car never gets hot, 200+ and will cruise at hwy speeds at around 175. maybe all this is normal and im just over thinking it

Sounds normal especially if you run the ac, ac triggers high speed fan

I would drop your on/off fan temps about 10*. You have everything else under control.

I agree with above. Your fan settings isn't correct for having a 170* stat. You should have low around 183-185 and high 188-190.

That does seem high. I just came in from about a 45 minute cruise, all city traffic maybe 19 miles. Stop n go several times, I was taking roads with no higher than 45mph speed limit, never got on the highway. Made a few 3rd gear blasts, one right before I parked in my garage and took this pic of the data logger. So no air flow at all here. I would assume our weather here in Houston is as hot/humid as New Orleans. 185 is the highest coolant temp I saw. Most of the time it was 176-178. 2.3 whipple, 22psi, E85. Ford GT supercar pumps set up returnless

maybe i need to look at my fan settings. ill email tuner and see where they are set.
my autometer gauge is pulling the readings from the coolant crossover plug, maybe that isnt the best/most accurate place to get a reading? what is the best place to put the sensor?
and yes i lived in houston for a while, its hot like here

Sounds to me like you have all the right stuff now and it does not seem like you are even running hot. RaceBroncoII hoods(jealous) will create a ton of additional air flow and can make up for a multitude of cooling system mistakes, of which you do not appear to have any.
The only thing I would change would be maybe the fan kick points and never use distilled water in any cooling system with more water than 50%. Use the cheapest generic bottled filtered drinking water you can find instead, for next time.
With 30% antifreeze you might be OK, but unless you are using something else for corrosion protection, keep in mind you removed 20% of your corrosion protection while using a know aggressively corroding form of water.
I use and recommend bottled filtered drinking water from Walmart with 20% antifreeze(=20F freeze protection) and two ounces RP Purple Ice per quart of system capacity.

I also have an AM gauge, installed in the coolant crossover plug. The gauge is very close to what is reading on my Aeroforce gauge and my Eastwood Non Contact Infrared Thermometer.

http://www.eastwood.com/eastwood-no...ing&creative=10262021170&device=c&matchtype=e

Jimmysidecarr said:

Sounds to me like you have all the right stuff now and it does not seem like you are even running hot. RaceBroncoII hoods(jealous) will create a ton of additional air flow and can make up for a multitude of cooling system mistakes, of which you do not appear to have any.
The only thing I would change would be maybe the fan kick points and never use distilled water in any cooling system with more water than 50%. Use the cheapest generic bottled filtered drinking water you can find instead, for next time.
With 30% antifreeze you might be OK, but unless you are using something else for corrosion protection, keep in mind you removed 20% of your corrosion protection while using a know aggressively corroding form of water.
I use and recommend bottled filtered drinking water from Walmart with 20% antifreeze(=20F freeze protection) and two ounces RP Purple Ice per quart of system capacity.

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this is the first time ive heard of not using distilled water. ill definitely use drinking water next time. may even do a flush just because. its easy and cheap enough for good insurance.
ill take a log today and see when the fan kicks on compared to my AM gauge, maybe the gauge is bad, who knows. thanks for the insight

As Jimmy stated above, I also put a couple of oz's of Royal Purple Ice in both my cooling systems. It's a corrosion inhibitor and wetting agent that provides defense against corrosion.

Auto manufacturers have been recommending distilled water be used when servicing their cooling systems since approximately World War II. So it is kind of an automatic response for a lot of us. But if you think about it they are never recommending the use of a high water percentage for better heat transfer, it's always a 50/50 mixture. So don't feel bad. I destroyed an LFP race radiator running distilled back before I worked at Royal Purple, that was an expensive mistake. It was after that mistake and because of it that researched the hell out of this topic and I learned a lot.

A killer chiller would be a very good investment

Four Door SVT said:

A killer chiller would be a very good investment

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How is that going to help the engine coolant temp

First thing in going to do is confirm the fan on and off temps. I'll compare that to the autometer gauge. Then I'll flush the system and refill with new coolant and purified drinking water. Maybe even add in some royal purple ice to help out

Four Door SVT said:

A killer chiller would be a very good investment

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Not going the killer chiller route. If I do anything I'll swap over to a gt500 set up

Jimmysidecarr said:

Sounds to me like you have all the right stuff now and it does not seem like you are even running hot. RaceBroncoII hoods(jealous) will create a ton of additional air flow and can make up for a multitude of cooling system mistakes, of which you do not appear to have any.
The only thing I would change would be maybe the fan kick points and never use distilled water in any cooling system with more water than 50%. Use the cheapest generic bottled filtered drinking water you can find instead, for next time.
With 30% antifreeze you might be OK, but unless you are using something else for corrosion protection, keep in mind you removed 20% of your corrosion protection while using a know aggressively corroding form of water.
I use and recommend bottled filtered drinking water from Walmart with 20% antifreeze(=20F freeze protection) and two ounces RP Purple Ice per quart of system capacity.

Click to expand...

I read this on a different thread and was so blown away that everything i thought i knew about using distilled water in our cars was totally wrong. But it does make sense. I will be using 3 gallons of water to 1 gallon of coolant in the radiator and the same 75/25 ratio in the IC.
Dumb question, is purified and filtered water the same?? I will probably give RP Ice a try too. Jimmy, so are using 8oz in your rad and 2oz in you IC? Wish Evean's waterless coolant wasn't so expensive, I've heard nothing but great things (except its price of $45).

IllCobra said:

I read this on a different thread and was so blown away that everything i thought i knew about using distilled water in our cars was totally wrong. But it does make sense. I will be using 3 gallons of water to 1 gallon of coolant in the radiator and the same 75/25 ratio in the IC.
Dumb question, is purified and filtered water the same?? I will probably give RP Ice a try too. Jimmy, so are using 8oz in your rad and 2oz in you IC? Wish Evean's waterless coolant wasn't so expensive, I've heard nothing but great things (except it's price).

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The only real advantage Evans Waterless has over water, are boiling point and the corrosivity, which admittedly are both huge! However nothing is a better heat transfer medium than water and water with relaxed surface tension is even better.
You need to determine your present cooling system and intercooling system total fluid capacity each, in order to properly dose your systems with Purple Ice. It is important to get it as close to two ounces per quart as you can. Two ounces per quart is 8 ounces per gallon, so no, that is not likely going to enough even for a bone stock system.

Just look for the words "filtered drinking" or "reverse osmosis", and then buy the cheapest generic stuff you can find. If you have a home water treatment system that uses reverse osmosis and it does not use salt for the water softener, you can also use that.

Uhh just sayin, your a/c is probably on already, also check between the condenser and heat exchanger for restricting fins

Jimmysidecarr said:

The only real advantage Evans Waterless has over water, are boiling point and the corrosivity, which admittedly are both huge! However nothing is a better heat transfer medium than water and water with relaxed surface tension is even better.
You need to determine your present cooling system and intercooling system total fluid capacity each, in order to properly dose your systems with Purple Ice. It is important to get it as close to two ounces per quart as you can. Two ounces per quart is 8 ounces per gallon, so no, that is not likely going to enough even for a bone stock system.

Just look for the words "filtered drinking" or "reverse osmosis", and then buy the cheapest generic stuff you can find. If you have a home water treatment system that uses reverse osmosis and it does not use salt for the water softener, you can also use that.

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I think Evans also doesn't build pressure, which i assume would help prolong life on engine parts associated with cooling... Crap, i read 2 oz per gallon haha. Looks like 32oz would be what i need for the rad.

IllCobra said:

I think Evans also doesn't build pressure, which i assume would help prolong life on engine parts associated with cooling... Crap, i read 2 oz per gallon haha. Looks like 32oz would be what i need for the rad.

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Any fluid that is heated will build pressure, Evans simply does not need pressure to maintain a high boiling point, where as water does


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