Hey all this is my first time posting on this forum. I have a problem with a 350 Chevy motor overheating, reading other posts you guys have a lot of interesting suggestions that might help my situation.

Here is the scoop in 2001 I had a 350 Chevy put in my 1991 Mazda B2200 pickup you ask why well it’s a show truck and I needed it to look pretty. The motor is bolted to a turbo 400 trany and cooled by a 4 core Griffin aluminium rad with dual Flex-a-lite fans. Also I swapped out the rear end for a Ford 9 inch to get the right gear ratio.

When the motor was built it ran around 180-190 degrees but it was set very rich for break in time. The next few years I didn’t drive it much because it always would run around 220 degrees and I got tired of keeping the heat on in the summer, did I mention I only drove it in the summer. Now I can only drive it at night on those cool summer nights or with the heat on even that gets the temp up to 220-225 degrees.

I have changed the thermostat several times trying different ones to see if this would help and I ended up just running an open thermostat because nothing else worked. In 2002 I had the shortie Hedman headers wrapped but then was told about horror fire stories so I took it off. In 2005 I got the headers ceramic coated but didn’t notice a drop in temperature.

This is what I know the trany should have been a 700 to give me the overdrive also because of the custom truck the front bumper cover is not letting that much air through the front. Before I go and change the trany and front end of my truck I want to know if there is anything else I can do to try to keep this motor cool.

I appreciate the comments.

 

195* is the usual thermostat for a 350 . Header wrap shouldn't make the engine run hot and the wrap is designed to withstand the temps of headers-its either kevlar or a fiberglass. Dumb question-Do you have the thermostat in right side up? Obviously you're getting heat so it sounds like its flowing ,so the water pump and thermostat should be ok. A rich engine usually runs cooler too. You could look into a hi flow water pump - try Jegs or Summit .

 

im not sure if this will help , but my truc kwas doin the sam .. i use a reverse style water pump and it totally cooled it down ..it has the heater hose in the top of it ... your rad is definatly big enough , other things like timing , or intake manifold leaks will do it to

 

Are you sure you have suffecient air flow to the radiator??? What temp to your fans turn on?

 

deffinately sounds like there is poor air flow to your radiator