Quote:
Originally Posted by 68 Firebird
...tried 8" crank pulley, but not enough
clearance from subframe. too close for comfort. Gerry
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It is really close to the cross member, but '68 Firebird A/C cars came with the 8" bottom pulley. Ours looks to have less than a 1/4", but hasn't scraped. I'd suspect engine mount condition would affect the final distance.
A few comments reading through the thread. I also found equal cooling between the 19.5" 7-blade flex fan and the 19.5 7-blade clutch fan with the 2797 fan clutch -- but the noise from the flex fan was too much for me. I still have the flex fan on the shelf, and if my hearing gets much worse, it will be an option.
Tested water pump pulleys down to a 6", and each time the pulley got smaller the cooling got better. Also, have tested and found that not having a thermostat runs as cool as either a good thermostat or modified ring restriction. Maybe Chevy needs some sort of restriction, but haven't seen this with a Pontiac engine. We've also observed that a properly working thermostat doesn't add to engine temps either - so no reason to not to run one on a street car.