[Ccass]

Originally Posted by 78w72

first off, thanks for the informative replies & keeping this a contructive conversation as opposed to some threads that turn into bickering matches & arguments.

i'm curious what the specs of your 462 are? & why its so hard to cool? unless this is a ragged edge, ultra high compression, hard block filled, all out race engine, im confused why it runs so hot. i'm sure you have looked into the other common factors that could make it run that hot. i recall some details of your engine & it sounds like a popular combo of pretty basic parts, it should not be so difficult to keep cool.

You are correct, the motor should not run that hot. We all know there are dozens of other factors that can lead to a hot running motor but the fact that it ran hot at idle and cooled down while moving. That is traditionally an air flow problem and not a motor problem. However, sometimes it's just not practical to pull any more air through the radiator. It's also many times not practical to try and troubleshoot what could be the REAL reason for the extra heat. Hence the reason why we highly recommend getting a big radiator to 'be safe'.

& i use one of those "marketing gimmick" small 3 row champions! with a worn out stock clutch fan! this engine would probably cool just as well with a 4 row copper/brass radiator. im confused why many people with similar & even higher power engines dont have overheating issues, yet others with similar or less power engines do & need to buy these huge radiators with dual electric spahl fans. i realize all engines/cars are different, but its interesting why some have such a hard time with cooling pretty basic engines & some don't.
Yep, and a lot of other do as well. But the fact is that those 3 row units take more energy to pull the air through the core and those 3 row units don't hold as much fluid. Extra fluid and extra air flow is ALWAYS an advantage. Again why we recommend the bigger radiator to 'be safe'. After all, we all have at least $30k in our cars. The motor and trans can easily be $10k. So why take a chance for $50 or $100 is the logic. Of course that is up to the individual. Your decision paid off for you but if it didn't and you were having issues, you'd be kicking yourself for the small amount extra to have solved the problem.

as for overheating with original copper radiators- back in the 90's, i had a 78 t/a with a mild 455, 9.5:1 6x-4 heads, comp 280 magnum cam & 3.90 gears. i was a broke teenager & had very little tuning knowledge, that car had a crappy old stock 4 row that had leaked 2 or 3 times & had solder repairs on many of the rows & all kinds of stop leak dumped into it... it was a daily driver & got raced & beat on daily & nightly... never had any overheating issues with stock clutch fan & a broken up shroud. & this was before i knew about water pump plate clearance & used a cheap no name water pump.
Every car is different. You've had good luck over the years it appears. I personally have had bad luck over the years.

One nice thing about copper/brass rads is the ability to fix them. If your aluminum rad springs a leak, you are pretty much done with that unit.

One last thing about mechanical fans vs electric; We appreciate and embrace the mechanical fan, clutch and oem shroud for most situations. In our tests, they perform just as well as electric fans. Cold Case does not push electric fans and metal shrouds. We offer them because there are other reasons why they make sense for some owners.

cooling theses cars should not be such a problem, seems most the cars i read about overheating are gto's & 1st gen firebrds or other big cars... i wonder if their radiators are not as good/big of a ddesign as 2nd gen firebirds? ive owned & built quite a few pontiac engines 2nd gen firebirds, but am just an amateur backyard mechanic & have never had the troubles i read about here. i am knocking on wood though!

It is somewhat of a mystery. Pontiac motors by design have to work a little harder to make the same amount of HP. So yes, Pontiac owners seem to experience overheating more often it seems. However, we monitor the Mopar and Chevy forums as well and a LOT of owners struggle to cool their vehicles. There's no real pattern. Guys with anemic 300 hp SB motors can struggle while huge BB motors can do fine and vice versa. At the route of the mystery is that there are MANY factors that affect the cooling of a vehicle and for the most part, owners have been solving the problem by upgrading radiators with higher capacity and aluminum as an easy, inexpensive and quick way to solve the problem.