[Formulajones]

Originally Posted by RocktimusPryme

Thanks for the post. I went on my first long 120 mile round trip this weekend. Mine runs hotter than I was comfortable with. Ambient temps around 85, thermostat is a 180*. Ran between 200 and 212 at highway cruise. More like 195* at lower speeds. But since it runs that warm at cruise I suspect if I ever got caught in hard traffic I would be in trouble. If I knew it would never get over 215 I would be fine. I just don't trust it. This is with a factory type shroud, and 19" clutch fan.

It actually dropped like 8-10* on the way home, but I got caught in the rain. Probably lowered ambient or the water splash on the radiator lowered temps.

I have a Chinese knockoff aluminum unit from Ebay. It works, but since it runs warmer than I want I wish I had spent the extra $100 and bought a cold case. Now I think Im going to go ahead and do just that. Your results make me feel better about the expenditure. I think that aluminum one I have would be just fine for a smaller engine. It almost keeps up with mine.

Ill probably wait for the next big show, in my experience Cold Case has pretty good in person show deals. Plus the Cold Case should actually have the provisions to mount the shroud which the Ebay unit doesn't.

Hey Jeremy, I think we talked about this before?

Anyway, yes Cold Case does have show deals. Back in March we had the cars (and Dad's GTO) at the Goodguys event and they were there. Had excellent deals on the Cold Case stuff as well as Pypes exhaust that tempted me to buy stuff for another project. They were also nice enough (and curious enough) to look at dad's car while we were there trying to figure out why it was running so warm. Of course we found out why later which was the purpose of me starting this thread.
Anyway, when it comes to these radiators, I like these aluminum radiators as long as they use the larger 1 1/4" tubes and have 2 rows of them. Some of the cheaper aluminum radiators fall short of this.

I've mentioned this to a few board members via email. When dad bought the Cold Case I compared it to my Griffin direct fit that I run in the Chevelle. Both cars (a-bodies) take the same size radiator. They both have 1 1/4" tubes and 2 rows of them. They both have a very tight fin count which is important for airflow. They both have nice stamped tanks that give a factory appearance and both show excellent quality tig welds, trans lines are in the correct locations with no monkey business needed there, and also important is that they have the proper raised area at the tanks for the factory rubber insulators so the factory shroud fits and functions just like it's supposed to. Many aftermarket aluminum radiators don't have this feature and it's a big turn off for me.

Bottom line, the Cold Case radiator is a nice piece, and cools dad's engine with no issues at all, matter of fact I was impressed at how cool it actually pulled the engine down. Just shows the radiator is definitely up to the task.

[70GS455]

Originally Posted by Formulajones

Hey Jeremy, I think we talked about this before?

Anyway, yes Cold Case does have show deals. Back in March we had the cars (and Dad's GTO) at the Goodguys event and they were there. Had excellent deals on the Cold Case stuff as well as Pypes exhaust that tempted me to buy stuff for another project. They were also nice enough (and curious enough) to look at dad's car while we were there trying to figure out why it was running so warm. Of course we found out why later which was the purpose of me starting this thread.
Anyway, when it comes to these radiators, I like these aluminum radiators as long as they use the larger 1 1/4" tubes and have 2 rows of them. Some of the cheaper aluminum radiators fall short of this.

I've mentioned this to a few board members via email. When dad bought the Cold Case I compared it to my Griffin direct fit that I run in the Chevelle. Both cars (a-bodies) take the same size radiator. They both have 1 1/4" tubes and 2 rows of them. They both have a very tight fin count which is important for airflow. They both have nice stamped tanks that give a factory appearance and both show excellent quality tig welds, trans lines are in the correct locations with no monkey business needed there, and also important is that they have the proper raised area at the tanks for the factory rubber insulators so the factory shroud fits and functions just like it's supposed to. Many aftermarket aluminum radiators don't have this feature and it's a big turn off for me.

Bottom line, the Cold Case radiator is a nice piece, and cools dad's engine with no issues at all, matter of fact I was impressed at how cool it actually pulled the engine down. Just shows the radiator is definitely up to the task.

Vertical tube spacing, and total number of tubes also directly affects cooling capacity. Some of the cheaper ones do not measure up in this area and performance suffers.

Sent from my SM-T817V using Tapatalk

[RocktimusPryme]

Originally Posted by Formulajones

Hey Jeremy, I think we talked about this before?

Anyway, yes Cold Case does have show deals. Back in March we had the cars (and Dad's GTO) at the Goodguys event and they were there. Had excellent deals on the Cold Case stuff as well as Pypes exhaust that tempted me to buy stuff for another project. They were also nice enough (and curious enough) to look at dad's car while we were there trying to figure out why it was running so warm. Of course we found out why later which was the purpose of me starting this thread.
Anyway, when it comes to these radiators, I like these aluminum radiators as long as they use the larger 1 1/4" tubes and have 2 rows of them. Some of the cheaper aluminum radiators fall short of this.

I've mentioned this to a few board members via email. When dad bought the Cold Case I compared it to my Griffin direct fit that I run in the Chevelle. Both cars (a-bodies) take the same size radiator. They both have 1 1/4" tubes and 2 rows of them. They both have a very tight fin count which is important for airflow. They both have nice stamped tanks that give a factory appearance and both show excellent quality tig welds, trans lines are in the correct locations with no monkey business needed there, and also important is that they have the proper raised area at the tanks for the factory rubber insulators so the factory shroud fits and functions just like it's supposed to. Many aftermarket aluminum radiators don't have this feature and it's a big turn off for me.

Bottom line, the Cold Case radiator is a nice piece, and cools dad's engine with no issues at all, matter of fact I was impressed at how cool it actually pulled the engine down. Just shows the radiator is definitely up to the task.

We probably have. I have lamented for a while that I cheaped out. At the time I could see the light at the end of the tunnel after years and was doing whatever I could to make the thing come to life.

This weekend was a bit of validation from me as it was the first time I went on a highway road trip. So now I kinda know where the car stands exactly. I think Im going to bit the bullet and buy one in the future. I want to do it again when it is hotter and see how the higher ambient affects it.


I can probably recoup some of it by selling my current unit. It probably really would work fine for a motor a notch down from mine. It does a passable job even with mine. Im just scared of getting caught in a stop and go situation.



There is still a bit of mystery about why I started running 15* hotter when I went from an 18" 6 blade to a 19" 7 blade. But I have a theory on that.

One other note is I have never checked my water pump clearance. I probably should, its just more of a project than I can usually talk myself into when it might be for nothing.

[Formulajones]

We have never ever once checked any water pump clearance on any of our Pontiacs. And they all have had multiple water pump changes over the decades. Just not something I've ever worried about. Never had a hot running Pontiac that wasn't the cause of something else.
Pretty sure dad is running some type of aftermarket water pump on the car that looks stock, but is polished aluminum. Nothing fancy at all, and pump clearance wasn't checked on that one either. Don't even know if it has a decent impeller in it.

Yours is running warmer than I would prefer but I'm not familiar with your build. Usually when things are running that warm it introduces other issues, like hard hot starts, pump gas doesn't like heat and vapor lock issues set in, and if you are pushing the pump gas envelope heat compounds the threshold of being okay or not okay. Since we tend to build things on the edge here, we like to keep temps at a reasonable level. Wouldn't be as much of an issue on a weekend fun car, but some of our stuff here we also drive on a daily basis, and AZ gets pretty hot here in the summer, plus we'll take 300+ mile trips for car events so a good cooling system is a must.

[Tom Vaught]

I just went with the Common Lincoln Electric Fan and shroud and never have had an issue to date with cooling. Many have had the same result. It is Michigan and it is cooler temps here BUT.......... If you can't stand having a Ford Part on your car, (I have several), then go aftermarket. F9"TTFMyFriends. I use a "Superior Radiator" Brass Racing Radiator (out of Mt Clemens, Mi.)

Tom V.

[Formulajones]

Ford parts don't bother me. Hell we own Ford vehicles. I'm an all around true car enthusiast that enjoys this hobby without the blinders on.

[4zpeed]

The strongest manual transmission ever put in a GTO was the Ford-built HD Dearborn 3-spd.

That was standard option equipment from 65-69, to be prejudiced just sets limits.


Frank

[TAQuest]

Retired from a GM steering plant that made many parts for Fords and Toyotas. Branding is an illusion to fool people with closed minds.

I found that parts stores like Advance Auto have nice budget aluminum radiators that work great on our Pontiacs. Picked one up for less than $200 with my discount.

[72LuxuryLeMansLa.]

I bought a Cold Case for my car(daily driver) and it developed a leak two years later. I paid for another one and they shipped it. I then shipped the bad one back in that box. They confirmed the problem and refunded my credit card. It works and looks great and they have great customer service. They stand by their product.

[scott70]

Originally Posted by Formulajones

Well after much debate, parts swapping, and lots of driving in the Arizona heat, we've come to some conclusions on dads GTO. Running a 571 CI that makes 724 hp and 764 tq. He runs a 160 thermostat in it that actually starts to open at 155.
He started out a few years back running his 25 year old 4 core copper and stock shroud/clutch fan. This worked fine but would warm up a bit on the highway at 3000 rpm to about 190 degrees. All other times in slower cruising it would run about 175. This is with 85-90 degree ambient temps.

Fast forward to this year. He wanted to try a Cold Case 2 core radiator with 1 1/4 inch tubes. Along with the Cold Case dual electric fan setup. I noticed the radiator looked like a very nice piece, nearly identical to my Griffin I run in the Chevelle. Nice tight fine count, stamped tanks and good workmanship. I was skeptical of the fan setup however. Pretty boxy and flat, and mounted right up against the core. The flat portion of the shroud is only 1/4 inch from the core. I thought this might pose an issue. Driving the next few months confirmed it. With fans programmed to come on at 185, off at 175, they would never shut off. On the highway this thing would run 190-195 and slowing down on back roads to 30-35 had no affect. If we let the car sit and idle, fans full blast, after about 20 minutes it would finally pull the temps down to just below 190, but not even close to these things shutting off. We tried opening the shroud with rubber flaps, hoping that would help temps while moving but it just wasn't enough.

So as an experiment I decided to reinstall the factory shroud and clutch fan. Left the Cold Case radiator in place. As I suspected the Cold Case radiator is an excellent piece and does the job. Went for a long cruise today, ambient temp was 85 degrees. 3,000 rpm down the highway for 15 miles and the temp only got to 165, then actually settled in at 162-163 and stayed there for the rest of the highway trip. Got off the exit and cruised back roads at 30-35 miles. The first mile the temp dropped to 160, by the second mile it dropped to 155. Pulled in to pick up dinner, shut the car off and let it heat soak for 20 minutes. Mechanical gauge climbed to 175 as you would expect. Fired it back up and within 10 seconds it was back down to 155 degrees. Cruised back roads to the house for another 6-7 miles and temp actually dropped to 150 and stayed there for the rest of the trip.

More driving to follow but as it sits right now I've seen enough to convince me. The Cold Case shroud was just blocking too much radiator. The factory shroud and clutch fan is keeping the engine a solid 30 degrees cooler than before. Now dad shouldn't have to worry about engine temps as Arizona will continue to get hotter as the summer progresses.

The Cold Case fan setup may work well enough on a lesser engine, but it just wasn't cutting it here. Thought it was worth a try though. Nice product for the money. Radiator, as I figured early on, is an excellent piece and does the job nicely.

Off topic but have you run this car at the track?

[GTO JONES]

Originally Posted by scott70

Off topic but have you run this car at the track?

I have once with this motor. Going back when I get a better drive shaft made.

[JSPONT]

I recently sent my clutch fan thru my be cool radiator. The hub on the water pump broke free from the shaft and walked the fan forward into the radiator.
I will never go manual again in this car for many reasons. It is turbo charged and I have spoken to a few people about it. ( alternators break to if you do not have extra bracing). Anyway, most fan set up even in modern cars have one way valves as stated already. when you are on the highway it lets air get thru, when the fan has to work it sucks them closed.
As soon as I get some $$$ up I am buying the cold case with the fan. My car requires the 69 firebird size radiator. I had the h.d. clutch fan on it, so when get it done I will post about how the CC with the fan compares to the be cool with the clutch fan. $537 thru summit, anyone know of a better deal??

[torqhead]

Originally Posted by JSPONT

I recently sent my clutch fan thru my be cool radiator. The hub on the water pump broke free from the shaft and walked the fan forward into the radiator.
I will never go manual again in this car for many reasons. It is turbo charged and I have spoken to a few people about it. ( alternators break to if you do not have extra bracing). Anyway, most fan set up even in modern cars have one way valves as stated already. when you are on the highway it lets air get thru, when the fan has to work it sucks them closed.
As soon as I get some $$$ up I am buying the cold case with the fan. My car requires the 69 firebird size radiator. I had the h.d. clutch fan on it, so when get it done I will post about how the CC with the fan compares to the be cool with the clutch fan. $537 thru summit, anyone know of a better deal??

I hope you're not buying something similar to what the Jones' have just proven/validated is a bad idea/solution. Provide a link of what you're looking at, but if it includes the fan set up that's in the pictures Larry posted read the results.

[JLMounce]

I'm pretty curious about that flex-a-lite 295 setup myself. I currently have the factory brass HD radiator on my 69 bird with a flex fan. I don't overheat, but I specifically stay away from stop and go traffic.

Like others here on the highway it runs about 195 on a 90 degree day. That's at 3400rpm cruise. Cruising around the city at around 30-45 mph the temp drops to about 190, but as soon as you start sitting and idling temps creep and I've seen as high as 215 idling to get into a car show.

It seams like I possibly have two issues at play. 1. the factory rad probably needs a re-core (or a new rad) and 2. I have airflow or coolant flow issues at idle/low speed. The car is originally an AC car so it does have the lower and upper baffling, all of which is installed.

Wondering if the flex-a-lite 295 may help cool a bit better at low speed.

[Formulajones]

I'll go into a little more detail if it helps anyone make a decision.

First I'll say out of the dozen or so cars we play with, some of them spin 7,000 rpm, they all run mechanical fans and I've only had one that actually spun the shaft partially out of the water pump. All it did was spew antifreeze everywhere but did no other damage. This was on a BBC. I actually drove it home the additional 5 miles or so without a problem, LOL I think the fact that the water pump pulley was a dual belt deal, the belts actually kept it from coming all the way out. Changed the pump, never an issue since.

I'll go into a little more detail on dads car. He's been running this radiator and the dual electric fan setup on the car for I guess close to 4-5 months now. Since it's been on there, the car would never really cool much below 190 degrees with the fans running full blast. For comparison, before the swap, he ran a 4 core copper radiator on it that was at least 25 years old, and the stock clutch fan and shroud and even that setup would keep the engine around 175 degrees at moderate cruise speeds. Would warm up a bit at 3,000 rpm on the highway but never too hot, and would cool right back down as the car slowed down.
On this cold case deal, Those 2 12" fans are simply not enough space to let air through at speed to overcome all that flat area on that shroud. Just doesn't work. That shroud is literally 1/4 inch from the core and air coming in at 60-70 mph is just hitting a brick wall. It simply cannot turn 90 degrees towards the fans and then another 90 degrees to get out. I came to this conclusion one night driving home. About a 100 mile trip on the highway and it was already dark outside with ambient temps only in the mid 80's. The engine continued to heat up gradually until finally it was pushing 200 and dad pulled over. I got out and the fans weren't running. I came to the conclusion that I just described above, so I forced the fans to stay on during the remainder of the trip. This kept the engine around 190 degrees but never got any cooler, no matter how fast we were going. It was good enough to get us home without worry.
So we started experimenting. Tried the sensor in 3 different spots, radiator, head, front water cross over, nothing helped. Dad cut a large opening across the entire length of the bottom of the shroud. No change. Still too much flat surface. Didn't want to cut anymore as it would start to look like a butcher job. After multiple attempts and about 7-800 miles of trying to make it work, I got tired of it, pulled it off, and reinstalled the stock clutch fan and shroud to dad's surprise.

BINGO!!! 85 degrees outside and nothing but sunshine, Immediately the car ran 162-163 degrees on the highway buzzing along at 3,000 rpm for 15 miles, and actually cooled down as far as 150 degrees on the back roads cruising 30-35 mph. The difference was undeniable.

Absolutely nothing else changed on the car at all!! Even poured the same antifreeze back in it (had to pull the radiator to get that stock shroud back on)

As temps will continue to rise in Arizona we'll continue to drive it, and I can be pretty confident within reason based on our other cars that the engine temps may rise a bit more as the summer heats up, but I doubt it will be much more than 10-15 degrees and no where near any type of danger so I'm comfortable in saying I think his worries are over.

[Formulajones]

Originally Posted by JLMounce

I'm pretty curious about that flex-a-lite 295 setup myself. I currently have the factory brass HD radiator on my 69 bird with a flex fan. I don't overheat, but I specifically stay away from stop and go traffic.

Like others here on the highway it runs about 195 on a 90 degree day. That's at 3400rpm cruise. Cruising around the city at around 30-45 mph the temp drops to about 190, but as soon as you start sitting and idling temps creep and I've seen as high as 215 idling to get into a car show.

It seams like I possibly have two issues at play. 1. the factory rad probably needs a re-core (or a new rad) and 2. I have airflow or coolant flow issues at idle/low speed. The car is originally an AC car so it does have the lower and upper baffling, all of which is installed.

Wondering if the flex-a-lite 295 may help cool a bit better at low speed.

It's interesting you experience the slow speed heating up issue. As I mentioned and I'm sure you read, dad's is just the opposite, slow speed driving and even idling still the engine gets almost too cold. When I saw 150 degrees at 30 mph cruising I giggled. lol
Sounds like lack of air flow in your case JLmounce, possibly that flex fan just doesn't pull much air.
The stock 7 blade clutch fan on dads car pulls so much air, just sitting idling in the garage I could hold a piece of paper about 6" away from the front grill, and let it go, and it would suck it right up tight against the grill. Those dual electric fans wouldn't do that. I got a chuckle out of that too and was having fun with it.

Wouldn't be all that difficult for you to experiment with a good heavy duty clutch and 7 blade stock fan and swap it on to see how that does for you.

I was talking to a couple other members here and if we were to try the electric deal again, the Flex-a-lite 295 is the setup we are looking at. Pulls 4600 cfm of air and should suffice in low speed conditions, and the design of the shroud and larger fans should do a much better job of letting air through at speed. But at this point dad's is running so cool now I'm thinking I don't want to mess with it, lol He can afford to give up 20 HP. Actually I've been trying to find ways to slow him down so I don't have to spend so much money to catch up

[Steve C.]

Curious, do the different mechanical water pumps vary much ? Increasing the flow rate at slower speeds and idle helps knock the temperature down.


.

[Formulajones]

Originally Posted by Steve C.

Curious, do the different mechanical water pumps vary much ? Increasing the flow rate at slower speeds and idle helps knock the temperature down.


.

Steve,
Dad runs a PRW water pump on his. They are said to be larger shaft, cast impeller and flow more water blah blah blah. I don't know if I put a ton of faith in all that but it is what it is. I think dad liked it because it was polished One thing I'll say and I mentioned it before, I don't clearance any of the pumps, whether remain or new, on any of our Pontiacs, just not something I've worried about. Any warm running Pontiacs we've had have always been the cause of something else, as in this case.

Flowcooler is another brand, and I've had my fair share of bad experiences with those 25 years ago, more than once. You know Ron Davis and his excellent reputation with cooling systems. He and I had a brief discussion about Flowcooler at the last Goodguys event here about how and why I didn't like them, and he has absolutely nothing good to say about them at all. Just ask him about FLowcooler and he'll give you an ear full LOL.

[Steve C.]

I know Rod Davis expresses his concerns about flow rates below 2500 rpm in conjunction with very high ambient temps. But that was not application specific in conversation.


.

[Dick Boneske]

On my wife's and my '64 GTO's, I run a stock clutch fan and no shroud, stock 4-core radiator, 160 degree Delco thermostat. Both cars have a stock water pump with cast impeller. The engines are 434 (.040" overbore 428's) with '64 Tripowers.

I remember when I ordered a '64 GTO new with 3.90 gears and no options except 4 speed, metallic brakes, and a radio. The car was delivered with no shroud and an aluminum clutch fan. My friends told me how it needed a shroud, etc.

We never have an overheating problem as so many of you describe. I've seen flex fans, electric fans, non-clutch steel fans, shrouds, huge radiators, etc. on cars that overheat. I can't explain why ours never have a problem.