Quote:
Originally Posted by goatcheese
About 2 months ago I finally discovered that I had the pos felpro head gaskets that are way to big for the Firebird 350 that we have, they claim to work okay for a 326-455..??, which was causing my overheating problem. I bought the very expensive Cometics, changed them and it's still overheating after idling for 10 min.
Yes, I checked the water pump clearances, changed thermostats, ran without a thermostat, checked timing, etc... But, like a dumbass, I didn't get the heads checked by a machine shop for warps/cracks. Was hoping to get dad's surprise Gto to him by Thanksgiving. Oh well, guess I ought to focus on my new business for now. If it takes off like I hope, I'll put a 428 or 455 in it and use this 350 in a rat rod or something. I have no doubt that this originally was caused by felpro's claim of the gaskets. It ran great, cool for hours until they blew out. I'm thinking about contacting them for costs of labor and engine damages.
Jray, did yours run good even with the valves set too tight? I'm pretty sure I didn't set them too tight but worth a look.
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My car seemed to run just fine plenty of power started good. After breaking 2 rocker studs and bending a few pushrods up like pretzels then talking with Jim at butler performance I went with the 7/16 rocker studs and a new set of poly locks. I adjusted the rockers exactly as he instructed me to and I am pretty sure on the original build we
ightened them way more. When I tried to start it up couldn't get it to crank and started thinking ok what now. Well for some reason the timing popped into my head so I advanced it a little and it hit and stumbled a little so I advanced it some more and it went to running fine. I got the timing gun out and realized I was about 25 degrees initial way to much so I backed it down to 15 initial and it seemed to like it. Went for a drive that would normally got it up to around 200 and it sat on 160 until I stopped at a red light where the temp slowly claimed. With only an electric fan I expected this though usually it never really cooled back down once I started moving again but now it is. Hopefully this has been the silver bullet I have been looking for and my cooling issues are now resolved. I hope all of the things we have been over in this thread are helpful to someone else like they have been for me . Thanks again to everyone for your thoughts and wisdom in these areas.
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