45 Cruiser club truck with 350 Chevy

[Disco Gofer]

What temp should the 350 sit at while potting around the forrest on mild tracks and whats the max reading it should not pass when cranking it through holes etcx. I just want to make a quick reff. mark on the dash so I can see. I did a bit of Googling on the US sites and they say 97.7 and 104 deg C max. (converted from F)
I moved my rad to the back cause of the mud blocking the Cruiser rad and fitted an alu Ford Explorer 5.0 V8 with an electric fan and it idles all day 86 odd deg and when giving stick for a while goes to maybe 92 deg.

[SMOKEY]

Hi DG, the 350 V8 boys will jump on board with there answers but this is general rule of thumb. 100deg C is boiling, what stops an engine from boiling is the pressure cap, every 1 lbs of pressure you raise the boiling 3deg so a 15 lb pressure cap takes the boil point to 145 deg so running the engine in the 90 to 105 deg range is acceptable.

SOME THINGS ARE BETTER HOT THAN OTHERS,

FITZY.

[mudlva]

i ran my 350 with a 72d themrostat and electric fans come on at around 80d

cooler the motor the more horsepower but less econormy hotter the motor the reverse

i work on a therory that if she starts a little cooler then the overheating margin is greater thus giving me more time to thrash the living whatnot out of the poor girl

you should be looking at pulling the pin at around 95d and turning her straight off before 98d

all temp in degrees celious i have never been able to work out the other

just what i do anyways

[muddyhilux]

i aim to keep it as low as possible,im still having heating probs at the moment,cruises around 85-90c.not that its a good thing but mines hit 115c a couple of times and heads are ok for now.obviously i try to avoid that but it has happened in the heat of the moment / big hills / mud etc

[NJV6]

Hi DG, the 350 V8 boys will jump on board with there answers but this is general rule of thumb. 100deg C is boiling, what stops an engine from boiling is the pressure cap, every 1 lbs of pressure you raise the boiling 3deg so a 15 lb pressure cap takes the boil point to 145 deg so running the engine in the 90 to 105 deg range is acceptable.

SOME THINGS ARE BETTER HOT THAN OTHERS,

FITZY.

What smokey said, engines are designed to run at that temp, cooler and your oil isn't at its optimum etc not to mention efficiency, considering our engines are horrifically inefficient!

[mudlva]

that might be the case with the modern engine but a goodold sbc its not to important
every body that i know who is running a sbc use 20/50 and we all run them cool
oil preasure is important but in equal measures in not letting thing cook herself either
the circuit racing lads that i know run at around 88d but they dont have the same shit that we have to get over or through

but hay all to their own

[007]

My v8 is a little newer the factory fan comes on just over 90. Im no enginear but I try to avoid large temperature veriation. As dont think that is good for engine.

[tow99]

It depends on the motor really. Alloy heads dont last very long up over 100 degrees C but aim for before 84-87 degrees normal and no more than 95 when pushing it hard with alloy heads. By no means should an engine be shut off if the temp starts rising unless there is a problem i.e blown hose as the lack of coolant flow in the motor will actualy cause the motor to over heat as the heat is conducted through the cylinder walls into the coolant which cant move to the radiator to radiate the heat absorbed to the atmosphere which equals engine damage.

[Sadam_Husain]

my gauges and shit are in Fareignheight (sp ) I think the thermostats are usually 160 or 180 F on chevys and my truck usually runs around that temp if its not doing much work and in cooler tempeture. How hot it gets depends on how much work its doing, how much air flow the radiator is getting, how full of mud the radiator is and what the outside air temp is

[mudlva]

By no means should an engine be shut off if the temp starts rising unless there is a problem i.e blown hose as the lack of coolant flow in the motor will actualy cause the motor to over heat as the heat is conducted through the cylinder walls into the coolant which cant move to the radiator to radiate the heat absorbed to the atmosphere which equals engine damage.

ah yes very right you
i negeletd to mention that we run the craig davies water pumps so when i kill my motor the water pump and fans are still running this gets the temps down pretty fast

[muddyhilux]

ah yes very right you
i negeletd to mention that we run the craig davies water pumps so when i kill my motor the water pump and fans are still running this gets the temps down pretty fast

much involved with the davies water pump?heard they need a controller?already running craig davies fan and its awesome but yeah.you think the matching pump may help me out some more?

[mudlva]

ah yes very right you
i negeletd to mention that we run the craig davies water pumps so when i kill my motor the water pump and fans are still running this gets the temps down pretty fast

much involved with the davies water pump?heard they need a controller?already running craig davies fan and its awesome but yeah.you think the matching pump may help me out some more?

mint pumps when they run right i think i had a bunch of two from a bad batch at a guess

anyways real easy in fitting them just install inline on the bottom hose cutting the hose to suit fitting of the pump

either drill extra holes into the thermostat to allow the pump to move water or as i have fitted the lpg off a dedicated outlet before the thermostat then the presurised water is discharged via the lpg heat exchange

i found the pump regulater just a pain in the bum and got rid of it completey and hard wired the pump to the ignition fuse system, there is no reason why you should ever need to turn the pump off so forget about any switching system. if you need the pump off whilst doing maintanance then pull the fuse and leave a nopte or similar on the dash.

anyway moving on...
i regulate the temp useing an adjustable thermo switch to turn the fans on and off CD do this switch that you install into the top hose going into the radiator, they work mint and handle a shit load of abuse

there you go what a story....