[DeTomaso] Over heating discovery
Brent Stewart
bjbstewart at yahoo.com
Sat Aug 15 14:27:35 EDT 2009
I thought I'd share an unexpected discovery. I've had some over-heating issues with #4328, nothing terrible but if i was in stop and go traffic, I'd get up and over 200 pretty quickly. Perhaps it is more of a "running hot" than true over heating, but it made me uncomfortable in either case. Freeway speeds i'd peg 180-190 (depending on ambient temp), and just idling would typically be fine. But the minute i was in a little traffic (0-20), it was like clockwork.
Well, out of pure vanity and the love of bling, I bought two new radiator caps from Summit, the nice ones made from billet aluminum (http://www.summitracing.com/parts/BSP-75120/). I took the guts out of one of them for the fill tank and put the other one on the pressure tank. The ones i removed had clearly been on the car for quite some time and were showing signs of wear / rust.
My first test was the drive to Concorso Thursday, about 1.5 hours. As we got into the Monterey area around 5:00pm, traffic was really wedgied up and we sat for about 30 minuets in my dreaded stop and go. This, historically, would have guaranteed over-heating. Much to my surprise, i pegged 190 and stayed there for the entire ride. On the ride into Concorso as well as the in traffic on the way out Friday I once again had stop and go situations with no problem that previously would have been.
And here i was saving up for a fluidyne...it cost me $40 for these fancy caps, but it may be worth a $8-$10 experiment if you are over heating a bit and haven't changed your caps in a few years...
brent
p.s. note - i do NOT have a stock radiator, and have dual Spal suckers "layed down"
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