[DeTomaso] 1972 detomaso pantera cooling system

JDeRyke at aol.com JDeRyke at aol.com
Wed Sep 8 00:57:07 EDT 2010


In a message dated 9/6/10 9:53:08 PM, davidabell at worldnet.att.net writes:

> A non-trivial amount of the cooling system's ability to shed heat will be 
> lost if coolant is diverted from the heater core and allowed to freely 
> circulate internally.....IMHO, it's much better just to block off the heater 
> ports completely.....
> 
Yes- perhaps 20%, and the Pantera -even with an aftermarket radiator- does 
not tolerate that much extra hot water. One of the simplest ways to fix this 
is to buy an aftermarket water pump that has no bypass port cast in. Then 
the recirculation problem goes away and you're free to run any Ford or Chevy 
thermostat. Weiand's 351-C pump does this, but not all are built without 
bypass ports. I've also seen guys tap the bypass port inside a pump for a pipe 
plug. 
For those concerned about warm-up time, for comparison on our street 
Pantera I have removed the bypass with a Weiand pump, blocked the exhaust gas heat 
passage thru the intake manifold, removed the brass ring under the 
thermostat & run a non-Cleveland thermostat, and removed the heat stove attached to 
a stock air cleaner. All these are parts of the stock warm-up system and 
cost a little power. In very cold weather (20-30 F degrees), it takes about 3-4 
minutes at fast idle before the engine will accept much throttle and a full 
10 minutes before the oil temp gauge comes off the mark and things seem 
normal. It can be carefully driven after 5 minutes. In warmer weather, warm up 
times are shortened but are never fire-up-&-drive. 
So if fire-up-and-drive-immediately is your style, don't remove this stuff. 
Spit-backs and backfires thru the carb will rupture a Holley power valve, 
can catch foam air cleaners on fire and bend throttle plates which then 
'mysteriously' changes your idle and is hard to diagnose later. FWIW- J DeRyke



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