Overheating Issues, Perplexed

[elmariachi]

Originally Posted by Rick Parker

If the gaskets were on incorrectly it would continue to heat up even more at road speed, regardless of airflow. Olddog made a good point about purging the air, you need to be sure there are no retained air pockets. If there are any threaded plugs in the water passages of the manifold you could fill there until is runs out, cap it and then continue filling at the surge tank. I'm betting on the water pump drive ratio.

Thanks for all the replies guys. One thing is for sure, I do not expect it to be one item that solves this. Rick your idea of the pulleys makes a lot of sense. If anyone know what the stock diameters were, or at least of the water pump pulley is supposed to be smaller than the balancer, please chime in here.

The head gaskets are Cometic and they are on correctly, I was there when we mounted them. If this is a head gasket issue I will be more surprised than seeing Elvis, the engine DID NOT heat up going down the road before the shroud. From the dyno day until yesterday, the engine has never broken 80-85*C going down the road. For those of you that can't convert metric on the fly, that's 175-185 F. And prior to the shroud, it would not rapidly heat up at slow speeds or coming to a stop. Once you stop, it would slowly start creeping up. This has been the MO until last weekend when it was suggested that I needed to run a shroud to assist while stopped.

I just finished draining all the coolant out, removed both hoses and ran the garden hose through the radiator. When blocking the lower exit with my hand, it filled up pretty quick also but discharges very quickly when I remove my hand. My guess, it holds 2 gallons at best, which isn't much. Doesn't seem obstructed, but this is not valid test by any means. I refilled with distilled water only and jacked the nose up to the moon and burped it again. I also realized I had installed the heater control valve when I last had the expansion tank off for soldering and I never did open the valve. So I know I had air in there. As of sunset, the volcanic action is gone with straight water at ahalf-full level in the expansion tank, but I ran out of daylight as it approached 90C/195F and I shut her down for the night.

While I had it apart I also did a little t-stat comparison on the stove top. I'll add those pics to this thread shortly with details. Interesting findings.