Hot, Hot, Hot

[Jim Downard]

O.K. everyone. Here's the situation. My headers are running rather hot. Last spring I installed a 393 stroker. As per Don Scott's reccomendation, I installed a comp cams camshaft of his spec, and I'm running a performer RPM manifold with an Edelbrock 750 cfm carb. I just recently converted the old Duraspark II iginition to an MSD 6AL with MSD billet distributor. Timing is between 5-8 degrees at idle, and 30 degrees total. I do not have vacume advance. I've been told that most Edelbrocks come out of the box with nearly perfect A/F ratio. I've gone 16-20% richer in cruise and power modes and have plugs with a chocolate brown to little lighter than chocolate brown. Headers are Jet Hot coated and have been hot enough to cause the coated surface to roughen up. All valves had been adjusted as follows. I tightened rockers down until slop was out of rocker. Then went 1/2 turn more for preload. Engine has a 165 degree thermostat but has been running around 195-200 with fan on all the time. Air temps in upper 80's. At highway speeds water temps still around 180-185. Still, heat from headers makes me not want to drive the car until winter. My next step is to wrap headers with insulating wrap. Oh yea. Has a brand new double roller timing chain and the cam had been degreed. Maybe this is the way it's supposed to be. O.K. guys, give my your input.

Jim Downard