FE Cooling issue

[Bill Bess]

Patrick is correct, timing first, check operations with infered gun, themostat with small by- pass hole. Buy a ford Taurus fan & shrold (2=speed factory fan) this fan has fixed numerous cobra heating problems.


Check out some of the entries regarding heating problems, good luck
Bill

[undy]

Another thing...

A lot of aftermarket and custom wiring harnesses as well as undersized alternators aren't up to the task of handling the high amp fan(s) needed to cool a hot FE. I'm running the Taurus 2 speed fan/shroud on mine and it needs 40 amps to keep it running. I've run #8 wire for the fan circuit, fused at 50 amps. I was getting 10.5 volts to the running fan with 12.5 volts from the alternator using the "fan circuit" in my Painless Wiring harness.

BTW... I went with Griffin's "800 hp" radiator, twin 1 1/2" tubes. It made a big difference over my old Griffin with the twin 1 1/4" tubes.

[elmariachi]

Originally Posted by Bill Bess

Patrick is correct, timing first, check operations with infered gun, themostat with small by- pass hole. Buy a ford Taurus fan & shrold (2=speed factory fan) this fan has fixed numerous cobra heating problems.

x2 on the timing suggestion. You give that 427 36* total timing at 2500 rpms and you'll feel like you just got another 100 horsepower in your seat.

[951mat]

Thanks for all the replys. I did find my dyno sheets and that showed 32 degrees timing for max power, not 28 like I thought. I advanced to 32 with little to no change. I never have believed my laser temp gun, but threw that out there anyway. I did put my temp sender in a coffee cup of hot water with a thermometer and it seems to be fairly accurate. I did boil the thermostat and it opened as advertised at ~180. I pulled 2 plugs that look good (not lean) but will look at others. Will keep you posted.

[951mat]

I'd like to think this is a simple fix as it usually is, but here's another observation. After starting my car in the garage, the temp start to build very quickly. I bet within 5 minutes, my gauge is reading 180. 10 minutes pushing 200 and increasing. At highway cruising speeds, it stays right around 200, but if I give it a burst up to 90+ mph, I can see an almost immediate 10-15 degree increase on the temp gauge. It then cools to 200ish again after a couple of minutes. I'm not loosing any coolant. Could that be a sign of a slight exhaust leak finding its way to a water passage. Maybe I should retorque heads?


Mat

[vettestr]

Hats off to the collective wisdom available here on the site. I know I leaned on the things being done as a sanity check and a few new tricks too. I was able to get 540 inches to live on the t-stat in Phoenix traffic at 110+ outside, but it took some work.

The Lincoln/Taurus 2 speed fan and posts by Elmariachi helped push me over the goal line. It does pull a few amps on high speed but I had plenty of power to spin the alternator after I kept her from overheating.

It sounds like you are close to meeting the cooling needs but still a little short. Try rolling up a couple of beach towels and prop open the hood a few inches. Place the towels under the hood near the windshield and take a test trip down the road. If allowing a little more air through the rad. and out of the engine bay drops the temp a few degrees then you know you just need more air flow.

[patrickt]

Originally Posted by vettestr

Try rolling up a couple of beach towels and prop open the hood a few inches. Place the towels under the hood near the windshield and take a test trip down the road. If allowing a little more air through the rad. and out of the engine bay drops the temp a few degrees then you know you just need more air flow.

If you do this, just to be on the safe side, fasten your hood down with some twine or something. We had a local Cobra Club member have his hood go sailing off his car after he forgot to turn the hood handles to the "closed" position and then took her out on the interstate for a fast run.

[elmariachi]

Originally Posted by vettestr

The Lincoln/Taurus 2 speed fan and posts by Elmariachi helped push me over the goal line. It does pull a few amps on high speed but I had plenty of power to spin the alternator after I kept her from overheating

Sidebar story on that:

My Mexican reman'd 100 amp 1-wire alternator resisted that amp-sucking fan since day one (late 2009). The guy that rebuilt it warned me the 3G old-style alternator would maybe make it a year pushing that fan in Houston heat. So we are out in the God-forsaken desert expanse of West Texas this last April for the Big Bend Open Road Race and sure enough, voltmeter starts showing 9 volts. I called el Jefe and told him to FedEx me another. Alternator showed up the night before the race. The housing was clocked wrong so we used the old one to confirm we could disassemble and re-clock without issues. In the process, the brushes and guts fell out of the old one onto the floor of the trailer, serving as a stern warning. No biggie. But in the process of slightly separating the new one to rotate the housing, I pulled too hard and it came apart. Houston, we have a problem: Springs and bits and pieces of brushes everywhere.

My HCC buds helped me keep my cool long enough to figure out that we had a good top brush from the old alternator and a good bottom brush from the new one. Perfect. But how the hell do you keep the spring-loaded brushes in place inside the holder so you can re-stab the aramature? (Visualize heads and asses being thoroughly scratched while sucking on many cold beers.) Then the FE gods arrived. Two guys I didn't even know from Waco, TX running a Cobra and steeped in all things Ford and FE walked up and said "Oh yea, you gotta have a paperclip for that." "A paperclip?" Yep. Fifteen minutes later it was all back together, on the car and pumping 14+ volts. Now how the hell lucky is THAT? 10PM in the parking lot the night before the race, dazed and confused, about to eat $2500 in expenses and miss the race, then a guy with the right answers walks up.

Morale of the story: Get a big frigging alternator. And thanks to Ted Eaton and Jody Orsag for bailing my Okie butt out of a jam.

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