my 350 sbc runs around 200 degrees usually, I have only taken it for max length of drive so far around 20 minutes. The temp guage is in the intake though not the engine. Does 200 seem to hot and if so what is the usual temp for an sbc?
what year 350?is it carborated? does it get hotter than that? aluminum heads? typically alum headded sbcs run 180-190 cast heads a little higher over 230 and watchout. lower temps you will not get hot enough to get an efficiant burn.
carborted, 1977 350, and the reason I ask mainly is because I have driven my car twice for like 20 min but the over flow bottle i put on has filled up both times, never over 200 degrees that I can tell
230 is over boiling... 212 is boiling point... I heard 210 is ideally the best cause the engine burns all the fuel.
To answer your question 200 is just fine. To further complicate things. Is your over flow bottle setup to allow the system to pull the overflow back into the system? BTW you can't accuratly state the boiling point with out knowing first what pressure the cap is. The boiling point will raise appx. three degrees for ever pound of pressure. I.E. if you have a 12 Lb cap the boiling point is now some where around 236 degrees.
anti-freeze raises the boiling temperature, and pressurizing it raises the boiling temperature even more. If you have an overflow tank, but not a coolant recovery system, you need to leave some air in the radiator to allow for expansion, usually an inch or so on a top tank radiator, or about 3 inches on a cross flow. the difference between an overflow tank and a coolant recovery system is that the coolant recovery system ****s the coolant back into the radiator as it cools off.
Save your self alot of grief and try a different temp gauge. Many a guy has fought heat problems that didn't exist. There are alot of cheap gauges out there even worse there are more inacurate gauges out there. Safest bet is to pick up a hand held infra-red temp unit and get a bunch of readings from the block, heads, intake, etc. I have myself been fighting a a low oil pressure in my flattie only to find my gauge is 15 PSI off.
good point jrblack30. make sure you use mechanical and not elec temp guage. I go with all mechanical no elec guages
I picked up an issue of Car Craft about eight or nine years ago and I remember reading that you want to run your engine as hot as possible without ruining parts/causing damage. Reason being if your engine runs too cool then energy is just being wasted by trying to make it hotter again. Now I don't really know if this makes sense in the "law of conservation of energy" and thermodynamics sense, or if it was just some random tongue-in-cheek joke that was thrown in as they have been known to do in that magazine.
HEH HEH Don't I know it!! The temp gauge in the Buick would peg on "H" after a few stop lights and really had me worried. Tried all kinds of different stuff. Finally I put a new numbered temp. gauge in there (not just "C" or "H") only to find out that "H" was really only 185 degrees.
If your cooling system is indeed set up as a coolant recovery system your cap may be defective. Your cap may be failing to hold pressure.
There's a balance between efficiency, performance, wear, and emissions. Usually 190-200 is the sweet spot.
Depends on year of the engine and it's use. In the 60's and 70', we ran our cars with 160 thermostats. My cars (55-68) Chevys never ran over 180-190. However, later model engines were designed to run hotter. A friend of mines engine was designed to run at 210-220. It has aluminum heads. A new corvette, the thermostat doesn't open till about 260-270. With the closed coolant recovery systems in todays cars, then can run hotter. Hotter means more efficient and less polluting. My Dodge truck runs at 200 but my hot rod runs a 175. My G***er runs at 185.
I don't think they run an antifreeze water mix. I'm pretty sure they run straight propolene-glycol which has a much higher boiling point of 188.2 C or about 371 F.
yeah I think I am ok the antifreeze/water is about 1in below the top when cool so I think it is ok. I will keep an eye on it, poss. put a fan on it.
yeah but for every lb of pressure in a cooling system it brings the boiling point of coolant up 7 degrees. combustion chamber heat will be higher than that if you run too cool your fuel wont burn efficently if you run too hot you can get preignition in the intake. 200 isnt too hot but its too close for comfort it should run around 185-190.
Just incase anyone wants to know I just made a long 3hour trip in my car. All i did was change the thermostat to a 160 and switched to a flex fan, made sure the antifreeze was mixed 50/50 and now she runs right around 170 when I stop it might hit 180 but I am loving it.
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