350 woes

[suede48]

i have done a little search here and at jolopy journal about buick 350 oil psi. woes and overheating..i bought a used 350 crate ( from napa ) with 32 k miles on it for my 48 special. as far as i can tell they used the old timing cover when they did the engine swap in the car i took it out of ( 79 century). oil psi is 60 cold then drops to 20 at 1500 rpm when warm... my bigest worry is temp. started out with a stock radiator , then went to a rad. out of a 69 v8 mustang. with electric puller fan, still over heats on days over 80 degrees... bought a alum. radiator from wizzard cooling in new york. he said it would cool a "hot " big block.. yea, its a little better, now runs 200 degrees when 85 out. well i guess my question is will a new timing cover cure these problems?? when i put in a new water pump i noticed the inside of the alum. timing cover was scored up. i dont know if a new oil pump was installed . but when i change cover i will. also some one said use a cover from a newer v6 because it has a better gasket??

[bob k. mando]

oil psi is 60 cold then drops to 20 at 1500 rpm when warm.


your oil pressure seems fine.




now runs 200 degrees when 85 out.



have you done a chem test on your radiator fluid to see if you've got a leaking head gasket?

[carmantx]

There is nothing wrong with that oil pressure at all.

You are running a electric fan? Replace it with a correct clutch fan and shroud and you might be fine. Not sure if you can do that with your 48 special though.

Most electric fans won't pull enough air. On our race car, we run a lincoln mark iv electric fan. It will pull a lot more air than the summit type fans we tried to use before.

[njlimbaugh]

How many pounds of pressure are you running in the cooling system?

[suede48]

thanks for all the info, ect. cant run clutch fan because the engine is way lower than rad. ( have a 2700 cfm elect. fan with a shroud ) have done the chem test at the local rad. shop testing for head gasket leak.nope, dont have one.have a 8 lb. cap on rad. because i dont want to blow out my 62 year old heater core.but if it needs to be higher i will change out core... the guy at rad. shop said try pinching off the bypass hose from the water pump and see if that helps with cooling. tried it with some vice grips and temp dropped 10 degrees to 200 when it is 88 degrees out side.have a seperate trans. cooler in front of radiator no cooler in rad. the car has 3.73 gears in the rear and the engine is cranking at 65 mph they are good for doing burn outs but gas milage sucks. am changing them to 3.08 as soon as i can afford some new gears. ... after i write a note like this how do i attach a picturelike the pict of my car in my profile???( old fart with a new computer )