Alright, here's the scenario. Around town is presumably having a bad effect on my car. It seems when I'm cruising around 0-50 margin she likes to stay below the center line of the temp gauge (which I guess is 210'sh). However, it seems as I stretch into the higher MPH region it shoots between the middle and 3rd line. I'm more than guessing thats not operating range. The car has hooker headers, 3" duals with dumps, 3500 Neal Chance Converter. The engine sposidly has only 30k'sh on it although it did sit for about a year. If I come to a stop and let it idle it'll go back down to below the middle line again. It does have an aftermarket tranny cooler, and I did route the lines through the radiator then the aftermarket cooler. I've bled the coolant system again. I've come down to 2 possibilities (to the best of my knowledge), but I'm hoping someone can help me out with this.

A. The t-stat has sludge all built up in it etc., or its just old and not opening up all the way, time to throw a bit cooler t-stat in there (which one is popular?) and re-wire the fans

B. The transmission is still somehow overheating which explains why it gets the most pissed off at higher MPH (the MPH theory could be wrong but that seems to be the only time it gets to hot), even after the aftermarket cooler which is fairly big BTW. Maybe throw a 10"/1000 CFM fan in front of the aftermarket cooler??

To my knowledge this engine does still have the stock t-stat in it. However, when I was speaking with someone in relation to the cooler T-stat they say it makes the can run richer and foul the plugs out faster etc (or maybe they were infering that from my idea of wiring the fans to the start position of the key). I'm hopefully looking for pointers here or hopefully someone has went through this and figured it out. HELP!

 

throw in a new thermostat.... its cheap and easy to do.... then go from their....if that doesnt help

 

yes but I dont want to overdue it with the t-stat, whats a popular choice? 170? 180?

 

think i have a 160* in mine -----> http://www.thunderracing.com/catalog...&vid=4&pcid=81

 

Well put a 180 in there just to see if it would help and it didnt, mother ****** does the same damn thing. Its actually considerably worse now being that at idle it will not work its way back down to the temps it was before the tstat change. I'm f'n stumped, I started to do the fan switch hookup tonight and got even more confused at that. What are the fans set at to engage with the stock PCM settings???

On a side note with hooking up the fan switch, I found the blue and green wire on the harness located just after the PCM. I accidentally didnt buy a 3 switch switch, but instead the simple on or off switch. I was going to tap into the blue wire to be able to switch the fans on high speed. I couldnt get it to work. Do you have to have the 3 switch, switch in order to get it to work right?

 

check out this web site http://shbox.com/1/fan_switch_wires.jpg or http://shbox.com/1/schematics_wiring.html hope that helps

 

i took my thermostat out... eh.. doesnt seem to be effecting it.. it always stays below 160.. my car is really wierd.. as soon as it heats up to about 180 or so.. it becomes like ****!.. so i took it off

 

wait a minute let me get this straight, your hooking up a ground to the blue/green wires? I Hooked it up to where it gives it 12v's, is that wrong?

 

Thats basically what mine does... I was always told not having a t-stat is worse for the car?

 

So yer saying it runs hotter when yer driving at highway speed, and at idle it runs cooler?? First off if it has the stock t stat then it will run 210 or hotter if you sit still long enough, that's normal for stock. The only idea I have about it running hotter at highway speed is that the air scoop under the front of the car may be missing or seriously broken up. This helps scoop air into the radiator(since there is no grille) and if it aint there it aint gettin much air while driving down the road. I had an 84 T/A a few years ago that would run hotter while at highway speed, but that was only with the A/C running. Turned out the air scoop underneath was gone, so I made one out of sheet metal, problem solved. might wanna check that out.

 

I have now done manual fan switch, 180 t-stat, and although on the ride to work it stayed at or below 210, it still acted the same way. At about 180 she starts warming up quick, I have a feeling if I'da had to drive a little bit further it would have hurt my feelings again. The only thing I can think of now is from bleeding the hell out of the system has chased all the coolant out and left only water..Other then that I'm truly stumped, I did realize its practically at any margin of speed that it will start getting warm.

 

The LS1 engine uses a coolant bypass system with the bypass valve attached to the bottom of the tstat. When the tstat opens fully, the bypass passage is blocked off. If you remove the valve, the bypass will always be open and you will run hotter than normal. If you remove the whole tstat (that includes the bypass valve) then you will run hotter.
If you remove the tstat and then block off the bypass passage, then you will run much cooler than normal.

I can't recall if the LT1-LT4 also has a bypass style tstat. If not then removing the tstat is a simple way to run cooler. If it does, then the above applies.

 

I think we figured it out, the air dam panels that mount under the radiator are not there, I need to snag a set. Somebody said there 100% positive thats it because they had the same problem, which would explain why at cruise its hotter than at idle.

 

If the air dam isn't there I'd say that's probably your problem. I've seen this happen on a lot of cars. The dam/panel creates turbulence and directs the cold air up throw your radiator as Speedluv said above.

 

ya thats what I'm hoping, it sounds given the circumstances (it cools down at idle, heats up while cruising).

 

Oh and by fat chance (not to stretch this post any further), does anyone know if the v6 TA's/camaro's have the same dams as the v8's? Might have to go junkyarding for them if I cant find them otherwise.

 

They look exactly the same. I have a '99 V6 Firebird and a '97 LT1 Camaro--IMHO they are identical. I just saw a whole used air dam setup on eBay the other day for cheap.