dodge 440 getting hot

[kbartley]

1978 440 eng. In a 69 charger. Bored .030 with flattops. Small Hyd. cam, stock heads. Engine is fresh. Heads are not cracked, gaskets good. Street car. Manual fan, no clutch fan. Champion 4 row aluminum rad. First go round. Now has a champion 2 row. Both have same problem. Coolant only drops avg. 4 degrees as it passes thru. Any ideas? Thanks, kris

[mopar1968]

What size water pump? 6 or 8 blade? What temp thermostat?

[kbartley]

8 blade pump. 160 degree stat. I did notice that water pump I took out of the 440 to start with had a but smaller blades.

[kbartley]

Also had electric fan on 4 row radiator. Do not have it on 2 row. Temp. Still creeps up to 200.

[TheYellaBrick]

Install a Flow Kooler pump and 180 thermostat, go back to the 4 row. The coolant is not spending enough time in the radiator.

[kbartley]

Exactly, the 4row has 5/8" tubes. The 2row has 3/4 tubes. Where do I get a flowkooler pump?

[TheYellaBrick]

http://www.summitracing.com/search/brand/flowkooler/make/dodge?SortBy=None&SortOrder=Ascending

[kbartley]

Ok, maybe im missing something here. How does that pump keep coolant in the radiator longer?

[kbartley]

Nevermore I follow what you saying now.

[mopar1968]

And you need to bump up that thermostat :!: :!:

[kbartley]

Ok, I'll go with the 180 stat..

[kbartley]

Changed waterpump & went to a 180 stay. Didn't help. Now temp goes up to 200. I shut it off before it goes any higher

[TheYellaBrick]

Are these temps while in motion at highway speeds, in traffic, or standing still ?

Fan shroud ? Send pics please.

Do you have access to an IR temp gun ? We need the temps at the upper hose and also the lower hose after the engine warms up to 160-180.

Remember, the rad filler MUST BE HIGHER than the highest part of the engine where coolant circulates. If it is below, then you can get an air pocket that will drive you crazy.

What octane gas you running ?

[csx8506]

Kbarkley,
How much total ignition timing are you running? Are you sure that your temp gauge is accurate? Just some thoughts. dgh

[kbartley]

36 total timing, gets up there while sitting still, cools down roughly 10 degrees when moving. Temp gun shows 198 top hose 194 bottom hose. Radiator is a down flow aluminum 2core 3/4" tubes currently in car now. No electric fan. Other radiator was new also. 4core aluminum with elect. Fan. Top tank is above heads on block. . Im finding that with both radiators coolant Is not cooling enough. But for nomore engine then it is I don't see why it's getting warm

[kbartley]

Thinking these champion radiators are not a good choice for this project. They are flowing too fast.

[TheYellaBrick]

Fan shroud ?

[kbartley]

Yep, steel fan 1 1/4" space between fan & radiator

[zipper06]

May be irrelevant, but my sister has a 1976 Dodge 22ft mini MH with a 440 and 727 trans. She bought it from a friend of mine who owned it for 15 yrs. and used it to pull a 28ft enclosed trailer with a 3,000 lb race car.
It also has an overheating problem, if it's driven over 55mph it goes up to 215/220* if driven at 55 MPH it runs 180*. I talked to my friend who owned it, he said he never worried about it, it alway ran those temps. It scared my sister and she had the radiator rebuilt, flushed the block, put a new waterpump and clutch fan on it and notheing has cured the problem. It does have engine AC and a trans cooler mounted in front of the radiator.
It's now for sale for $2500.00 because she doesn't use it anymore.

Zip.

[roadkill2]

C'mon guys . . there's at least two, and probably three threads up here that deal with overheating, and they all "boil" down to a couple of things, either the water isn't in the radiator long enough or the radiator isn't big enough. A third might be not getting enough air through it in the right places.

On th' Mopar Motor Home. If it works good at 55 but heats at anything over, it's one of two of the above . . It ain't rocket science.

[zipper06]

C'mon guys . . there's at least two, and probably three threads up here that deal with overheating, and they all "boil" down to a couple of things, either the water isn't in the radiator long enough or the radiator isn't big enough. A third might be not getting enough air through it in the right places.

On th' Mopar Motor Home. If it works good at 55 but heats at anything over, it's one of two of the above . . It ain't rocket science.

I agree RK, if the MH was mine i would put a restrictor plate in it instead of a thermostat, just like i do with with every race car, course i run alcohol so i have more trouble getting the engine warm than cooling it off,

Zip.

[kbartley]

Same here zip, on my fed running alky

[kbartley]

I kinda feel like these radiators are more for cars running electric pumps. Maybe im wrong. Agree or disagree??? Or maybe that's just silly sounding.

[kbartley]

I was told by the owner that this 440 came out of a 78 Monaco police car. This may be true cause it does have h.p. Stamped on top of block. I know that coolant is not staying in radiator long enough. So my question is do I drop back to a 6 blade pump and or stock radiator for a 78 cop car? Hmmmm.

[TheYellaBrick]

Yep, steel fan 1 1/4" space between fan & radiator

I presume the 'Yep' was an affirmative you DO have an effective shroud ? Effective meaning it covers the entire radiator and there is no more than 1/4" - 1/2" clearance between the fan blade ends and the shroud fan blade opening.

Do this experiment, yank off the hood and see if you get the same results.

We're gonna solve this problem yet..... :D :D :D

I pull with my '77 Dodge 24' MH 440/727 no AC but with a trans cooler. Has gotten quite warm towing over some bigger hills. My brother checked it out one day and mentioned my vac advance hose was plugged into the wrong inlet on the carb. Hence no timing advance and the engine was working less efficiently and heating up. Original complaint was no power up hills. It runs cooler with MOpower !

[roadkill2]

I was told by the owner that this 440 came out of a 78 Monaco police car. This may be true cause it does have h.p. Stamped on top of block. I know that coolant is not staying in radiator long enough. So my question is do I drop back to a 6 blade pump and or stock radiator for a 78 cop car? Hmmmm.

Probably be a good place to start. I do know that the Mopar 440's have more applications than most other engines, and in those applications, the operational parameters were pretty narrow. Especially in the pursuit and RVs.

The Pursuit vehicles had huge radiators, generally, because they were designed to sit, idling, with a load on the accessory drive from the A/C, and the 185-200 amp alternators, and also for running at high speeds for long periods.

The RV's on the other hand were designed to be tucked back into a hot doghouse and run at optimum torque generating speeds, which in most 383/440's is around 2800-3200 rpm and about . . Yeah, 55 mph . . So for that turd you needed to put a lot of water through a fairly large frontal area radiator . . If you have one of those and a little radiator, you're probably gonna have heating problems . .

[kbartley]

We'll the guy at champion radiators told him in the beginning that the 4row would be plenty. So when that didn't work they told him that was a bad design & sent him a 2 row. Now both radiators only have a 22" wide core barely 18" tall. Thinking about going with the radiator that's supposed to be in front of that engine. It's got a core that's 27.5" wide. Then there's the shroud issue.. Got to find that.
I tell ya, this thing is taking up valuable shop space. Uuuuggghhhh!

[kbartley]

I really do think at this point he would sell it. Or I might ;-) butt it's painted up like the general lee. Which is kinda interesting because he is way tooo young to know the show. We both do agree that this car is cursed. I started fixing things on this car last summer. Trans, wiring, centerlink under oilpan somebody ground off half of the material to clear pan. Reworked the 440 over the winter & put it in. Might have 50 miles on it. Now this. Ahhh nevermore me im just venting. I know, I know, wrong area of the forum

[TheYellaBrick]

Vent away Man ! We ALL have had dealings with cars like this ! GAAARENTEED !
At this point I'm saying the biggest aluminum radiator you can stuff in there. Speedway has a lot of universal units available. 31" X 19" - $140 to $400

[kbartley]

We'll a 32" wide crossflow won't fit. Damn howd I get so many wide radiators?

[zipper06]

We'll a 32" wide crossflow won't fit. Damn howd I get so many wide radiators?

I didn't realize how small the radiator was, the size you have is almost a dragster size, i would go with the biggest radiator you can fit in the dog house, but you may have to make your own fan shroud. IMO you should have a radiator that can hold as much water as the blk, which the rsdiator you have cannot.

JMO

Zip.

[kbartley]

That's the the direction im headed in. I checked into these aluminm radiators he brought me. Yeah, not right for this car.

[kbartley]

I haven't posted any updates on this project because there are none. Taking a break.