A friend has a new CSX 6000 car that is in desperate need of being sorted out and has asked me to assist. Car has an all cast iron 427. Some questions:
1. The car has a SPAL puller fan, the twin pusher fans and the lovely Fluidyne radiator. In this Houston heat, it can't keep itself cool idling in the drive or in stop and go traffic. Over the course of 10 minutes the temp slowly escalates past t-stat opening and just keeps on climbing until you get moving. Seems to me the radiator is not dropping the temps sufficiently. Based on my excellent success with Taurus fan on my car for 3 years that's my solution, but space is limited and installing the new harness, higher amp alternator and modding the shroud is a PITA. Have any of you engineered a simple way to shroud and retain the SPAL fan, or found a suitable commercially available shroud? I also disconnected the pushers for now and that seemed to help slow the escalation, probably because they were disrupting air flow.
2. This car has an MSD 8595 billet distributor but does not have a harmonic balancer or a timing marker.
Don't ask because I don't know. Instead it has a pulley that has the three oval slots just like my old R-code 427 FE balancer, but it has no weight ring and no timing marks, just a beefy pulley. My first thought about the escalating temps was "Maybe its running retarded," but no way to check without a friggin' balancer. Has anyone ever seen this? Seems insane to me. Owner will order a balancer tomorrow and we'll install it.
3. The horizontal access panel that sits flat behind the dash supports was not fastened in any way. Does anyone have a 4k or 6k series car that can supply pics of a clean way to latch that panel? I can drive some screws in through the carpet into the upper tunnel edges but I hate to cut corners on another guy's car if there is a proper way it should have been done by Shelby.
That's all for now, thanks in advance for any feedback.