License Plates and Hood Scoops.

Jack Jordan in Arizona put his 'Bird in a wind tunnel and found out the license plate deflected air over the hood and not into the engine compartment above 45 m.p.h. He also found that keeping the block off plate installed on the scoop allowed for better air flow in the engine compartment along with removing the R and L splash-guards from the lower rear of the engine compartment.

Just some more ideas while we are throwing them out.

http://www.arizonaclassicthunderbirds.org/files/Download/Keeping%20Thunderbirds%20Cool%20-%20Jordan.pdf

HTH

Jim
Norfolk, VA

"MABLE"
1956 Thunderbird Green / Brown Interior (ZE-XG)

"MEAN GREEN"
1956 Mainline (FG-BE)

By my arithmetic a 2" reduction in pulley diameter would be almost 27%. (based o the 7.5 to 5.5 in your inital post). In this post you have specified 7.25 - 5.25. This would be over 28%.

Mark

1956 Mercury M100
1955 Ford Fairlane Club Sedan
Delta, British Columbia

Very interesting read!

Thanks for taking the time to post that link, Pete.
It makes very good reading and offers solutions that would obviously work for our cars too.
It would suggest that the engine splash trays may also play a part in cooling by restricting airflow back to in front of the radiator at idle??
Thanks once again.

Rick - West Australia
Do Y Blocks Downunder run upside down? Gravity Sucks!!

that test was a lot of work for them/lots of good info/I see that a 12 percent smaller fan pulley help a little bit/Im not sure what the percent would be going from a 7 1/4 to a 5 1/4 but I think it would be a lot more than 12 percent

Interesting read, Pete.

I particularly noted they showed no improvement by pinching off or reducing the bypass hose. This seems to be a favorite recommendation for Y-Blocks and I've done it too. Was wondering if anyone had significant improvements after doing that, and that alone.

I did not. Mine's a 55 Fairlane 272 Fordomatic.

I have purchased an aluminum radiator and 7 blade fan and will be installing them in the spring. Hoping for some improvement if not maybe a cure...

Mine gets quite hot, but not overheating on highway, but 10 minutes at idle and you're through the roof.

I found an article that covers most of the overheating issues. This is all documented and actual data with no conjecture.

It covers a lot of ground. Pete



http://teae.org/cooling-the-tiger/

verry good info,also the chance of cavitation is magnified when waterpump turned faster than it was desighned for,

That's good feedback Thanks

tom in iowa

54 Merc wagon

54 sunvalley

Very interesting, an eye opener, thank you, Pat.