Great additional information.
I agree that the water jacket in these stovebolt blocks can get pretty cruded up. I cannot believe how much gunk I flushed out of the block in my ‘37 Master coupe. We can only assume they cleaned the truck block decently when it was rebuilt. Except I am leery of assumptions like that.
In fact the cooling system performance of that car is our baseline. That 216 has a stock radiator, 180 degree thermostat, and 13 degrees advance. Even on 90 degree days I never see over 190 when idling at a light. Most of the time it barely runs at 180. I expect the thermostat is a little off and is opening early. The temperature gauge in the car agrees with my infrared temperature gun.
We’ll see what we learn this weekend.
