Big Chevy 3600, you need to read a little about Cold War Soviet tank engines. Big Diesels, and a nice design, but there was no apparent effort made to clean out the casting sand, at least on export models. One engine donated by the Israelis to the US for testing had 17 pounds of casting sand in the lubrication system, but it worked fine all the way to the battle field.
Your point about radiator shrouds is well taken. Most race cars have aluminum ducting to make sure that the optimal amount of air goes through the radiator, and not around it. If you look at the engine compartment of a 50's or 60's car or truck, I think you will see that there wasn't much consideration made for ducting.
How about something really simple, though? Someone mentioned heat building up in the engine compartment due to a change from cast iron manifolds to tubular headers. Hmmm. How about putting a few washers between your hood hinge mounting bolts and the hood? In a wind tunnel, or an auto show, you might be able to tell the difference, but a 1/8 inch gap between the back of a 30 inch wide hood and the windshield gives you a little less than 4 square inches for air to flow through, carrying heat with it. Also blows rain off your windshield.
Stuart, I agree wholeheartedly. Frankly, I can't imagine designing a cooling system for perfect conditions, ONLY. Especially for vehicles that may be driving 10s of thousands of miles without checking the fluid level in the radiator.
Once again, it is quite possible to run a modern engine with no cooling system whatsoever, and Top Fuel Dragster drivers do it every day, but they don't spend much time in stop and go traffic.
BTW, several years ago I read something that may, or may not, be true about running mid 60s engines with no fluids at all. When you think about it, there are a surprising number of cars/trucks that come off the assembly line that have minor errors on them, like RAM 3500 on one side and RAM 1500 on the other. These are usually gurred by a bulldozer and re-cycled, but you can see where a vehicle could come from for the 'no fluids' (except gasoline) test.
Supposedly, GM did the best with a run of 17 feet.
