I'm conplexed. Car running great for several weeks (gasp) when it starts to misfire after a little impromptu parking lot mini-autocross laps (what, you don't carry cones?). So I nurse it home, one of my magna-core sp wires has jumped off again. These things just don't hold on very well. I've pulled 'em and pushed back insulators to get access so I could squeeze the clip with pliers, so its better now, but not what it should be. Anyway, as I nursed it home, it seem to get hotter than usual, but I attributed that to the 3 plug power. This weekend I cleaned and reset my weber jets to a fairly rich idle condition, changed the oil & filter, checked the cooler for debris, retarded the timing about 2 degrees, then went for a drive. Once again it got hot pretty fast and kept getting hotter. Dis dis for it, but I only have the stock guage, but it got 2/3 through the white zone before I got home. A couple of months ago I drove 1600 miles on this setup (jet settings, dizzy advance, etc) and NEVER got past 1/2 into the white, even though it was 15 degrees hotter outside. What could cause this? Tomorrow I'll try to do compression check. I was wondering if my Mallory distributor could throw a spring. I changed the springs with a Mallory kit. If one broke, or popped off, i guess the advance would be WAY up, which would kinda be the way my situation is- good performance, but too hot - and higher revs are even hotter. I'f I have time and inclination tonight, I'll pull the distributor. Any ideas? Anybody been there? It all happened so suddenly. My oil pump is almost new, like the distributor. At first I thought it was lean-mix related, but now I just don't kow. HEP ME HEP ME!

check your oil temp sending unit. mine started doing the same thing before, then i took it to a friends house, and put it up on the lift, and used one of the battery powered temp testers. it was well in the good temp range.

Mmmmmm....Scott...maybe it's just the "hot nut(s)"
behind the steering wheel?

Lisa

If you loose an advance spring the total advance will stay the same since usually the weight has a shoulder it stops against at full advance. That should not cause the over heating problem. What type of gas are you running, what is total advance and what is the A/F ratio at the RPM range you are driving it at. When I had my stroker 4 cylinder, we had the timming set about 4 degrees less than it should have been, the head temps at full throttle were 400 degrees and oil would run about 220 with a big front cooler. When we finally advanced the timming where it should have been all along, heands went to 300 and oild cooled off to 200 at full power. I also make sure the A/F is about 12.5 to 13 to 1.

Barry-
Wish it were so, but I can tell some things are getting hotter than than they should.
Lisa-
Wish you were here, but some things just run hot all the time.
John-
Got no A/F meter, so I dunno. Timing wass at 10 degrees static, 24 max. I'm gonna check the total advance with a timing light tonight. Maybe that set screw that I had to reset to lock max advance has come loose.

Anyone-
does oil cooler sometimes plug up? Is an oil pump failure always total, or can there be partial loss?

Yes, an oil cooler can plug up, I have seen that a few times on type 1 motors. They also have foam to seal the airflow from going around cooler that blows out, but as I understand it, type 4 uses different setup for that. Try taking a candy thermometer and touching it to the drain plug when it is running hot(shut it down and measure right away). Don't burn yourself and for God's sake don't let your wife see her using her candy thermometer in the garage.

and the answer is:
paper towel in the fan (duh).

Not like I hadn't thrust my arm down in there when the engine was SCREAMING HOT! Of course, then I didn't feel around the impeller. So I check it again after determining the timing was OK and the oil pump was OK, and there it is....