Curious what peoples opinion on temperature, back story is my 72 comet with 302 is running about 210 at highway speeds on hot days during extended trips, runs around 180-190 around town/idle. Currently has a shrouded electric fan and 180 degree thermos, stock rad. Opinions?
If it stops climbing at 210 you should be OK. Mine used to continue to climb and when it hit 220 I pulled over and let it cool down, which made for long trips. I had to stop every 20 or 30 miles. I swapped in an aluminum radiator and electric shrouded fan, and now it runs 180-190 all the time and never goes higher, which is right where I like it.
As long as it stays under 230* your fine... Actually even 250-260* will do no harm(I'd want to have a 40W oil), but I get uncomfortable with temps that high...
I recall it being said in the past that if your fan was right up real close to the radiator, no shroud was needed but if a fan was farther away, then you needed a shroud so the fan could draw the air through the radiator - we never ran any shrouds with electric fans that we used on our stock cars
While 210° won't do any harm, it does seem a bit high for highway speeds. What gears are you running and what is the RPM at highway speeds? It just seems a bit backwards, as in I would expect higher temps in town driving and cooler temps at highway speeds unless you are running at a high RPM. You say "stock radiator" but which stock radiator? 2-row? 3-row? How old is it? You shouldn't even need a fan at highway speeds. What is the ambient air temperature when it's running at 210°? Do you live in a hot climate? Are you running A/C?
