Hey all,

Is it nomal for the engine bay to get warm to the point where you can feel it in the carpet in the footwell? I'm thinking (read: hoping) that it's just the result of the exhaust manifolds' heat warming the huge steel inner guards and the resulting hot air circulating from that.

There's nothing I can see that would suggest the car is overheating, the coolant in the reservior isn't bubbling mad or anything.

That's the one and only thing I don't like about my new baby - no temperature gauge! I find it a bit unnerving, especially on a 30+ year old car.

BTW, the car's only been driven on very short trips as it was still unregistered, hopefully I'll have it back and on the road for the weekend.


Cheers
Craig aka KiwiCadi

do you have any loss of power

second do you have a cat on

look under the car at the cat see if it is glowing red

firewall should prevent heat from the manifold from coming back

are there any holes in the fire wall

No loss of power that I can feel.

Car has a cat, but that is being removed as we speak, along with the rest of the smog gear as that is not required here in NZ.

I have looked under the car after a drive, could not see anything glowing red.

The car has just gone through compliance (which is really a super-thorough roadworthiness/safety check) so they would certainly have picked up holes in the firewall by now I would think.


Cheers

That definitely sounds too warm.

Check for exhaust manifold leaks. I had a devil of a time tracking that down. I had an overheating problem for quite some time that turned out to be hot exhaust leaking into the engine bay and raising temp of the whole engine.

Also, verify your timing and whether the vacuum advance is ported or not. Hooking the vac advance directly to manifold vacuum may reduce temps as well.

A older gentleman friend of mine purchased a 75 Eldo new in 75. He said that the exhaust manifolds would glow cherry red at night during normal operation! the dealer told him at the time this is normal!

I have never seen this on my MH which has a 75 eldo in it. I have a refrigerator temperature gage mounted on the dash to monitor underhood temps. What I observe it that the underhood temps run just slightly over ambient while traveling at highway speeds. It goes up the most when the engine is shut off and parked after a hard pull.
I run a free flow 3" exhaust with flow masters and no cat. I do not run an AIR pump or an EFE valve on the right hand exhaust manifold. I retained EGR, which I recommend since the lowering of combustion temperatures allows for additional spark advance without detonation. I also have a recurved distributor.
If you follow this formula, you will lower your underhood temps as well as gain performance and efficiency.

Another interesting observation is that on both my MH and 72 Eldo - with 74 engine run the coolest at idle! And the temps climb as speed increase. I have an engine oil temp gage on the MH and I can see the oil temp vary as a function of RPM. I can get the oil temp as high as 245F on a summer day cruising at 75 mph. the water temp is still holding at 180F and under hood temps running ambient at 87F.
I have thought about the possibility of wrapping the exhaust pipes from the manifolds on down, but there really has not been a need to do so.