[jcp123]

We put in a brand new 3-row radiator when the engine was rebuilt in '02, and it always ran at 160* (the temp. of the former t-stat) even during summer. This radiator, IIRC, was rated for the 390 big block; the original-size radiator was puny. Can't remember though exactly as I was 17 and I didn't handle the business on this car back then. When we moved to Texas, it sat for two years and we've had cooling issues ever since. Texas isn't that much hotter than where we moved from for us to be having cooling issues now, all of a sudden. So, I'm thinking that sitting for two years is what did it. I can see buildup in the rad and the coolant I flushed out when I started driving the car was a rather nasty rust tone...

The idea of taller rear gearing occurred to me, but as I'm going to run an AOD eventually with 3,50:1 gearing in the back, I don't want to swap rear gears twice. It gets a little doggy with those tall gears too, I had a '68 in high school with 2,73's and though they aren't much taller than my 3:1's in this car, it was noticibly more sluggish. If I found a good deal on some 2,80's, which was a stock available ratio in some 8" rear-end Mustangs, I might think about those, though; the guys on allfordmustangs.com and StangNet can pull 22-23mpg highway tanks with those.

bhazard, it's the original 289 block and heads, with a stock cam, but on rebuild the machine shop went ,040" over (without telling us!) and we tossed in a 302 crank since they're cheap. She displaces 308ci now.