Engine Rebuild- cooling, header & oil questions

Treachery

Founding Member
Jun 9, 2002
147
0
17
Hello!

It's been a LONG time.. about 3+ years.. since i have been on this board. Life has thrown me a few spitballs but i'm still surviving. :nice:

I blew a gasket more than year ago and my car has been sitting the garage ever since. Given the age, mileage and the Vortech SQ-Trim on my '93 Mustang GT, i decided to have the engine rebuilt with a kit from DSS Racing. My Mustang can be considered a daily driver.

1) The driver-side head gasket blew at the #5 cylinder (no compression). As a consequence, the header was discolored. I have 1 5/8 JBA headers with titanium coating. Even with the titanium coating the header tube was discolored. Can this header be reused? or Should i replace it? These headers are expensive and i'm on a budget.

2) Since the engine is being rebuilt, are there anything in regards to engine cooling that I should have done? When my Mustang was running, i've had engine cooling issues because of the supercharger, especially if the weather is hot. I already have installed a Fluidyne radiator, a dual fan radiator which is on all of the time, a 180 degree temperature guage and a Edlebrock water pump. I am still running the stock temperature gauge but i think that it's good enough to give a ballpark figure.

3) Lastly, i had issues with oil leaks. Before blowing the gasket, the oil pan was wet towards the rear. I had the oil pan gasket replaced and shortly thereafter, the oil pan was as wet towards the rear, again. In this rebuild, I am having the oil pan gasket replaced yet again and i'm having the oil pump replaced with a high flow model from Ford. I can not use a breather cap at this time because of the strut tower brace. The brace runs directly over the oil spout, of all places.

Thanks for your input. It's great to be back in this forum, again.
 
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Headers should be fine to re use. The super charger should have 0 bearing on how hot your engine runs, you probably had other issues there, like a blown head gasket. As far as the oil leak, you will be starting out w/ all new seals on the new engine so you should be fine there as well. You do need to; however, vent the crank case some how.
 
maybe what was leaking was the rear main seal??? see that alot. cooling. i have a 3 core radiator, edelbrock hi flow waterpump, and i run a 180 therm. car never runs hot. but i run a heavy duty clutch fan that runs 100% of the time. im not sure about the header. im sure if you got it vatted and cleaned itd be fine.