quote:If you have a clean, tight, no air bubbles, working as designed cooling system, it'll work just fine. Again, hoping this comment is taken in a positive spirit, spend your money and effort on something more fun...
Amen, brother!
I feel badly for people who feel they HAVE to go to great lengths to try to improve the Pantera's cooling system, cutting this and hacking that and plumbing in this other thing. If the system is maintained properly, it's just not necessary.
Having said that, the stock fans are junk. And a stock radiator is 40 years old and well past its prime. But I've got a Dan Jones-designed 408 stroker, which put out 539 hp and 509 ft/lbs. Where I live, it routinely gets over 100 degrees F in the summertime. I have a standard (not "Phoenix") Hall Pantera stock replacement radiator, Hall Meriah pusher fans, and an Edelbrock water pump. That's it. No magic, no gadgets or swirl-inducers or anything like that. Oh, and no Hibachi-grille vents or anything else in the hood--the sheetmetal is stock. The original ducting plates which forced air into the front of the stock radiator are still present (one on each side, one on top).
My car resolutely refuses to overheat. Running down the freeway, with a Robertshaw 333-180 thermostat, it will run right at 180 degrees. If I let it get good and hot and then idle in traffic on a 100-degree day, it MIGHT get up to 200 degrees, and then just sit there, all day long. My idle speed is 1000 rpm (setting your idle speed too low can induce overheating, I suspect, but don't know that for a fact).
I've achieved this simply by bleeding the system properly (in fact I use a vacuum bleeder which works even better than the normal technique) and powering the fans directly from an aux fuseblock, and grounding them locally through diodes.
Lori's '71 Pantera has a high-mileage stock engine, and the same cooling components as mine. It, too, absolutely refuses to overheat under any circumstances.
So all this multiple-pump, bloody-great-vent-holes everywhere stuff is something to do just for the sake of doing it, not something to do because it's even remotely necessary. Having said that, if you LIKE doing stuff like that and don't mind spending money that way, then more power to ya!
P.S. I forgot to mention, I use about 40/60 antifreeze/water with Redline Water Wetter. The Redline product knocked about 10 degrees off....