need help with a 308 overheating problem

After taking the car out in mid-day, outside temp around 99 degrees, when i got home the coolant started a steady stream from the tank. I let the engine run and put a high speed fan in front of the car and it cooled down from 220 to 180.
I am going to replace the OE fans with two 12" fans and double check the new foam.

 

Because I've always had a cool driving car I decided to check to see why. So after a little investigation I found that I have a 170* thermostat in the cooling system and a 180* fan switch. Car is OEM rad and fans. My fans rarely come on execpt for the AC fan . So if you are running a 195* stat it will have less of a chance to recover. Also as I mentioned before my oil temp runs at 170-180* all of the time but it takes a while to get there. My timing is 7*BTDC with Pertronix ign. I am running rich but the motor seems to like it and has no problem up to redline. Plugs are NGK BP5ES with .03 gap. This is my experience. FYI

 

The OEM cooling system works just fine if operating properly....don't modify it...fix it to work as designed...

 

That's exactly right. Something else is at the heart of the issue here, and my guess is it is related to heat exchange efficiency in the radiator. I had a similar situation with my 328 and it came down to calcium deposits in the tubes of the 20-year old radiator. Rodding out would not have been a good solution so a recore worked just nidcely. The price difference between rodding and recoring is marginal. My coolant temp now stays at 175F in any driving condition when it previously always went to 220 during stop and go traffic.

 

Sorry, but this is just simply untrue. It may be the case for some cars, but NOT for the majority. It's well known that the 308 cooling system was badly designed. That massive spare tire right behind the rad blocks a lot of air. The placement of the radiator itself is not ideal. The stock radiators don't really suffice for that engine (someone else explained this in detail in another post recently).

I have had ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS trouble with my cooling. I am going to make a new thread soon about this (again!! -- I know you guys are sick of it, but I am sick of dealing with this F-ing problem and I need a solution).

 

Sorry but the cooling system is overdesigned for a small 180CID motor. I would believe that the majority of the 308 do not have a cooling problem and from looking at this site I only see a hand full of folks with cooling problems. So considering there are thousands of these cars around I don't think this handfull represents the majority. If you run higher then 195* at any time there is something else that is causing the problem. As I mentioned before my 63 Corvette with the same rad. frontal area and a 327CID motor putting out 340HP only had a 19QT. cooling system and it never got past 195*. So if you look at the 308 system you'll find it is a 19qt system. So keep looking because something is wrong. You'll find it.