Overheating when idiling
 

I need a gear head to point me in the right direction here.
I have a 68 396/350 in my car and it normally runs fine temperature wize while driving at highway or cruising speeds. The trouble i am having is when i am in stop n go traffic like the other day i was at a car show and when we where parking the cars which took forever everyone backing in on an angle my car starting running very hot 200 to 215 '.
yes a little anitfreeze started coming out. I have an HEI distributor non vaccum advance. Some local guys there said they use to have that problem and they switched to a vaccum advanced distributor and they no longer have the problem. I live in central florida and in the summer time its even worse in traffic.
I have an oversized be cool radiator 26x19" 4 row with an electric fan that comes on at 180 degs.
Can someone give me some suggestions as to what might the problem and any reccomendation.

Thanks
Its embarrasing having a nice big block car and it overheats and drips antifreeze. !!!!!!!!

you might want to add a mechaical fan and shroud to the car that can pull push the air. on the families 33 ford pickup we have a electric in front of the radiator to pull air in and then a mechaical flex fan that pushes it over the motor. the reason for needing 2 fans is that we run restrictive hood sides that do move the air very well when at low speeds or stopped. also there are addatives for the water that make the car run cooler.

My 66 ss 396 impala did same thing I put a over flow tank and a fan on back of radiator and then it was fine.

I do have an overflow aluminum can and the fan is pushing the air out from the back of the radiator. blowing in forward direction. also i have a 160 deg thermostat in it and it does work properly.

may be worth it to adjust the timing to see if it will make a difference. orr if you have a vacumm distributor around throw it in.

If you had a vacuum advance distributor hooked up to ported vacuum, as modern ones that are sold to accommodate smog era (and EPA compliant) engines, then I see no difference at idle between that and a mechanical advance distributor, as they are both running off of base timing. It's possible that guy was talking about hooking up the advance to manifold vacuum, as in how they were done in the pre-smog days. That can make the engine run cooler, but it requires you to "tune" the distributor accordingly. Before messing with anything else, I'd first start with advancing the timing and see if that helps. Where is your base timing set at now?

DUAL Electric Fans + Shroud = :icon_snowman:

What should the base timing be set at . ????
for a 396.

Factory setting was 4 degrees before TDC. If your engine is no longer "factory", then factory settings go right out the window, and that 4 degrees would just be your "starting point".