Title: Is There a Standard of Keeping a 4th Gen. Healthy-Cool? How do you keep her Cool?

Summer's official date is soon approaching.... (June 21st)

So, I wanted to know is there an Independent Standard or Way You Can Measure if your 4th Gen. is "Healthy-Cool"?

For example, a 4th Gen is at least a 23 year old Car, depending on the year.
(Mine is a 1993 V-6 3.4 Liter), if you drive on long stretches of land which have a 45 mph speed limit and little or no traffic lites or stop signs, this will keep a 4th Gen. cooler than straight surface road driving

But, is there an Measurement that a person can use to determine if Temps are normal?

For example, even after let's say, a coolant leak is sealed, a cracked radiator cap replaced with a metal one, a coolant temp sensor (which senses high temperature in a CAmaro & after such Activates or Signals her air cooling fans To Work) replaced,

the car may be STILL theoretically, operating at "abnormal" Temperatures.

For a 23 year old car to reach the line below the red zone Once or Twice after like 45 minutes of surface street driving in 70 degree sunny weather may be Normal or Usual or nothing to worry about.

But how does any Camaro owner or enthusiast know for sure?

Is it very difficult to pinpoint all the things that go wrong which can lead to higher than normal temps?

Like a new air cooling fan system might have to be put in,

or new hoses or other rubber auto parts which heat can destroy over time, etc.

What's the normal temperature range after a certain amount of street driving?

The last thing any Camaro lover wants is to have it too hot and cause irreparable damage just straight out of the blue with no warning.

I mean at some point, the Camaro 4th Gen. owner should be like "Hey, enough, there's nothing you can do anymore to keep your 4th Gen. at midpoint Temps or lower, you're driving a 23 year old car on surface streets because you're not legally allowed to drive on highways due to whatever reason, and you live in Southern CAlifornia or Florida where temps are high....And Your Car Will Always Be At this what you think is high temperature. It's never going to be lower....enough....cause bro this is the best temperature your 4th Gen. will ever get. There's nothing to worry about. This is the best Temperature Range a 4th Gen. under those aforesaid conditions will ever be, it's normal to expect those Temp readings at once or twice at the line just before the red zone after 1 hour of driving on surface streets with traffic lights on each block."

So, here's the question again....what (if any) is the independent standard of knowing (or a "Litmus Test") if your Camaro is running at an optimum temperature, lets say operating in L.A. or other Southern California city or Florida temperature where the climate is often sunny for months on end at 70 degrees on surface streets (not highways) for 1 hour or 2 hours?

Thanks

 

Just an addendum to the above, for example, you see you drive a car 4th gen. for 1 hour on surface street roads, (which may or may not involve bumper to bumper traffic), it then goes UP to the line just 1 Marking Below the "red zone marking" on the Temperature gauge only once or twice, then goes back to the middle point. Is this normal on a 23 yr old Camaro?

 

This was... difficult to read. Don't know why it was written like a... kind of broken editorial/person view thing.

Anyway.

So you're restricted, for some reason, from highway driving. You're now having to avoid the main roadways by using side-streets. Got it.

The car is going to run hotter, because you're not pushing air through it while you're stopped. As long as it's not going in the red, you're good.

I mean, if you're really concerned, you can throw a 160f thermostat in, and re-tune so your fans are on constantly, or just wire the fans up to be on constantly, at any speed. That would be about the only suggestion I can make, if the fans aren't on the entire time you're putting around as it is (I know mine are for the most part in FL).

 

You don't say in numbers how your car is behaving. The radiator fan is set to go on when engine temperature reaches 221 degrees. Given some buffer for possible slight gauge inaccuracy, and the fact the engine may still get a little hotter by the time the fans go on (temp still climbing), it's not abnormal for the gauge to hit the 230 mark while in traffic, this is considered "normal". Open road driving brings in more cool moving air, and engine temps will be lower.

 

highway miles are better on a car then intown driving to try to keep it simple ,my gauge runs at about in those temps about 168 to 195 .it may read a bit higher ,get one of those hand held temp readers for your top hose is the best way to know what engine temp is an use it anytime ,you could also think about a run cool temp sencor may help keep the engine running cooler too,the hand help temp sencor is about $15.00 on up in price ,there are ones made to help older cars run cooler or any car mr gasket makes a good one,i have in my 406

 

thanks this is all good info. I copied and pasted it after reading it.

 

Thanks for your input everyone. You can check oil and coolant levels but the overall monitoring of an older car's healthy temperature levels is a less of a tangible variable especially in really hot dry temperature almost all-year round levels, it also like rains 3 x per year year and averages mostly 70 degrees Fahr. all year round so this is a concern for a lot of older Camaro owners who live in different parts of the country.

 

I found the item you refer to in the last part of what you wrote. It's a Engine Coolant Thermostat-High Performance MR GASKET 4363 but not compatible with a 1993 Camaro v-6; 3.4 L., although some on-line seller is selling it but its name sounds not too reliable. www . parts geek dot com? sounds reputable? there is no combo. lock in the top left of the internet browser when I was directed to that website by ebay that lack of that icon is a tell tale sign of something bogus about websites