Coolant hose/oil cooler routing question

[Keyser Soze]

On my 86 SVO, from the water pump there are two approximately 1/2 inch hard coolant lines that run down the passenger side of the block, around the back of the head, and they feed and return the oil cooler. I'm also guessing they stop and feed the heater core, but mine had a "U" shaped piece of rubber, telling me the prior owner blew a heater core and just bypassed it.

This car will see no street duty and will only see race duty. If I run a remote oil filter and/or cooler, I do not need these. But on the feed line, there is a little "T" that feeds the bottom of the lower intake. This hardly looks like a high-flow item, but nontheless, if I remove the feed and return of the oil cooler, the bottom of the lower intake would get no coolant. Is this going to cause me problems? Has anyone done this?

[Keyser Soze]

No thoughts on this?

[SVOBart]

Some folks have blocked that off using a phenolic spacer between the head and intake manifold. I'm not completely certain on how critical that is for proper head cooling though. If you do block it off, you will need to relocate the coolant temperature sensor and the thermostatic fan switch.

[Keyser Soze]

Where is the thermostatic fan switch? I already removed all the wiring and will run the fan based on a toggle in the cockpit, so I might as well pull the sensor and wiring.

I'm not such a big fan of moving the coolant temperature sensor because the computer wants to see a certain temperature at that location, and if I move it, the coolant might naturally be hotter or colder where I move it. Maybe I'll just leave it alone.

[BDBYS59]

Some of the guys who have used the spacer to block off the lower intake moved the sensor to one of the hard lines coming off the water pump. The early 2.3 (carbed) had a bung on one of their water lines and they just used that for the sensor.

[NavySVO]

Where is the thermostatic fan switch? .

Under the dash near the steering column. It's a black box about the size of a large sharpening stone. The sensor is on the underside of the intake.

I'm not such a big fan of moving the coolant temperature sensor because the computer wants to see a certain temperature at that location, and if I move it, the coolant might naturally be hotter or colder where I move it. Maybe I'll just leave it alone.

These are two different animals. The ECT (engine cooling temp) sensor for the computer for fuel/spark scheduling is on the top of the intake in the center.