The first thing I did was rip out the A/C system. My Camaro is a T-top, so I hardly every use the A/C. Plus, removing that makes everything a lot easier to work on. So I removed the condenser, the evaporator, the drier, even the entire compressor. Instead of an A/C delete kit where you use the stock belt and it wraps around a pulley attached to nothing, I went to an auto parts store and sized up belts for an hour. I eventually found one that fit perfectly, and I don't have the part number on me right now, but if anyone is curious, just comment and ask. I will be happy to find the part number of the shorter belt for you. Here is a quick picture of everything out with the shorter belt installed. The A/C bracket you see in the pictures eventually came out too. It was just being a real pain in the neck to get out.
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Click on image for larger view.
Now that all the A/C components are out of the way, it was time to tackle the cooling issues a little more. There are 2 hoses coming from your firewall back behind the alternator. These are the feed and return lines for the heater core. At this point there are 2 things you can do.
1. I took my 6' of hose and cut it to replace the stock routing. This is because the stock bit goes from a hose to a metal line and back to a hose again. This metal line rusts up inside and eventually cracks outside. So if you take that whole section out, you can use the stock clamps and cut the new hose you have to size as a direct replacement. It works great and is very simple to do.
2. The second option you have after you have done the first part, is mainly a step you do in the summer. During the winter you will want the coolant to flow through the heater core so you have heat, but during the summer, you obviously aren't using it. So I took one of the hoses off, and wrapped the one hose right from the inlet to the outlet on the water pump.
Another thing you can do, speaking of looping, is look at the throttle body. There is a coolant hose that attaches to 2 ports coming from the throttle body. You can take one of these hoses, and take the other one off, and loop this section of hose as well. Unfortunately I didn't take pictures of these set ups much, but here is a picture of the metal lines.
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Now to change the thermostat is pretty straight forward. You remove the intake piping from the throttle body and you have direct access to remove the thermostat housing. So I changed out the 195 for the 180 degree thermostat. The important part here is the new radiator and fan set up. The old radiator was getting clogged up with rust from those metal lines I ripped out so it needed to be replaced. The old fan that comes in these 3.4l Camaros are a single unit. One fan, and the rest is a giant shroud. So I attached 2 new high performance radiator fans to the new radiator. The radiator fans again were run by a fuse so they would remain on while the car was on. At this point you can rest easier knowing that everything has been done to keep this car cool as far as the cooling system is concerned. Also, if you try to do everything mentioned in this post in one day like I did, make sure you have a lovely assistant to help you out. Luckily I had one, and if you don't have one, well you might throw a couple tools and not have such a complete set anymore. Here are a couple pictures of the now completed system, and the last picture has a little surprise fun addition I picked up.
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Click on image for larger view.
Click on image for larger view.
Click on image for larger view.
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