Be sure that it is indeed your radiator. My car's cooling problems were caused by debris in the cooling passages, which I didn't find out until I bought an aluminum radiator and it made no difference!

 

And how did you fix your issue?

 

Well I had the motor stripped and boiled of course! The thing about my car's cooling issues was that the issue would only pop up every now and then. I suspected that the passages were so clogged that debris was building up then breaking apart, causing the car to run hot, then normal, then hot. I of course flushed the system for days with chemicals and distilled water etc but it made no difference. As soon as we saw what was behind the freeze plugs we knew it was time for it to be boiled. Since then, it has been running incredibly cooler. Expensive fix though, for sure.

 

Wow. If I had to go that far, I think it would be time for an upgrade! lol

 

I just don't care to spend much money on my pile of crap.

I suppose there's a slight possibility that could be my problem. How could I go about checking for this issue?

 

So I took off my radiator and flushed it out a few times, then changed the oil and spark plugs, and now when I'm driving and I press the gas more than half way it starts sputtering and won't make power. What could be causing this?

 

Did you swap a few wires?

 

No, I took them off and changed the spark plugs one at a time

 

Had the same problem here and also had to have my engine boiled. It runs so cool now that it won't top 180 in 100 degree weather. I do have an aluminum radiator and Edelbrock high flow water pump which I think helps quite a bit.