After replacing my head with a race head fron engbldr my 22-re will over heat after 1-2 minutes on the freeway. I opened up the radiator and there is a brown sludge in there. It may be crap/oil getting into the channels when I was cleaning the block or maybe because I messed up putting the head on and oil is getting in there I don't know. I had a shop pressure check and flush the radiator. They said it held pressure but forgot to flush it. There is no sign of water on the dip stick. I replaced the cap and thermostate it had no effect.

Any tips on how to get this thing from over heating?

Also on these RV heads do I use the standard BTDC 5 degrees timing?

Brown sludge is not good, get it cleaned up as your first step & *then* start other tests.

Dave

Sounds like it could be a bad head gasket. Have your mech (or you) do a leak-down test, to confirm or eliminate.
Relax: it's not that bad!

Lemme guess- didn't change the oil/filter afterwards, no?

*Purge coolant system.
*Change oil and filter-keep in mind the drain plug boss doesn't allow about 1/2" of stuff to finish draining.
*Do a leakdown/compression test as suggested.

Set the basic timing with that cam, then dial in your sweet spot for it. Don't ferget your jumper!

Good call Kewlynx.

Did you remove the timing cover when you did the head gasket? One time, as I pulled the cover, excess coolant ran down the front of the oil pan, causing sludge. Freeked me out for a minute until I realized that I did that.

The radiator guy flushed it twice, he said there was a bunch of oil in there which was slowing the water pump down.

It hasn't come back yet. The radiator was pressure tested and it turned out ok. I think what happened was the oil pooled up below the cam poured out on too the block and went down into the coolant jackets. I slipped when I was removing the head and it all poured out the back side.

I didn't think I got much in there, but I guess I was wrong.