95 brave 454 running hot on long hills

If your not aware of this something simple like having your air conditioner on during a hard pull can cause overheating. If your system is fully pressurized you should be O.K. on a steep short hard pull.

Your 7.4 may have debris between the AC condensor and the radiator. You can take the mounting bracket for the AC unit and get it away from the radiator far enough to use an air hose or shop vac to clean it out.

Ok ill look for trash and clean if needed it seems like it has only ben a year since i installed new radiator but it couod be dirty again.

ON my 454 on long pulls it would heat up.....like you, hotter than I wanted ....but not boiling.....First I installed a SW mechanical temp gauge so I knew exactly what the temp was....and then fabed a radiator spray system for exactly that problem....When on a long pull the last thing I want to do is stop uphill to cool off. When I sprayed it,it would drop the temp 25 degrees almost instantly to get me to the top.My allegro was 32 ft....and heavy.....454 and 456 rear end and would pull like a diesel in 3rd at low RPM....but would fall on its face if I shifted to second.....so hard pull in 3rd --heated up....but that's where it had its torque....

years ago had a 454 , it ran hot headers helped a lot.

I have a 1994 454 and I just came back from Oregon and pulled some pretty good hills there and other places.. I would turn off the AC pump starting up those hills and the worst it got was about 200 degrees on one very long pull... Do you have an electric fan in front of the condenser and is it working ok?. I also have ceramic coated headers and they seem to help too... Also a good mechanical temp gauge...

How hot is hot to you? Does the fan clutch kick in before the red area if you have the Chevy OEM gauge? Will the temp come back to normal once you climbed the hill and start descending fairly quickly(3-5 mins)?

my 94/5 bounder on a p-30/32 chassis used to run hot. I added an additional cooling fan which helped.
bumpy.

If you suspect the fan clutch may have a problem it is pretty easy to check.

My last coach was a 1995 P30 with a 454 and the service manual had a procedure for checking the fan clutch. They said to measure the temp of the AIR coming out of the radiator. I used a metal meat thermometer. I had to drill a small hole in the plastic shroud around the fan so I could get the thermometer between the fan and the radiator.
They said to block the radiator with cardboard and run the engine at about 2000 RPM to get the engine to heat up.
The fan will spin before it's fully engaged, but it's obvious when it engages because of the noise.
It should engage at an air temp between 165'F and 195'F. If it doesn't it should be replaced.

I never really here the fan come on and the electric fans works when you run the ac i got a new clutch and water pump so will find out tonight our tomorrow morning and ill post results.