[rotorwrench]

Barney Navarro mentioned that he set the early (post-pump in head & pre-8BA) blocks up with a catch tray behind the water pump that had a tube attached that would run to the back of the block. The set up wouldn't prevent coolant from flowing at the front of the block but would force some to the back. His idea was to get a cooler supply of coolant to the back. His improvement wasn't striking but was a noticeable improvement in cooling.

In a normal configuration with center exit heads, the coolant that did get to the back of the block had already picked up a lot of heat so even though it was force back there by the head gasket flow, the coolant was still pretty hot back there. He didn't have to do anything with the 8BA since the coolant would flow right back there then flow all the way back forward through the heads. Having the coolant exit at the front on the 8BA made a difference so that's why Ford set it up that way. It worked very well compared to the earlier designs.