so pretty much since i got my 1988 daytona its had a water leak, which was expected being such an old car. but just recently it had been getting a lot worse and id have to fill my rad directly with water almost every day. so i replaced the rad because it was leaking. as soon as i swapped my rad and filled it full of water again and had it running it was overheating like crazy. so my thoughts were that my water pump had been failing causing my old rad to fail, so i swapped my water pump which seemed to fix my circulation problem. but even after that it would still get very hot within 5 or 10 minutes of running, so i pulled the thermostat as well and no change. then i pulled the top rad hose and basically flushed the entire system with a garden hose up to where my rad hose would have been and it seemed to circulate through there just fine. also i did a compression test and all of the plugs had even compression and were pretty darn clean.

also
the fan works fine and comes on when it's supposed to.

and what seemed odd though was that the water by the rad cap would gain a lot of pressure of course but it was only warm, when the upper rad hose was very hot, as well as the core of the rad being just cold.

if anyone can help that would be much appreciated!

 

Try jacking the front of the car up and running it while keeping an eye on the temp gauge. Sometimes you can get an air bubble trapped somewhere, raising the front will help it to get out. Give that a try.

 

Well, by now we can figure that you found that you had a blown head gasket, likely on the back side of the #1 cylinder. I hope the repair was successful and that you reinstalled the thermostat, a 195 degree one.