I seem to have an over heating issue that is causing my car to do interesting things. When I just start to drive after starting the car it drives and boosts perfectly! its about 90 degrees where I am right now, so after about 20 min of driving the car gets to hot and my oil pressure drops to about 35 instead of 50psi while in gear. The car hardly wants to rev up and won’t go into boost. If I cool it down for about half hour it gets good again! I’m going to fix my Water temp gauge tonight to see exactly what temperature it gets up to. I have a decent size intercooler and a half rad and I slim fan I guess cant keep up.

What can I do to resolve this problem? This is very inconvenient for me at the moment because I have to take a 12 hour road trip in the next few weeks!!

I’m going to add the “2 drops of dish soap” tonight and see if that helps out any, as well as wrap my manifold and hot side with heat wrap. Should I order a Turbo blanket or does that not help with over heating? Also, I have an empty nitrous bottle laying around in my garage; would it be a good idea to spray nitrous or some other gas on the radiator when it starts to over heat to cool it down?

Please, anyone with any suggestions, help me out! Thanks!!

 

The most common problem for overheating is air in the system. Also, if you have a half size radiator, the air will follow the easiest path, so you might want to add something to block where the full radiator used to sit so the air that does make it through or around the intercooler goes into the radiator.

 

heres a pic

http://www.flickr.com/photos/7632186@N06/2583869433/

 

Hey that pic looks familiar(my car) . I had the overheating probs as well and this block off plate helped allot.

 

Were did you purchas that block off plate or what did you make it out of?? How about a HOW TO THREAD?

 

Its DIY. I used a peice of tin sheet and painted it black. First start off using cardboard till you get the desired fit then trace out the shape on the tin and use some snips and thats it. Use your inner MacGyver!

 

aight so today i made the block off plate, heat wrapped my manifold and hot side piping, added watter wetter.

went for a test drive and nothing helped!! on the highway the gauge constantly stayed at 195 then out of no where my car looses all power in 5th and i had to pull over.... waited about 10 min then started right back up and drove. i get off the highway and as soon as i get into stop and go trafic the gauge slowly goes to 210 and would have probably kept going if i didnt stop so the car can cool down....

what could possibly be happening? i ran the car through two heat cycles without the rad cap on to get the air bubbles out.

im hoping that the lose of power on the highway was related to the over heating cause hopefully nothing else is wrong... but still has me worried!!!

im using a PWR half rad and a b18turbo slim fan...

what else could be causing this problem??

someone please enlighten me! thanks

 

bad thermostat is my guess? are you sure the fan is working?
maybe your rad or something is gummed up or blocked check that your hoses are warm or there is pressure on them. either the water isnt circulating well or your fan dosent work. when you open your rad cap after you had it off for a long time is it pressurized? anything in the overflow?

 

Maybe your headgasket is leaking. Also try and wire you rad fan to a switch so you can run it constantly.If none of this helps then purchasing a FAL fan would be an option as they are fully shrouded and blow BIG air.

 

Ive been having a simular issue, on the freeway it runs cool enough to drive around...(about 190-199) slow speeds or traffic, car will over heat within 20mins.... I just bought a new fan, but its not shrouded... Is this FAL really worth the 185 bucks? BTW its only about 65-70 in my area... i have a PWR half rad and fan is always on.... My intercooler in 3.5inchs thick... and im suspecting this causing most of the issue...

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Mr.Death &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Maybe your headgasket is leaking. Also try and wire you rad fan to a switch so you can run it constantly.If none of this helps then purchasing a FAL fan would be an option as they are fully shrouded and blow BIG air. </TD></TR></TABLE>

but if it was the head gasket leaking, wouldnt it smoke white from the exhaust and wouldnt I be loosing coolant? cause im not doing ither one. also y i dont think its the head gasket is cause i got a new one about 5k miles ago when my motor was built.

also speaking of shrouded fans. maby i can fit my stock one back on??

 

It might be the HG...i had a very similar problem. The HG wpuld lift after 30min of driving and a lil bit fo air would get into the coolant system, and once enough air was trapped at the water pump id overheat within minutes regardless of the fan or block off plate.. Once i shut the car off and let it cool down, id open the radiator cap and let a lil bit of air out...start her back up and could drive for another 30 min or so and then the process began all over. Also i never had any signs of white smoke etc commonly found in blown HG's...because it wouldnt happen until 30min and once it did...i was nearly instantly overheating

 

check that your head studs are tight, that could be a possibility.
do you know if your rad hoses are hot or if there is pressure on them?
as for the headgasket, how much hp are you running on your engine?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by i-want-a-crx &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">check that your head studs are tight, that could be a possibility.
do you know if your rad hoses are hot or if there is pressure on them?
as for the headgasket, how much hp are you running on your engine? </TD></TR></TABLE>

the head studs were retightend a couple thousand miles ago.. but i will check them again. both lower and top rad hosses are hot . i am currently at 360 hp

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by powerdbygarrett &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I seem to have an over heating issue that is causing my car to do interesting things. When I just start to drive after starting the car it drives and boosts perfectly! its about 90 degrees where I am right now, so after about 20 min of driving the car gets to hot and my oil pressure drops to about 35 instead of 50psi while in gear. The car hardly wants to rev up and won’t go into boost. If I cool it down for about half hour it gets good again! I’m going to fix my Water temp gauge tonight to see exactly what temperature it gets up to. I have a decent size intercooler and a half rad and I slim fan I guess cant keep up.

What can I do to resolve this problem? This is very inconvenient for me at the moment because I have to take a 12 hour road trip in the next few weeks!!

I’m going to add the “2 drops of dish soap” tonight and see if that helps out any, as well as wrap my manifold and hot side with heat wrap. Should I order a Turbo blanket or does that not help with over heating? Also, I have an empty nitrous bottle laying around in my garage; would it be a good idea to spray nitrous or some other gas on the radiator when it starts to over heat to cool it down?

Please, anyone with any suggestions, help me out! Thanks!!
</TD></TR></TABLE>


I think you may be describing two different things, 210 degrees is only a 15 degree increase over the thermostats rating so thats not a big deal, its 90 outside, its going to run a little hotter, usually that little bit of temperature difference wont change much, you may be having a ignition breakdown, like a ignition module/igniter acting up once the heat builds up in the engine bay, spray that nitrous all over the distributor to cool it off and see if it gets better.

and if anyone comes in here saying that the nitrous is flammable dont do that, I will e-bitch slap them

 

ok i just bleed my coolant for the last half hour gonna go give it a try and report back....

 

aight after bleeding the air from the system, went for a drive... it was a tad better, i think i have the situation figured out.. if i just start the car and drive without stoping the needle will stay at 180-185 max! if i were to stop for 5 minutes and let the car idle the temp will go up to around 200 and then never cool back down with driving... that leads me to think that my fan is horrible or something is wrong with the radiator...

what temps are considerd overheating, i usually thing that 200 is already horrible, but maby i am mistaken????

considering this only started happening after i got into an accident and my radiator got a tad bent afterwards i still dont want to believe its my head gasket! Tomm morning im going to take a koyo full rad i have sitting in my garage to my usual welding shop and have them cut it up a bit so i can fit it in my car and have a full radiator with two fans... Now if that does not work then head gasket it is....

are there any tests that could be done in order to determine for sure if the head gasket is bad??

 

compression test.
are you still on the stock head studs? i know on some cars when they are boosting pretty high the head lifts up a bit and maybe it is letting air in your coolant, also im sure your not using the stock headgasket right?

id definatley get a bigger rad and 2 fans i bet that would solve alot. or just check to see the fan you have is working

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by powerdbygarrett &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
considering this only started happening after i got into an accident and my radiator got a tad bent afterwards i still dont want to believe its my head gasket! Tomm morning im going to take a koyo full rad i have sitting in my garage to my usual welding shop and have them cut it up a bit so i can fit it in my car and have a full radiator with two fans... Now if that does not work then head gasket it is....

are there any tests that could be done in order to determine for sure if the head gasket is bad??

</TD></TR></TABLE>


Even if your HG is indeed bad switching to full size rad will still be beneficial.

When I have had suspected HG failures I usually see little black dots in the coolant overflow or the coolant not being pulled back into radiator after cooling down.

There is a test you can use to test for combustion in the coolant.

But I think your on the right path by switching out the radiator first also if you have a cheap fan do youself favor and buy a FAL or a perma-cool.

check out
https://honda-tech.com/zero...age=2


Modified by maddog20 at 1:26 PM 6/24/2008


Modified by maddog20 at 1:33 PM 6/24/2008

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by powerdbygarrett &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">aight after bleeding the air from the system, went for a drive... it was a tad better, i think i have the situation figured out.. if i just start the car and drive without stopping the needle will stay at 180-185 max! if i were to stop for 5 minutes and let the car idle the temp will go up to around 200 and then never cool back down with driving... that leads me to think that my fan is horrible or something is wrong with the radiator...</TD></TR></TABLE>

A tad better? how cold do you want your engine to run? 180-185 is where you want to be while driving on the highway. Honestly, from what you have said so far it leads me to believe that your problem all along was air in your cooling system. I highly doubt that there is anything wrong with your radiator or fan unless they are still stock. If you haven't bought a aftermarket radiator and fan, I would highly recommend on doing so. I run a Mishimoto aluminum half size radiator and a FAL slim fan. My engine temps don't go over 180 degrees highway/190 degrees city driving. Keep in mind that I live in Texas and the outside temps here have been 100+ degrees the last few weeks.

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by B20luda &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Is this FAL really worth the 185 bucks?</TD></TR></TABLE>

Yes it is worth every penny

 

Problem Solved!!

I dont know exactly what was the problem but this combination is what i used to fix it. I went out on a limb and just bought a new half rad and a new fan. I guess my PWR half rad got damaged in an accident I was in a month ago.

Materials:

· Moshimoto Half Rad $180 (couldn't order online, needed one same day ASAP)
· Maradyne 14" fan $85 (2000cfm, PUSHER, couldnt fit puller cause of the intake pipe on the turbo)
· Watter Wetter $7 (ON SALE!!! Advanced Auto Parts)
· Coolant $10
· Block off Plate $30 (home depot aluminum, gonna make a nicer one later)
· Bleeding Air $ FREE (for half an hour to make sure ALL the air is out!!)


After I was finished the results were great!

Highway driving temps didnt go about 185
City Driving was 190 while standing still, and as soon as i would drive back down to 185
Idles at 190

Finally no more over heating hopefully!!