I've been having some problems with my 91 turbo b16 civic. I have a small 77 civic radiator crammed in there which is the most i can fit. It's dual core and has a 12" slim fan on the back of it and YES its pulling in the correct way. The fan is on the stock fan switch and is turning on appropriatly. Right now i'm just using a 90/10 distilled water to antifreeze mixture.

The car is overheating sometimes when i boost, but whenever i'm on hte highway after 10 minutes if i dont put the heat on. Now i wanna resolve this issue with the least ghetto and of course most cost effective way.

dont tell me to buy a full race radiator cause i dont have the money nor will it fit with my current setup. I also dont want to rig my fan to run all the time.

My next few options as i see them are:

Heat wrap my downpipe
or Add water wetter OR dish soap to my coolant

What do you guys think should be my next step in trying to resolve these coolant issues.

 

Water wetter seemed to work on my friends turbo GSR. His radiator was the stock integra one, and it overheated while he was in traffic. Added some water wetter, and the problem went away.

 

Dishsoap??? Also try wiring you rad fan so it's constantly on as well as upgrading your thermostat to 160 degree.

 

Mr.Death.............dishsoap does the same thing as watter wetter. It changes the surface tension of the water so that it has a higher boiling temperature.

Wire your fan to run always......

Forget the 160 temp thermostat, if your overheating, a lower temp thermostat isn't going to do anything if you way above 160 degrees....think about it.

 

i had the same problem with my car when i was running a slim fan from kragens. putting my stock radiator fan helped alot. i guess because it flows better and it has the shroud to pull air through the whole radiator, not just the center section. maybe you can try a FAL or something. they are pretty expensive though. you might want to try an oil cooler too if you have room. an oil cooler brought my oil temps down as well as the water temps. one other thing that helped me on my set up was blocking off the other half of the radiator support where the half core doesnt cover. that way all the air going through your grill is forced through your radiator instead of going around it.

 

Any disadvantages to running dish soap or water wetter? Can i just add it to my current mixture?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by DC2xSiR &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote"> one other thing that helped me on my set up was blocking off the other half of the radiator support where the half core doesnt cover. that way all the air going through your grill is forced through your radiator instead of going around it.</TD></TR></TABLE>

^^^^^^^^^ this is why all half rad setups are overheating, i dont know how many ******* topics ive seen in the last 8 months.

the fan is sucking air from inside your engine bay near the exhaust manifold, instead of the front of the car.

this is usually because its harder for the fan to pull through the FMIC then from the engine bay area.

this is the solution. do it now

 

Wouldnt that hurt intercooler efficiency though? or create higher temperatures in the engine compartment with half the air rushing through?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Turbo_Mike &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Wouldnt that hurt intercooler efficiency though? or create higher temperatures in the engine compartment with half the air rushing through? </TD></TR></TABLE>

dude, u just put a baffle between the end of the rad and the fmic. so your fan doesnt pull from your engine bay.

or do you need a pic?

 

only use two-three small drops if u use soap...i rewired the fans to my cruise control....you can always *tilt* your hood too????

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by shortyz21 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

^^^^^^^^^ this is why all half rad setups are overheating </TD></TR></TABLE>

Actually I thought the same thing and had made an aluminum block off plate to force air into the radiator. Surprisingly, this actually made the temps hotter . I took off the plate and the temps dropped....I think the air flowing over the turbo and such helped to cool the massive heat sink.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by AF-P Dunc &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
....I think the air flowing over the turbo and such helped to cool the massive heat sink.</TD></TR></TABLE>

thats what i'm saying. i'm willin to try it but i think more air rushing into the engine bay the better??

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Turbo_Mike &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

thats what i'm saying. i'm willin to try it but i think more air rushing into the engine bay the better?? </TD></TR></TABLE>

Well yes, the more fresh air the better. Tomorrow I'm going to do a little experiment....I want to see what kind of differences in temps and to what extent they change when I remove the hood completely haha. That should get a few turned heads. If there is a huge difference, then I'm going to put in the oem evo vents in my hood to let the turbo heat escape easier.

I've been trying many difference things ranging from the block off plate to copper tubing. If it comes down to having to put the copper tubing on, then I'm going to do a little write up about it to hopefully help others with similar issues.

Sometimes it's not the cooling system that makes you car run hot. Sometimes you have to look at other reasons such as: the heat source (the turbo). So if you cool the turbo, then your coolant temps will obviously improve as well.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by AF-P Dunc &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

Actually I thought the same thing and had made an aluminum block off plate to force air into the radiator. Surprisingly, this actually made the temps hotter . I took off the plate and the temps dropped....I think the air flowing over the turbo and such helped to cool the massive heat sink.</TD></TR></TABLE>

really...

id be nice if someone could make a shroud for the slimline fans.. something that is slim..

 

Im going to try the large piece to block off the front where the half rad isnt..

Also.. I will heatwrap my manifold, DP, dumptube, and slant my hood to help reduce hunderhood temps since i will have blocked off lots of airflow to the turbo heatsink..

My car had bad overheating issues, it overheated too many times, warped the head, its almost back together now, im just going to do everything i can to help prevernt overheating..

160 thermostat
heatwrap everything
cowl induction hood (help pull cool air in)
Ducting infront of car (blocking off across front)
80/20 mix of water/coolant
wetter water
rad fan running fulltime

Can anyone think of anything else to add to my list?

 

Why not get a better rad?? My setup slightly gets heat soaked in traffic with a single core half rad. but im just gunna throw a double core in that laying around the shop.. you could also run an inline resovoir, the more mixture that is in the system, the longer time it has to cool down..

 

Tried the dish soap, and it made no difference. Might try to wrap the downpipe tonight.

Dont know if anything will make a difference in this heat

 

Who did your tune? or you just running basemap? post yoru setup. i had the same issue and she ran at 230 last time i drove it. when there runing hot liek that and there not air bound then there is a few different issues. either your HG is beat or you've got to much timing.

I would say you have to much timing if your only running hot in boost. Mine had way to much timing from a mistake i made and i ran hot no matter what but from the orignical tune last year from my tuner there was to much timign and when i bosted 22psi atthe track she would ceep up to 220-230 temps with the fan runnign all the time. post your timing maps if you can or what your running.

 

My tune was done by xenocron, so i dont have any of the maps, and doubt that he does a year later.

I'm running a log mani, with t3to4e .60/.63, 2.5" turbo back exhaust, dsm 450s, tuned on chrome pro.

My problem is my compressor is on the driver side, so my downpipe and dump are basically right on my radiator. Until i have the money to get a new mani, then flip the turbo around and redo my charge pipes and exhaust, i may be fucked

 

try a bigger fan. most 12 inch fans can only flow 1600CFM at Best. you can fit a 14 inch permacool fan in there if you work at it that flows 2950CFM.

i droped 50 degrees switching to this fan and water wetter. dont use dish soap when the water wetter is only 8 bucks.

platinum.

 

This may sound insulting to those who believe in bigger is better when it comes to intercoolers...but I have been running a half size fluidyne radiator with a relatively small pwr intercooler (does not cover bumper opening completely) and a fal fan and have never had a overheating issue in well over 2 years and perhaps 40k miles at over 300whp...just a thought. I dont run water wetter (or soap for that matter) nor do I have an oil cooler, nor do I have a low temp thermostat. I run regular premixed antifreeze. I guess my point is I feel that if the only air flow your radiator gets is through your intercooler then perhaps that is the problem. Just my 2 cents...

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Turbo_Mike &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">My tune was done by xenocron, so i dont have any of the maps, and doubt that he does a year later.

I'm running a log mani, with t3to4e .60/.63, 2.5" turbo back exhaust, dsm 450s, tuned on chrome pro.

My problem is my compressor is on the driver side, so my downpipe and dump are basically right on my radiator. Until i have the money to get a new mani, then flip the turbo around and redo my charge pipes and exhaust, i may be fucked </TD></TR></TABLE>

Thats not your problems bud, most turbo setups have the compressor on the driver side with the DP near the radiator. My DP actually rests on my rad fan. If your that concerned about it use heat wrap but thats not why your engine is running hot. Yes without heatwrap your increasing your underhood temps alot when boosting. try wrapping the DP at least and prop up th eback of your hood of the car to let out the heat and see if she cools down. if it doesnt then i would still have to go back to my original statement that you've got to much timing in boost and or lean spots and causing the EGT's to spike

 

I guess i gotta pull my downpipe to wrap it, looking at it more closely major pita


I'm gonna try that this weekend, and schedule a retune as well