solved

 

Did you check the block with a straight edge? Also is the lower radiator hose getting hot now?

 

yes i check the head with level, across head & across each cylinder (back to front/left to right)

 

Can you log the temps to see the actual ect readings? Does the fan cycle when you are bleeding the system?

 

sorry I don't have anything like neptune that can datalog info. Maybe down the road.

The radiator fan doesn't kick on by itself... my relay must be bad.
For that reason I have it hooked up to manual switch.

When I was bleeding the system I did not have the radiator fan turned on.
I did have my interior heat/blower on.

 

Get rid of the autozone thermostat. I went through 3 that would randomly stay shut then open again depending on rpms.

Went and got an OEM and never had an issue

 

seriously... weird...
Okay i'll look into that as well.

what about the ones that autozone sells which is $19 "failsafe" which has a locking mechanism to elimiate any change of thermo failure?

 

oem thermostat works perfectly fine

i would recommend upgrading your fan to a spal 13" high performance model

then proceed to bleed the coolant until the fan kicks on

what tuning program do you have? you can set neptune/s300 to turn the fan on at lower temperatures and wire that output to the new relay you will need for the spal fan

 

yeah i've read up on the spal fan...
I'm so close to ordering it but I want to look at all the other options first.

Running crome

 

honda thermostat.. all that aftermarket stuff is junk...

 

First off, you need a Spal HP fan. I have the 13" fan on my car (600 whp, road race car) and it barely starts to overheat on 125 degree track days beating the utter **** out of it. I leave my fan running the entire time and my radiator is the exact same as yours in the same spot.

Are your sure your fan is coming on? And if so, are you sure it's actually coming on with enough power to do anything?

Is the bottom radiator hose getting really hot? That's 1 way you can tell if the pump is working on not (coolant flows out of head and down radiator to bottom). If the pump isn't working, your thermostat is never seeing hot coolant, and hence the wax isn't melting to allow the coolant to flow - It's a nasty cycle.

Honestly it sounds like either your fan is **** and not pulling as strong as you think, you have something inside your motor the machine shop or you forgot to take out and now it's clogging the system, or your water pump is broken.

 

I would replace your therm, rad cap, waterpump with all OEM parts

I had did an LS swap in my civic and it would over heat all the time, Went crazy trying to replace parts and did many things. All it ended up being was the Rad cap was an autozone cap and wouldnt work correctly. Sad but I have seen it happen many times on other cars too.

Hondapartsnow.com

 

My setup is close to yours as far as space

mani is ceramic coated
dp/dt ceramic coated and heat wrapped
turbo's hot side is ceramic coated and has a turbo blanket
ebay half size rad with a 13spal INSIDE THE BAY as a puller on a switch and i turn it on as soon as car hits operating temps and leave it on


My car has NEVER over heated
traffic/cruising/hotlapping at the track/ full throttle for pretty much 20 min at a time (shame on me)


this is all on straight honda coolant and an OEM t-stat

 

Well at least tell everyone whats going on, they all tried to help you and kinda deserve it.

 

get a oem thermostat, I went threw 3 auto zone ones before I went out and got a oem. My pwr radiator from full-race thats in my ef had a bad over heating issue when it was boosted. come to find out it was the radiator cap, It takes a certain cap. Also try wrapping your dump tube, looks like it's sitting pretty close to the radiator, I had the same issue with my Ef, I was running the same Full-Race radiator, After I wrapped my dump tube it ran A LOT cooler. G/l man, I know how much of a pain overheating issues can be.

 

Yeah I jacked up the front end and bleed it the other night and it still over heated.


lol that was my ghetto little brother... driving my ef...
He told me that you came by to ask if he needed any tool.
Thanks mike !


it only has 100 miles on it.
unless you have extra $330 to ship a new FR radiator i'll be open to that idea. lol


in the picture it's mounted as a PUSHER.
I've already said several of times I've moved it to the other side and wired it as a PULLER.


and the correct answer is ......
Thank peter I never thought about that.
Tou came over to just supervise to ensure I wasn't doing something wrong.
It's nice to have a fresh set of eyes look at things after you can't figure it out. He explained the logic of why raising the passenger side up is effective because air will travel to the highest point... since all half size radiator is on the passenger side, it just made sense.

We bleed the system
8mins to warm up
20mins before thermo opened
35mins before the entire system was bleed properly.

We took it out on the road and boost felt great!
No steam from cap, no lifting from cap!

Lesson learned:
1) make sure you know how to put the radiator cap on tight
2) bleed system with front passenger side up as high as possible

 

 

^ LOL at Adrian!!! glad you found the problem Charlie, EF's/DA's are the worst for overheating, no engine bay space FTL!!!!

 

i've bled a lot of coolant systems and never had a problem with it just sitting level on the ground. never had to lift a side or anything. one thing that does have to be done that might help if you hadn't done it, is turn the heat on full blast on recirculate, it cycles your coolant through your system including to ensure you get all the air out of the heater core also. very important. once your air gets hot you are usually good. glad to hear you got if fixed though.

 

I was wondering about heat soak from the dumptube being right on the rad.
if it were me, Id wrap it just to cut down the heat being right on the radiator

 

yeah i was kind of looking at that dump tube...
when i have a new shrowed i'm going to have them turbo the DP inward towards the back of the block...

 

Now wrap the dumptube and downpipe and manifold or have them coated if you dont want it to heat soak and overheat on extensive highway driving. The wastegate should be facing down and have a short dumptube on it blowing down not that contraption that you have going on. im sure that works but it was completely unnessesary

 

not trying to revive a thread from the dead or anything but found this thread by the search engine while looking for the same issue.

My work colleague drive a EF GSR turbo and had cooling issues for the longest time. Has a 180 thermostat but it always rises when he goes a bit into boost on a hot day. Tried tons of different things (upgraded rad, water wetter, new thermostat etc etc)but nothing really worked.

Added a shroud next to the half rad to block the air from recirculating in the open space kinda like what EG's come originally. So far it looks like it solved the issue. Constantly boosting it hard at ~86 degrees the whole week without any issues.

I just thought I'd leave this here for future reference if anyone would come up with the same problem.

-Cheers!

 

lol my old thread.

well it turns out my head was warped from it getting overheated by my brother.
decked the head, checked the block with machinest level & feeler gauge to ensure block didn't warp too (very rare it would)

installed new oem gasket & she was ready to buck.




have your buddy take off the bumper and drive around, if it still overheats then it's a you have a bad head/hg, rad.

if it doesn't overheat with bumper off, but overheats with bumper on...that means your radiator isn't getting enough fresh air through the bumper.


GL