Please somebody help me out. I own a 1990 integra with a fully built darton sleeved B18 bored out to a 2.0L
Currently running 18 LBS of boost 11.9 AFR at WOT on cooler days like 0-5 degrees my temps are okay I guess but I can’t really drive the car on a nice warm sunny day 15-25 degree weather. My coolant temps under boost get up into 235 range. I’ve changed the thermostat replaced the coolant several times and tried many different additives, right now I’m using Evans coolant, I had a custom copper core radiator built I relocated battery for more air movement. I have a spal fan with a shroud ceramic coated turbo with blanket ceramic coated manifold and wrapped the waste gates have blankets
ive had the car at several shops and they can’t figure it out.
i just cant seem to reduce the coolant temp. The 2 only things I have not tried yet is a vented good and an oil cooler. Also would Methanal injection fix my problems. Please there has to be someone that has had this issue that can lead me to a stress free enjoyable time with my car. I’m out of options and know that if anyone could fix this person is on this forum. Thanks I’m advance my fellow car/Honda enthusiasts!

 

Step one, ditch the Evans coolant. Water has better heat transfer properties.

Second, it sounds like you do not have enough radiator to reject heat at a sufficient rate. You could prove that by monitoring the temperature difference between inlet and outlet on the radiator.

 

Make sure you dont have a blown headgasket. And a correctly working fan. Completely drain your coolant system. Flush the radiator out to make sure theres no gunk anywhere. Then switch to 70/30 coolant setup. 70 percent distilled water/ 30 percent honda blue coolant.

 

If I remember correctly the inlet was around 195
and outlet 167 somewhere around there.
Ive done several chemical tests for exhaust gasses in the rad. Coolant does not overflow my reservoir. Compression stable across all cylinders
I’ve flushed the coolant out more than half dozen times no lie. I’ve also purchased over 5 cooling fans. The one that is in now has the highest CFM’s from the 5 I have which is around 1700cfm
I’m at a loss. Maybe by some strange reason the head gasket has a hairline fracture who knows.
also I just remembered that there is a hair line crack on one of the intake manifold runners. Would that cause the issue?

 

Do you have your downpipe heat wrapped also?
Also, what about a different type of radiator than copper?
Is your intercooler an adequate sized, good quality one?
Flushing a radiator 5 times is normal, I usually do it at least that many times to get all of the old coolant out.
How about putting a heat shield between your manifold/turbo/downpipe and the radiator?

 

Depending on where the crack, you could just leak. Or possible seep into the cylinders. if you are "only" overheating when in boost or after boosting, you dont have a good headgasket seal. Mite not be blown, but just not completely seal. However, sooner or later itll blow.

And, on DAs the airflow could be better. Get to home depot, buy some lexan for an air diverter plate. To direct airflow thru your radiator. Switch to 70/30 distilled water and honda blue. Just remember to changing the mixture around winter months if it sits outside.

Finally, are those dartons sleeves oring at the bottom of the sleeve. thought i remember darton doing orings. Not on the headgasket side. Dont at the bottom of the block

 

I just read this. A boost leak could make your turbocharger and intercooler over work to compensate, which could cause more heat. You’ll want to fix/replace your intake manifold either way.
The overheating is probably a combination of things. Start by fixing the intake manifold issue and heat wrapping your down pipe.

 

do u have a water cooled turbo??

 

The intake manifold couldn't really cause any over-use of the turbocharger coming up, it would just bleed off causing a boost leak, so more pressure would just be seen, but a boost leak test would have exposed that. I'd still get it fixed, but it wouldn't cause a coolant over-heat issue.

Although this again would be a "nice to have" item, and I've always encouraged the use of water. Not using a water-cooled turbo, again, wouldn't cause a heat issue. I'm thinking that this is a lack of airflow issue, based upon intercooler and radiator placement in the chassis, which has been very common issue with DAs for over 20 years. I'll explain more below.

A couple of things here:
1, The only issue I would see with a Darton sleeve causing coolant overheat issues is if he went with a "Dry Sleeve" installation, and one of the sleeves have actually sank, which, although rare, can happen, if the installation wasn't proper. This is why "Wet Sleeving" is preferred when using Darton sleeves... Also, whether or not they use a copper o-ring ( Darton sleeves do not use a copper o-ring in their sleeves, you're thinking of Golden Eagle which has that option)

2. ls joker, you're onto something...You're right on the fact that DAs have an inherent issue with overheating based upon the lack of airflow to the bottom portion of the bumper cover. This is because if they either A) have an Intercooler/Radiator combination setup, where the Intercooler and radiator are together as though they were almost one unit, (Speed Factory comes to mind, IIRC) or B) have separate Intercooler and radiator and they are too close to one another, this could easily cause an overheat condition.
For the sake of argument, let's say that the Darton block is fine, and Mike j has fixed the cracked intake manifold issue. The intercooler and radiator need to be at least 4" apart from one another in order to eliminate turbulence that would be created by the airflow going into both intercooler and radiator. One is trying to rob air of the other, and the intercooler will almost always win, regardless of what fan/shroud combination that you use. The other problem that occurs is the more obvious one; the fact that there isn't enough surface area with the size of the opening of the bumper cover to allow enough airflow to satisfy both the intercooler and the radiator's air needs. The best thing to do is to not only create some sort of air-diversion strategies, but to also just OPEN UP THE DAMN BUMPER COVER TO ALLOW FOR MORE AIR!. I know people want the ability for a DA to look as "Sleeper" as possible, but it's not worth blowing the car up.

I hope this was at least somewhat helpful to someone.

 

Have you checked the wiring to the fan to see if it is actually blowing in the right direction? Had similar issue with my car and it was wired wrong. Just saying to rule out something simple...

 

I didn’t know if the Original Poster had done a boost leak test, I just assumed a crack in the intake manifold would cause a boost leak, but it might not be big enough of a split for air to leak? I’m not sure.

I was just thinking if the manifold was bleeding off pressure causing a boost leak, that the turbo would have to be putting more pressure into the charge pipes to fill them with air to compensate for the intake manifold leak, compared to having no leak. No leak would require the turbocharger to put less air in the charge pipes, but there would be higher under hood temperatures if there is a leak-potentially heating up the radiator too much.

Since people use their intake manifold for a wastegate boost pressure source: Basically the leak would make the turbo put more volume of air into the charge pipe, thus running the turbo hotter(overworking the turbo) if that makes any sense…?
It depends if there is a boost leak in the manifold and/or how much it leaks.
It would have to be a significant leak for the under hood temperatures to increase enough for the radiator to overheat.
Either way the intake manifold should be fixed first.

As I mentioned above, the second thing I would do is heat wrap the downpipe which should significantly reduce under hood temperatures, and it often does so close to the radiator. It’s cheap, less than $100, for good heat wrap and can be done in an hour or two. I had good results from heat wrapping the downpipe on my H22 Civic which was over heating after back to back drag racing passes.
Next, look into the air flow problem and the spacing between the radiator and intercooler as Shodan and LS joker mentioned.
Also, there are other factors that could be causing the overheating of your coolant, however those are the first few things I’d take a look at.

 

Lots of good ideas in here, but I'll add a few other things - you may have a 1700 CFM fan, but unless you've upgraded the wiring to a larger gauge with a relay, you may not be getting all the CFM out of it that you could. Next, what are your fan settings in the tune? I changed mine to come on at 185F and to stay on until 91 mph. This made a fair difference in coolant temp while street driving.

Lastly, if you still can't get it to come down, you may have to go to a larger radiator or add a second small radiator like mynameisjustin did on his CRX.

 

My comments are in Blue
There's something else going on.. Part of the story isn't being told here. Hopefully, the OP will give a bit more detail with some photos, so we can help further.

 

Ok, thanks for the reply. I see what you mean how there would either be no leak, or a leak that would make the turbo go to atmospheric.
Hopefully the original poster will change some things and post the results.

 

Thankyou all so very much for all the great inputs. So I’ve added in some hood vents. They made no big difference. I took the bumper off and turbo side headlight assembly off as its a top mounted turbo and it help dramatically. So it is an air flow issue as was stated. If I do water meth injection would that be enough to keep the temps down without having to drive around with one head light off? Like someone had mentioned the sleeper look is clean but drivability is more satisfying.

 

Post a pic of the front end and how you have your radiator/intercooler mounted.

Water/meth injection would absolutely help lower IATs and may have a small impact on overall engine temp, but you should fix the source of your problem.

 

The distance between the rad and intercooler is about 4 inches.

Bumper is just loose fit as I took it off

 

Try to close up the space between the intercooler and radiator support, box it all in so air must go through instead of out the side or the top.

 

Just from looking at this picture, it looks like you have heat wrap on your charge pipe, the same kind as on your downpipe, but it’s difficult to tell just from looking at the picture.
You could try heat shielding on your charge pipe to deflect heat. The problem with heat wrap on your charge pipe is that it might be holding too much heat in, rather than letting it release heat.
Doing this likely won’t solve your rising coolant temperature issue, but it should help your IAT go down slightly.

From looking at your picture, the source of your coolant temperature problem is the downpipe close to the radiator, and also the top mount manifold, which keeps a lot of heat in the area. The solution isn’t really to go get a new downpipe and exhaust manifold, unless you tried everything else. But for now focus on channeling more air into that area.
Also, your intercooler looks very thick, and has large end tanks. Is it an efficient set up, or could you go with a smaller/ better brand intercooler?

 

This. This should 110% be your first course of action. I promise you you're missing out on cooling efficiency with the big gap you currently have between the front bumper and the radiator support - You're missing out on a ton of airflow that should be going through the radiator.




Heat wrap on the charge pipe is irrelevant.

 

Keep in mind the driver side headlight is not on the car right now

 

We know, even with the headlight there you have a massive gap. Right now when you're driving at speed a lot of the air you'd want to have going through the radiator is going to instead hit the open area on the driver's half of the radiator support and hit your turbo instead, and just scatter the air around the bay.

Fixing this by making a proper block off plate would also make your hood vents more effective. To be specific, this is the area you want to block off (I'd just use a thin aluminum plate, cut & form it) to force air to go through the radiator rather than taking the route of least resistance through that hole.





Edit: Looking again at the front end of your DA, I see what others are saying about this chassis being prone to overheating - It looks like the front end of the car has very little to offer in terms of allowing air INTO the engine bay. I don't really even see a good place on the hood or front bumper to add an air vent. I'd still do what me and Chris are suggesting, and see if that helps. Hood risers may also offer a little bit if you don't already have them on.

 

No hood risers EVER. Stupidest piece of trash you can buy that will only make things worse.

The half radiator with the downpipe nearly touching it is really not helping your situation either.

 

My recommendation is to switch to a sirroco setup. Or a tucked radiator setup. To get that radiator closer to the natural airflow. Also get a light weight diverter plate made. As well as the nice spal fan, flows 1300CFMs i believe.

Or close that radiator support gap AND widen the mouth on the bumper.

 

Believe me. I’ve looked at the set up multiple times. I can’t go with any rad wider than 16-17 inches. My wastgates are in the way