Car Overheated / Overheating / Overheats [MERGED]

[NTRCOOL]

OVERHEATING? The issues and their solutions have remained the same- either you don't have enough cool air reaching the rad, there's a cooling system obstruction which is preventing coolant from circulating, or your head gasket has failed and is allowing coolant to be consumed or pushed away from the engine.

Discuss all possible overheating problems and solutions here.


OK,
I just left my house to go over to my GF's,and happen to look down and see my needle right before the red mark. This just happened out of nowhere. I stop the car as quickly as i can, and pour in some coolant(Coolant a little low). Still same thing. Welp im in the middle of the road, and HAD to get it home. Im only 5 min from my house. I decided to try and make it(I really had no other choice). Welp I drive no faster than 20mph, and the temp needle is BARELY into the red the whole way.And occasionaly to the left of it. Am I ok?? Do ya think any damage was done?? And im thinking either thermostat, or water pump. For each of those, whats a round about $$ figure to get replaced?? Any info you have would be GREATLY appreciated!

 

[Absit]

take out the thermostat

Worst advice ever unless you specify "to see if the thermostat is bad"..

 

[JMiller]

When i use my A/C for about 10mins the engine begins to overheat, it rises to 3/4 of the way hot and will sit there until i turn the A/C off. I have a thick intercooler but i also have a thick radiator(PR) with slim fans wired to run full speed when on and fan shroud. Any help would be great, because its very HOT outside.

Thanks.

 

[MadrussianSVT]

Quick update: just installed slim fan on the radiator, for now wired it to fog light plugs ( no foglights on the car right now), eventually I want to run a separate switch for a fan, so if coolant sensor or any other fan related sensors would take a shit i can still cool the radiator.
By the way since my car overheated I think I hear more pronounced "ticking" or my mind just playing tricks on me and it's fuel injectors. However that ticking increases with RPMs accordingly, should I be worried?

 

[moi1463]

I have the same issue and still trying to find a solution. Basically the same setup you have minus the thick radiator. Which is what I was think of doing. But since you're having the same issue saves me money. My post is a couple down on the same forum. Good luck, hopefully we can find some way to fix it.

 

[m_0ney_pit]

try changing your fan set points in ecuflash/ ceddymod to come on earlier. There is a table for temps with AC on and with AC off.

If you don't have good engine management like link or ecu flashing your stuck with doing a thermostat swap to a cooler one like a mishimoto but then your engine always runs cooler which may be a bad thing while cruising or freeway driving

 

[JMiller]

Yep no ceddy mods or dsmlink here(yet), also tried not running a thermostat with both fans on full blast from cold start and still overheated. Im thinking about putting a small slim fan(like a 10") as a pusher on the front of the condenser and wiring it in with the A/C fan.

 

[funcar]

I went to a Mishimoto single 14" fan on my stock radiator and was running warmer than with my stock rad. fan. Around 20 degrees hotter after workin her a little. So I made a front under tray from 1/8" alum. and put a deflector on top of it. So any air passing thru. my frontmount is directed up to my radiator. It's a beefy skid plate too. I also turned my fan on via. my ems so it runs all the time under 75% throttle. Now on a 90 plus degree day, I run cool as winter time. You can actually feel the air being pulled thru. the front mount when I'm sitting still.
I believe the fan was just recirculating the same hot air, without any undertray to keep it flowing in one direction. I also took off my alum. (the one that came with the car) heat shield for the exhaust manifold. So theres some extra heat for now also. I am making a new one from S.S.. It actually reflects the heat where alum. absorbs the heat.
These cars are very delicate when it comes to cooling. I have a vis carbon hood, the vader style. Got it just to aid in cooling though.
I always like sitting and watching the heat vapors come out of my evo's hood.

Side note I dont have ac so good luck running ac and staying cool. It is possible! The undertray does help with cooling.

 

[LiquidX]

What you need to remember is the stock fans are blow in the range of 1300-1600cfm EACH. A Mishimoto fan an possibly the PR fans are rated for about 900cfm each. I'm running vey hot right now and I need to make some ducting to keep the air in place. Should help you as well.

 

[scott90gsx420]

Simple fix.. Remove the A/C.. Both of my dsm's have had heating issues especially with the A/C on... Ive never been able to fix it with the A/C in the car the best fix ive found is too remove it and put in high flowing fans.. .. You could try water water and creating a AIR duct so the air HAS to go threw the rad but it probably wont help enough..

 

[Alan11]

Quick update: just installed slim fan on the radiator, for now wired it to fog light plugs ( no foglights on the car right now), eventually I want to run a separate switch for a fan, so if coolant sensor or any other fan related sensors would take a shit i can still cool the radiator.
By the way since my car overheated I think I hear more pronounced "ticking" or my mind just playing tricks on me and it's fuel injectors. However that ticking increases with RPMs accordingly, should I be worried?

The ticking is more likely your lifters. Very common in every 4G63 engines. Mine ticks sometimes..
Upgrading to 3G lifters are what most people use to get rid of the tick.

 

[Strat190]

Here's a good article that helped me a lot with my over heating issues, for me it ended up being the hg though. But I tried everything else first before changing it.

http://www.dsmtuners.com/forums/articles-engine-fuel/200575-help-im-overheating-heres-how-fix.html

As far as the crappy start I would check if you're getting good spark or fuel as you crank it and it doesn't turn on

Hope that helps! Car looks really good btw

 

[JMiller]

I dont think yall are understanding what i said, the car ONLY overheats with the A/C on and the fan switch at speed 4 thats it. A/C off runs perfect temp, when fan/s turn on i can see the temp drop below its usual spot then they turn back off. As far as ducting goes, i will go look for something this weekend because i've been wanting to do it for awhile now. Thanks for your comments though, might help someone.

 

[scott90gsx420]

Thats because the car has too work harder.. I don't think your understanding us... The damn A/C causes more load on the motor as well as it blocking airflow... Either the second fan isn't working or Its not getting enough flow threw everything... Chances are its option B as youve a big front mount IC... This is something that is very common when you stick a giant piece of metal in front of everything.. The fans will only pull so much air and can only cool so much... If the car stays cool with the A/C off well there ya go.. If you know the fans are kicking on when its overheating then you can either keep dealing with the overheating or remove the damn A/C not too much more too say..

 

[Infamous33]

I dont think yall are understanding what i said, the car ONLY overheats with the A/C on and the fan switch at speed 4 thats it.

If you check your condensor temperature with the a/c on, it will get up to 250-300 degrees at idle, more when you bring up the rpm. This additional heat, plus the heat pouring off your FMIC are all being pulled thru the radiator.
Trying to cool 200 degree water with 300 degree air ###### won't do much good.
A shroud would help move the air faster, or before it gets a chance to get too hot

What you need to remember is the stock fans are blow in the range of 1300-1600cfm EACH. A Mishimoto fan an possibly the PR fans are rated for about 900cfm each.

Cutting the air that is pulled thru the rad/condensor in almost half.....
You might do well to make some air flow guides IN FRONT of the condensor also, to catch as much air as you can while driving

 

[Palmetto_TSi]

I dont think yall are understanding what i said, the car ONLY overheats with the A/C on and the fan switch at speed 4 thats it. A/C off runs perfect temp, when fan/s turn on i can see the temp drop below its usual spot then they turn back off. As far as ducting goes, i will go look for something this weekend because i've been wanting to do it for awhile now. Thanks for your comments though, might help someone.

The reason your car overheats is because of the evaporator coil in front of the radiator. It should raise the heat a bit while sitting in traffic, but not while you are moving. If it is raising your heat that much I would look into having the A/C system recharged. A system low on freon will cause excess heat.

Also, DO NOT REMOVE THE THERMOSTAT. Removing the thermostat can actually CAUSE overheating. The larger hole allows the coolant to flow too fast through the radiator and doesn't allow enough quench time too cool back down. Summit and Jegs used to sell block offs with different size holes to allow you to remove the thermostat properly.

 

[97gst_spyder]

I had this same issue 2 weeks ago. All my fix was having both fans come on. I have a stock rad, driver stock fan and a shitty slim fan on the pass side. It did the same exact thing, on the interstate going 80. After I wired in the pass fan to the ecu, no more issues.

So, I think better fans should help.

Also, I removed the duct work in the front bumper and I dropped about 5-7* while cruising (complete opposite of what is suppose to happen).

 

[gorf]

Open your hood and look at the fans, only one should ever come on UNLESS the AC is on. When you turn the AC does a fan turn on, I believe it is the driver side fan? If not, that is your problem.

You can program the chip to turn on both fans or you can simply use a piece of wire in your fuse box and jump fan low to ac fan high.
http://www.dsmtuners.com/forums/bolt-tech/370717-how-turn-both-fans-radiator-fan.html

 

[nightmares GS-T]

Thats because the car has too work harder.. I don't think your understanding us... The damn A/C causes more load on the motor as well as it blocking airflow... Either the second fan isn't working or Its not getting enough flow threw everything... Chances are its option B as youve a big front mount IC... This is something that is very common when you stick a giant piece of metal in front of everything.. The fans will only pull so much air and can only cool so much... If the car stays cool with the A/C off well there ya go.. If you know the fans are kicking on when its overheating then you can either keep dealing with the overheating or remove the damn A/C not too much more too say..

For some of us removing the ac isn't an option. I don't know how hot it gets in idaho but I can assure you it isn't nearly as hot there as it is here. 98 degrees there and here are two completely different worlds when you factor in the ridiculous humidity. Our average heat index is over 100. So before you go flaming and cursing at the guy do a little research. I can imagine it gets pretty toasty in SC as well especially if he's close to the coastline. To the op im fighting the same issue right now so i'll be following this thread and hope to find an answer.

 

[LiquidX]

Gorf, when I ran the slim fans, I had both come on at the same time. Not by any fancy chip programming or jumping fuses, but rather just wiring them together to the main fan harness. Worked great that way.

Best thing you can do Nightmare GST is measure the available distance between the radiator an the closest obstruction. For my case, I can only run a single puller fan which would be on the passenger side. My external wastegate sits about 1 1/2" from the radiator on the driver side so I'll be getting a pusher fan mounted between the FMIC and condenser.

In total I'll be pushing almost 3000 CFM with SPAL fans. It's an option you should consider and same with you OP. You need more airflow when the AC come's on to battle the extra heat produced. Your setup may work for now but if you ever decide to upgrade to a larger turbo or start pushing more heat around you'll be in a similar position I'm in without using AC at the moment.

However, I would try to make some ducting first and see how that works out. If you have access to the stock air diverter you can trim it up to fit it back in place. I would then use DEI or ISC speed tape to fill in any open gaps and holes. Use foam tubing as a gap filler between the radiator and the rad support. Doing that should be directing all airflow coming in through the nose directly to the radiator.

 

[nightmares GS-T]

Gorf, when I ran the slim fans, I had both come on at the same time. Not by any fancy chip programming or jumping fuses, but rather just wiring them together to the main fan harness. Worked great that way.

Best thing you can do Nightmare GST is measure the available distance between the radiator an the closest obstruction. For my case, I can only run a single puller fan which would be on the passenger side. My external wastegate sits about 1 1/2" from the radiator on the driver side so I'll be getting a pusher fan mounted between the FMIC and condenser.

In total I'll be pushing almost 3000 CFM with SPAL fans. It's an option you should consider and same with you OP. You need more airflow when the AC come's on to battle the extra heat produced. Your setup may work for now but if you ever decide to upgrade to a larger turbo or start pushing more heat around you'll be in a similar position I'm in without using AC at the moment.

However, I would try to make some ducting first and see how that works out. If you have access to the stock air diverter you can trim it up to fit it back in place. I would then use DEI or ISC speed tape to fill in any open gaps and holes. Use foam tubing as a gap filler between the radiator and the rad support. Doing that should be directing all airflow coming in through the nose directly to the radiator.

Thanks that was my next idea. I have the pr radiator and both fans kick on but its still not enough so I was gonna try one really powerful pusher fan or just two more regular slim fans pushing and see if that will help. Also gonna re wrap my tubular manifold and the hotside of the turbo and half my downpipe and see. I know that manifold puts out tons of heat and I honestly wonder if that's causing most of the overheating.

 

[DSM1G90]

? .. what about getting a front mounted fan that blows into the evaporator instead of the typical fans that pulls air through both the evap and radiator - some import vehicles have front blowing fans when equipped with A/C.

Just a thought. good luck - DSM

 

[LiquidX]

? .. what about getting a front mounted fan that blows into the evaporator instead of the typical fans that pulls air through both the evap and radiator - some import vehicles have front blowing fans when equipped with A/C.

Just a thought. good luck - DSM

That's what I mentioned. The only downside to using a pusher fan instead of a puller fan is it's less efficent. You'll get more cooling easier with a puller fan than a pusher.

They are great to use when they need to be used (like in these situations).

Just a FYI, you can only use up to a 12" fan. I ordered my stuff through here The Fan Man

 

[gusu]

I hate to ask, but did you try running straight water yet? I kind of feel like this is a stupid thing to ask but hell.. you never know.

 

[19BLACKGST98]

I had this problem before and it turned out to be a clog in the high pressure side of the a/c. I dont remember what was replaced but ive never had an overheat issue since.

 

[mike_tsi]

For some of us removing the ac isn't an option. I don't know how hot it gets in idaho but I can assure you it isn't nearly as hot there as it is here. 98 degrees there and here are two completely different worlds when you factor in the ridiculous humidity. Our average heat index is over 100. So before you go flaming and cursing at the guy do a little research. I can imagine it gets pretty toasty in SC as well especially if he's close to the coastline. To the op im fighting the same issue right now so i'll be following this thread and hope to find an answer.

I agree somewhat on both sides but that is an option. I live in NM\AZ where it is well above most states. I have no ac, that is just one of the things you have to give up while owning a dsm imo. But to the op, try ducting as posted above and maybe new radiator. When I upgraded my radiator my temps went down even with the fmic. Possibly that.

Edit: Just saw you already have radiator.