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!

 

[drivemusicnow]

its overheating when i boost on highway only .

no bubble in the overflow , no booling prestone in the overflow .

I will try to make a duct.

I will try to see my temp with my log what is the normal temperature ?

I think the first thing you need to do is try and get all the airflow you can through the rad. This means ducting air, a "lip" on the car to send air through the rad rather than under the car. Don't let air go around the rad by "boxing" it in.

If this still doesn't work, I'd start looking into the HG.

 

[nightspeed87]

Yeah at highway speeds your radiator picks up a lot more air. But you have a FMIC and a condenser infront of it, you don't get all of that air anymore. At lower speeds, his fans are efficent enough to cool down the radiator. There is less load at lower speeds. At higher speeds, your RPM's are higher and theres a lot more load on your engine. More load on your engine means more heat. More heat means your cooling system needs to cool it down to operating temperatures.

I had the same exact problem, and all I did was put in a 1.3 BAR CAP, 180 degree thermosate with a racing aluminum radiator. If your lower radiator hose is getting hot and you feel pressure that means your water pump is working. If there is a noise coming from your waterpump area, you need to replace it asap and do the timing belt while your in there.

High speeds = More load = More heat = Need more cooling

Lower speeds = Less load = Less heat = Need less cooling

Thats all I can tell you so far, and about the fans running constantly. Try it for a year or two tell me what happens.

That makes sense but if hes at highway speeds at low rpms in 5th gear cruising the engine is actually working less unless your driving hard on the highway. But you say it happends under boost so what you was saying makes sense because it means it happens when he gets on it a little. As far as the cooling fans running all the time, Ive had my cooling fans hooked up to run all the time soon as you turn on the ignition and that was a year ago when i first did that and no problems yet.

 

[nightspeed87]

also are you looking at your stock coolant gauge or a after market one, or on the datalogger?

 

[patty AT forge]

If you have the side mount handy try putting that back on. If it still overheats you can likely rule out it being an airflow issue.

 

[Mitsu RacerX]

Let me guess it only overheats while driving. Mine did it and I came to find out that I had a busted water jacket on the head gasket. It would not get hot until I started driving it. This happens becuase the water jacket let air/pressure into the cooling system when you build compression or boost when moving, at idle it will run fine with no overheating. Just something to think about. Hope it helps...

 

[destik1]

So I took off my thermostat housing last night, only to find that the person that replaced it last time did not replace it There wasn't even a gasket on there, not to mention no thermostat at all!!!! I am just suprised that I have been running fine since last year without it. Anyway went to pick up a new one, and ended up going to damn near every auto parts store in town because no one had that gasket in stock. I finally gave up, and decided to make my own. I did purchase the thermostat; however, when I returned home to install it, I came to find that they had given me the wrong one So I get to do it all over again tonight!!! I was curious though, seeing as these two problems might be completely unrelated seeing as I didn't even have a thermostat in my car, what you have to do to adjust the throttle cable, or if you could leave me a link to another thread that tells you how to do this. I also don't have a logger, so I can't really read coolant temps. Is there another way to check my sensor??? Thanks for the input so far...I definately have a lot more work to do tonight.

 

[SinaiTSi]

To adjust your throttle cable: on your throttle body, there should be a braided line coming off of it, this is your throttle cable. That cable is then connected to a small bracket which rests on the back of the intake manifold. Simply loosen the bolts holding the bracket down and push the bracket towards the throttle body a little bit to loosen up the cable some. Like I said, I was having the same problem with a high idle at a stop and since I did this, I haven't had this happen anymore. Let me know how it all works out.

 

[PieEyedPiper]

water wetter, some sort of venting to your radiater, hood vents. Do you have any leaks in the coolant lines? Do you have any logger to see what temp it gets up to?

Water wetter is proven to actually raise coolant temps. Great for corrosion resistance and like, not freezing and whatnot - just not for keeping coolant temps down.

 

[destik1]

Thanks a lot! I'll give that a try along with replacing the thermostat tonight, and hopefully will be up and running I'll let you know.

 

[vintagemuscle]

Water wetter is proven to actually raise coolant temps. Great for corrosion resistance and like, not freezing and whatnot - just not for keeping coolant temps down.

could you show a link that water wetter raises coolant temps? since using water wetter i have seen a consistant 3-4 degree lower coolant temps. with a 50/50 mix i was seeing a steady 197, after using water wetter i have seen consistent readings of 193 to 194 degrees. not that it lowered my coolant temps much but they were already fine. this is at about 85 degrees outside sitting at idle.
to the original poster, i would suggest running straight distilled water along with some water wetter. i will be switching to distilled water and am confident it will lower my coolant temps by atleast 3-4 more degrees.
i see you live in canada, only use straight distilled water during the summer months.

 

[HOTSHOT100]

i look my stock gauge in the dash . when i boost he goes up to 3/4 and i soon i see the gauge on 3/4 i put the heat vent to max to lower the temp .

i can try with my logger if you want

how i can check if its my headgasket ?

i will try to make a custom lip to put move air flow through the radiator

thanks for your help and sorry for my poor english

 

[Turbocharged]

Water wetter is proven to actually raise coolant temps. Great for corrosion resistance and like, not freezing and whatnot - just not for keeping coolant temps down.

This is somewhat true. Water wetter contains surfactants which lower the surface tension of the coolant. The decrease in surface tension allows the coolant to make better "sweeping" contact with the head, thereby removing more heat from the head. The removed heat from the head is retained in the coolant.

Water temperatures are measure after the head. A car equipped with Water Wetter will have higher water temperatures after the head because heat is transfered from the head to the coolant more efficiently.

The same goes for the radiator; heat is transfered from the coolant to radiator to the atmosphere more efficiently. A car equipped with Water Wetter will realize a drop in coolant temperatures following the radiator.

In short, surfactant additives increase the efficiency of heat transfer from the head to the radiator via coolant. The raise in coolant temperatures after the head can be deceptive.

 

[Turbocharged]

Perform a leak down and compression test. Post the results and we will help diagnose if the problem is a head gasket.

Here is what I did to lower my temps:

1. intake duct from smic location to air filter (intake temperatures are always ambient)
2. swapped to an external oil cooler
3. wired the fans to an in-cabin switch
4. removed weather stripping from the rear of the hood
5. installed a 170* thermostat
6. installed spacers where the hood mounts (slightly raised the hood but not noticeably)
7. 70% water, 30% propylene gylcol, one bottle of water wetter
8. DEI exhaust wrap from exhaust manifold to downpipe flexpipe

My car can maintain temperatures from 185-195; previously temperatures would climb to 216+.

 

[gsxtreme1987]

Sup,

I just did a 14B swap in my car couple of days ago.. but i was having some problems routing the water/coolant line to the turbo.

It is my only car and my DD so i decided to block off the water cooling lines till this weekend.

But now when i drive my car it starts to overheat after 15 mins of driving or over heats right away if i get on it.

it even overheated when i left it idling for 15 mins. i came back out and checked the Temp gauge it was right under the H.

So does anyone know what exactly is causing the car to over heat ?

 

[olmytsi]

Check for leaks, check the coolant level and also burp the system.

 

[s4b0t4g3r]

umm did you reconnect the lines??

 

[s4b0t4g3r]

check the thermostat

 

[gsxtreme1987]

Check for leaks, check the coolant level and also burp the system.

there is a leak from the hose that i blocked off.. But it only leaks maybe 1 drop every minute.. ?

would that harm ne ?

 

[gringo72884]

I would say do the safe thing and wait until you can reconnect the coolant lines. After all you don't want to damage your engine. Even if you think it drips once per min. don't take any chances. goodluck

 

[olmytsi]

there is a leak from the hose that i blocked off.. But it only leaks maybe 1 drop every minute.. ?

would that harm ne ?

Regardless, you should fix it. The coolant system gets pressurized so you don't want any leaks.

 

[gsxtreme1987]

Regardless, you should fix it. The coolant system gets pressurized so you don't want any leaks.

aite fixed that leak.. car wont overheat nemore thanx

 

[olmytsi]

Glad i could help out!

 

[No_Skillz]

My car has been overheating due to my FMIC install recently. Today I was planning on doing a coolant flush, rewiring my fans, new thermostat and some water wetter when I discovered upon opening the car (cold) that my coolant overflow bottle is full but my system is low. I'm aware that the system will expel coolant into the bottle and out of the car when it's overheating, but I was always under the impression that it would suck it back in.

This really worries me because this is my DD and since the last time I checked it could be possible that I've been driving around for ~2 days like this. I am going to go ahead with the rewire, new t-stat, and flush regardless. Any help appreciated.

 

[No_Skillz]

Well fellas, I didn't get around to a t-stat change, but everything else is done. I ended up flushing the system out about 6 times until all I was getting was crystal clear water. The reason why so much coolant would get pushed out before was due to a bad radiator cap, which I changed as well ($8 from pepboys). My system holds fluid well now, and I will update later about my overheating and if I get some time to exchange my t-stat.

 

[dave99gst]

Odd's are you may need to upgrade the fans and/or radiator.
Pretty common stuff after a fmic install.