Coolant temps to high

[TsiJohn333]

To start off i just bought evoscan. I decided to do some logging while just cruising on the highway. After i was done logging i went through my logs and noticed while cruising on the highway my coolant temps were between 220 - 234. For the past month or two ive noticed that my engine bay was A LOT hotter than usual and noticed that my fans are almost constantly on. I've replaced my thermostat from autozone and did a radiator flush. Could someone point me in the right direction on how to fix this problem. i have only one check engine light which is for a throttle position sensor.

i also have a mishimoto shroud kit with 12' slim fans wired to come on at the same time, and a new oem radiator if that makes any difference. Thanks in advance.

-John

 

[crazyquik22023]

Do you have a FMIC? A lot of front mounts will block airflow to the radiator and will cause higher coolant temps while on the highway. As for the fans coming on that is good. I run with my fans constantly on all the time. Also if you have somehow to compensate for the ECU "learn" mode, such as dsmlink or another kind of tuning software, get a lower temp. thermostat such as a 180 or 160 degree.

 

[TsiJohn333]

Thanks for the quick reply. i do have a front mount. I installed about a couple weeks ago but this has been an issue for a couple months now. what do you mean by compensate. compensate for what? im gonna replace the thermostat with a lower degree one tomorrow. My friend suggested to me water wetter? Has anyone had any experience with this?

 

[68442]

Mine never got that hot, maybe 220. I put in a 160 degree thermostat, cut the front 97 bumper middle section, added water wetter, put on the stock heat shields. Mine runs at 185 to 190 on the hottest days. Gets up to 203 at idle then the fans kick on and cool it back down to 190. Ducting would probaby help direct more airflow thru the radiator but I don't need that at this point.

Try a Infrared heat gun to see if the temp is accurate, also dump your current thermostat into some water and heat it to see if it is opening. Be a shame to do a bunch of modifications for nothing. I have 2 slim fans, a 12" and a 8", they seem to do fine.

 

[dsmtun3r98gst]

Well I wouldn't really recommend putting anything lower than what the manufacturer recommends for a thermostat which is 180 for a 2g. If you have a 2gb bumper i would also recommend that you cut out the black middle piece of the bumper to allow more are to go thru the opening.

And if you still have crash bar you would also need tot trim as much as you did the black middle piece. I have a VR Speed FMIC and im only seing 192-194 degrees on the high way. The only time it gets any higher than that during street driving. And when its at a complete idle its gets somewhat hotter but never to the point that it overheats.

I would say yeah go ahead and try out watter weter to see if it makes a difference. Im actually running some in my cooling system at the moment. Didn't really get a chance to log in my temps before adding it so I wouldn't be able to let you know if it made a difference or not.

Another thing that might be causing you to overheat is those after market fans you've got. It seems like alot of these aftermarket fans don't seem to flow as much as the stock units do and this causes some overheating issues.

 

[TsiJohn333]

I'll try cutting out the middle piece of my front bumper. That was on my to do list sometime this week. Say if i did get a lower temp. thermostat like 160 degrees, and it did bring my coolant temps down to 190 ish (which a 2g would normally like to see i believe) and have that compensate for the modifications I have. Would that be bad instead of having a 180 degree thermostat and having temps around 210 ish? i think autozone gave me a wrong thermostat when i did replace it =(

 

[dsmtun3r98gst]

Hmmm well one way to know if you got the wrong temp thermostat would be to take it off and take a look inside the copper tube; thats where you could usually find the temperature the thermostat is rated at.

And to be honest man... I wouldn't really recommend a thermostat from autozone, maybe the failsafe thermost yeah.... I work there and most of the ones I've seen are cheaply made compare to the OEM thermostat. Even I that work there went with an OEM one . Some things are worth getting from autozone so im not saying to stay away from evrything.

 

[gixxerdrew]

98% of aftermarket tstats work like crap on DSM. I know some people hunted for a long time to get one that worked out OK. At one time when my car was a street car I tried maybe half a dozen of them before i bought an OEM one when OEM ones were $100 or so. Penny wise, pound foolish. I think they are only like $18 now though, too cheap not to be worth it

 

[dsmtun3r98gst]

98% of aftermarket tstats work like crap on DSM. I know some people hunted for a long time to get one that worked out OK. At one time when my car was a street car I tried maybe half a dozen of them before i bought an OEM one when OEM ones were $100 or so. Penny wise, pound foolish. I think they are only like $18 now though, too cheap not to be worth it

WOW really??? damn paying $100 a thermostat must have been a big ouch I bet . Last time I got it, it was $23 but that was because im friends with the parts guy at the mitsu dealer.

 

[TsiJohn333]

id rather go to a junkyard and rip one out of junked dsm and take my chances on that than dropping $100 that i dont have on an oem thermostat i also remember 2 months ago i had some air bubbles in my coolant that i had to get out and this is when i started having the problem. could air bubbles in my coolant cause my temps to rise or could this be a water pump if the thermostat didnt work?

 

[phunny]

Well since everyone else covered all the easy fixes I'll jump on the more PIA problem which is you headgasket. The failure maybe letting exhaust gasses in you cooling system and heating up

 

[97gst_spyder]

Check the ' Scaled ' coolant temp, that is the correct one to look at. Same with intake air temp.

The scaled is what the ecu sees. Its about 15*-20* lower than the raw input.

 

[TsiJohn333]

THANK YOU 97gst_spyder. i was completely unaware of that and have been logging cool temp instead of coolant temp scaled. i did a quick log and my coolant temps are now around 198-205. Is this still to high because my fans are still kicking on a lot.

 

[PieEyedPiper]

That is normal temperature. Water wetter has actually been proven to raise coolant temps a degree or 2 in some circumstances, YMMV.

 

[crazyquik22023]

I use a Beck/Arnley 160* thermostat and have had 0 problems with it. Cost about $10 from advance auto parts. My car runs at about 158-165 degrees on a hot 90 degree day. By compensate I meant if you get a lower thermostat such as a 160 degree the coolant temps might not get to 180. The ECU is in "learn" mode until it hits 180 degrees. So you need a way to compensate for that. Dsmlink users can just change the coolant offset so the ECU will go out of learn mode at whatever temp you want it to.
EDIT: Didn't notice you already seem to have found your answer to the problem.