GIVING UP........Wisemen needed

[Justins99GSX]

Well haven't posted on here in a long time and thought I would get some help or ideas on here before I part this damn car out.... MODS are in my profile here is a couple of extra need to knows,

Problem:
Ever since I got the car running I have had a overheating problem... done everything I can think of to fix it.... (W.P is brand new as well as t-stat and coolant) I do have a FMIC and have compensated for it by hooking up 2 12" electric fans that are on all the time.... Any ideas as to what is causin the overheating????? (I Have searched overheating my syptoms are the same as a stuck close t-stat..bottle overfilling while driving)

Don't know if this info might help but I am running 20w-50 motor oil and have changed from running DEX Cool to regular radiator fluid... Also, if I drive around town without goin into boost the car "seems" to be running fine (temp around 190-200) as soon as I do a two or three pulls is when I start overheating.... PLEASE GIVE ME SOME GOOD ADVICE..... I don't want to part it out as it took me a year to save the money to put this peace of $hit together and not be able to drive the bastard

Justin

Wanting to.......

 

[andymoraitis]

Justin,

That's a really great combo under the hood and I'd hate to see you give up on it. There are a few things that might help.

1. Replace your radiator cap with one that will hold 16psi instead of the 13psi unit we currently use.
2. Run a hydrocarbon test on your coolant to see if you're leaking from the HG.
3. Run a compression test. It won't always reveal a blown HG, but it's a start.
4. Verify that your fans are pulling air and not pushing instead. Come to think of it, I've never seen fans mounted on the outside of the rad (someone correct me if I'm off base here!). These are usually on the indside and pull air from the rad towards the motor.
5. Check for oil in the coolant (muddy color in the overflow) or coolant in the oil (milky oil color).

Those things will at least get you started in the right direction and possibly lead you towards the cause. I know this is frustrating, but stick with it and you'll get it solved.

I will say that Dan (project_tsi) and I recently went through this on his car. We replaced everything possible and it turned out that the head was warped and pushing coolant from the overflow bottle with an improperly sealing HG. If you have the time and try the above ideas without resolution, it may be time to pull the head, inspect the gasket and then have a machine shop verify that the head is perfectly straight. If the head hasn't been machined before, you may still have enough meat on it to have some material taken off.

If it is in fact a warped head, I would suspect preignition from the high timing you'd be running by correcting for 750s with an AFC and MAFT. Those injectors are way too much for a piggyback to control on a higher compression motor and this could be the reason for the failure in the first place. I know that Dan's issue was timing related and I think yours may be as well if the head is indeed warped.

Let us know what you find,

Andy

 

[Jaraxle]

Justin,
You can't get away from the FMIC. Welcome to the party. You need to buy an upgraded radiator. I'm in NY and check my profile. Even with the FAL dual fans, I had the same problem when it was 88deg out. Since your in a very hot climate, I can only imagine how fast your car overheats. I just installed a koyo radiator 2 days ago. It is supposed to hit 90 tomorrow, but I really don't expect any problems anymore. The radiator is friggin HUGE. I did have to trim the FAL shroud with a dremel, and move my overflow bottle a bit lower. No big deal. I ordered it from a shop on ebay. I think it was like 340 shipped. They were fast, no complaints. Let me know if you want to know the place. I read it was bigger and cheaper than the fluidyne one. Now you need a cold air intake:
http://www.dsmtuners.com/forums/showthread.php?t=230641

-Jaraxle

 

[Rex2342]

I'm with andymoraitis on this one. My buddies 2g (6bolt) did this same thing. He was overheating like crazy and kept blowing head gaskets. It turned out that the head was shaved beyond the service limit and causing the gasket to blow and the car to overheat. He tried 3 different heads before he found one that was straight and hadn't been shaved. Once he got it back together with the good head it stopped overheating. If the head gasket turns out to be in good order then I would upgrade the rad like Jaraxle suggested.

 

[Justins99GSX]

Hey guys thanx for the responses... Just to answer some of the questions on here...

I do have a fluydyne radiator,
I had a local DSMer check the fans and all cooling components and the fans are pushing,
I just had a total valve job done and head resurfaced before the car was put back together,
Also have dsmlink in the car not a SAFC, forgot to change that in my profile,

Um if I forgot anything else or want to know more, please ask....

As for the testing part of it I will get to it when I can, I work full time and have 3 of these damn cars....

 

[Dred]

the fans are pushing,

Unless the fans are on the outside and I missed that somewhere, the fans shoud really be pulling air into the engine compartment, rather than pushing the air out. If you installed the fans yourself you might have changed the polarity in the wiring causing them to spin the opposite way. Simple pay to check would be to put a sheet of paper beside the fans or at the radiator or the FMIC and see the direction of flow of air. Do you overheat if you're driving on the freeway clear of traffic?

 

[Jaraxle]

Since your in arizona in the summer. Run distilled water through the whole system.
However, since you do have a big rad, and the fans are running right......
You really should look into the head gasket.
I also thermally wrapped my downpipe all the way the flex section, and actually did from the flex to the cat too. Just trying to keep the heat from getting out into the engine compartment.

-Jaraxle

 

[Justins99GSX]

do you guys think that since I haven't purcased a dump tube for my external gate that it would cause my overheating problems???? Or should I still look into the headgasket...????

 

[Rex2342]

do you guys think that since I haven't purcased a dump tube for my external gate that it would cause my overheating problems???? Or should I still look into the headgasket...????

You said that your fans are pushing? If they are on the back of the rad in the stock location they should be pulling not pushing. Reverse the polarity so they are pull air into the engine bay then see if it is still overheating.

 

[Justins99GSX]

The Fans are mounted on the front of the radiator and are set up to push air through...

 

[andymoraitis]

I'd remove those fans from the outside, remount them on the inside and set them to pull. That's how factory units work and these should be more efficient that way. If that doesn't help and you've gone through the rest of the troubleshooting list then I'd suspect the HG.

You could save yourself a LOT of time by simply performing a pressure test on the cooling system as well as a hydrocarbon test to see if it's the HG before you start pulling things apart.

 

[Nanan]

You need to protect your radiator from the heat being expeled by the turbo. Hit up jegs and get a turbo wrap kit and some extra wrap and hit the exhaust from the manifold to the flex section in the down pipe.

The radiator fans in front of the radiator are fine, one thing I do suggest is shimming the bottom of your FMIC out 2ish inches so you have a gap between the fmic and the core support. This gap will help you pull in cooler air from the ground which will help the cooling issue.

 

[one_fast_tsi]

A

lso, if I drive around town without goin into boost the car "seems" to be running fine (temp around 190-200) as soon as I do a two or three pulls is when I start overheating

Have you checked to make sure that you have good fuel preasure under boost? Buddy of mine has the same problem at the end of a pass the car starts to heat up. He is using a 255 fuel pump and thats only on an evo 16g. just a thought

 

[Justins99GSX]

A

Have you checked to make sure that you have good fuel preasure under boost? Buddy of mine has the same problem at the end of a pass the car starts to heat up. He is using a 255 fuel pump and thats only on an evo 16g. just a thought

I set the base fuel pressure at 43.5 with the hose off..

Ill try putting the fans on the back of the radiator, as far as actual radiator pressure it is okay, I will have to go down to a parts store to buy the tester to see if its a head gasket....

 

[Justins99GSX]

Got the block tester and it came back negative.... so tonight I'll be putting the stock fan back on and leaving the second fan in front and have it come on the same time as the main fan....
any other Ideas to help keep this beast cool?????????

 

[Jaraxle]

Did you fill the whole system with distilled water (not coolant) ?
Did you try the higher PSI rad cap ?
I'm still having cooling problems too. Even with a KOYO rad.
The FMIC just blocks too friggin much. It got about 1/2 way from mid to hi. Too much for my liking. Turning off the a/c cooled it back down. I'm going to take my own advise and do a higher psi cap and distilled water. If that fails, then I'm going to do an air pickup (like camaro's have) that will bypass the airflow going through the FMIC and instead pickup air from under the car and deliver it directly to the radiator.


-Jaraxle

 

[gsxtacy]

Do you still have a AC condensor in between the FMIC and Radiator??

 

[gsxtacy]

What about the Black Part of the front bumper? Trimmed? Left there?

What I noticed about EVO8 Front bumpers....is the radiator is higher in the nose of the car and the FMIC lower. The nostrils supply the radiator with fresh cool air, and the lower part of the bumper directs the same fresh cool air through the FMIC.

The heat vent in the hood (of said "EVO") has a aerodynamic, vacuum air dam to cause a small vacuum pocket to let exhaust temp be drawn out through the top of the engine compartment instead of swirling around in the engine bay as the under car air flow escapes in DSM's.

One thing you COULD do would be to "duct" the FMIC to the Radiator. Another words....remove your Bumper cover, remove the FMIC afer determining how much "sheet-metal/card board/street sign/whatever to "duct" a set airflow path all the way through the FMIC-"sealed ducting"-Radiator. Then fabricating the ducting and sealing all the crevices up with HVAC tape, putting the FMIC and bumper back on and Sealing the outside edges of the intercooler/bumper. In "Maximum Boost" by Corky Bell, the book says proper ducting helps alot.

After that, I would recommend some sort of stone/bug screen to protect the cores that have to transfer both kinds of heat relief...........

I have seen pusher fans on a set-up that worked fine......I however recommend puller fans.

 

[Justins99GSX]

Well I finished Reinstalling the stock fans and tommorrow I will take it for a test drive.... Had one more question......

Could the 20w-50 oil I am running hold a higher temp and should I change it out to mobil 1 10w-30???

 

[andymoraitis]

20W-50 is actually better at pulling heat away from internal components so that's not a problem. As a matter of fact, I run 20W-50 and prefer it to thinner oils in a turbocharged motor.

Keep us posted on how it goes on the test drive,

Andy

 

[Justins99GSX]

After work today I am gonna take her out...... had her running last night but I put the tensior on the timing belt to tight and had to redo the timing.. after that the car idles a lot better.... Do you guys think I will be alright to turn the boost up to 15lbs or so... have about 400 miles on her and 8lbs sucks????

 

[andymoraitis]

I broke mine in for the first 30 miles at 16psi with a lot of acceleration and deceleration between 3-6K RPM in 2nd, 3rd and 4th and ran 22 psi immediately after with no ill-effects. Motors need to be broken in like you're going to drive it.

Turn it up (responsibly) and log it to make sure that everything's OK.

 

[TimG]

The two main things I would look over in your situation are:

1. What is your coolant to water ratio? The more water you have, the better your cooling effect will be. Also, try a bottle of redline water wetter. That stuff works amazing.

2. Change your rad cap from a fellow DSMers to test it out in a drive. Sometimes rad caps can't hold the designed pressure in the cooling system and it destroys the integrity of the cooling effect.

 

[SinaiTSi]

4. Verify that your fans are pulling air and not pushing instead. Come to think of it, I've never seen fans mounted on the outside of the rad (someone correct me if I'm off base here!). These are usually on the indside and pull air from the rad towards the motor.

Actually the GVR4 does get a fan on the front of the radiator from the factory. They have two, a pusher and a puller, the puller being the primary fan though.

It is also true that a puller fan is more efficient than a pusher. Sometimes you don't have a choice, but if you can mount them on the inside like suggested, go for that. One thing which I've always wondered about is that when fans are mounted on the outside of the radiator, they will actually block airflow to the radiator and even more so when not turned on. I can see that when you are sitting in traffic or diving slowly the fans kick on and everything is fine since the engine isn't under heavy load and the radiator is getting a sufficient amount of flow from the fans to keep everything in order, but when you decide to make some pulls, the water will heat up quicker because the fans are in the way and them being on doesn't compensate enough. This is a big part why puller fans are more efficient. If you remount the fans, that leaves the entire front radiator open for air to get to it and then on top of that you have the fans behind the radiator helping out even more because they are pulling air through as well and circulating air through the engine on top of that.

That was long and I hope I wasn't just speaking jibberish, I hope it made some sense.

 

[andymoraitis]

No jibberish there. It makes perfect sense that a puller will allow the majority of the radiator face to be exposed and therefore more likely to stay cool. I'm sure the manufacturers using pushers accounted for this in their design, but most cars are pullers for a reason.