Got Troubles Need Your Help

[Yamahaulin]

I'll give you a brief rundown of what's take place and how the car is acting. I purchased a punishment racing t3 tubular header, very nice piece but it sits probably a half inch away from my radiator. Since putting the header on plus the tempature is now hotter, the car went from running 180 when not so hot to running 210 all the time, gets there in less than 10 minutes of running. I have a brand new 180 thermostat. On the way to work today the battery light came on the water light(the one that looks like a radiator)came on and it got hot, autometer got to probably 240 before i could get pulled off the road to check it out. When i turned the car off and got out the water was not bubbling so i sit there for about 5 minutes and let my fan run to cool the radiator, btw which is a nice 2inch thick aluminum radiator. I start the car back up temps are back to 210 and no lights, so i drive to work. When i get off work and start the car the lights are back on and will not go off even after i managed to get home 20 miles, car did not overheat on way home. I've since turned the car off several times and both battery light and water lights are on. I have checked water and it is full, overflow is full. There is no water in the oil, checked cause i thought maybe headgasket went. I have a autometer wideband that is suddenly not reading which was another reason i thought maybe my headgasket has blown putting water on the sensor causing failure. On a final note, as i'm typing this i'm wondering if it could be a bad alternator not putting out the correct voltage causing all my problems. I'm really hoping something similar to this has happened to someone before, cause it sounds really wierd to me. The car is a 95tsi awd with a 90 model block/head/intake.

 

[Oliver@Slowboy]

If your manifold is that close to the radiator I would consider wrapping it. Might solve some of your issues.

 

[ramsack]

yes get the head under control. it sounds like the heat did something to maybe the alternator or some ground got melted or broken somewhere.

 

[Yamahaulin]

I did some research with my wideband and when it reads --- it doesn't have 13.5 volts. So i think my alternator is bad, that's causing the battery light, i'll replace tomorrow hopefully. I am going to wrap the header and see what that does to my coolant temps. I'll let you guys know how that turns out, but if anyone else has some suggestions keep them coming.

 

[LiquidX]

I have heard of people cooking their alternators with tubular manifolds that are ran too close to them. As mentioned by everyone else get it wrapped. It should be standard to wrap ALL SS tubular manifolds as they dissipate much more heat into the bay.

 

[bobster22388]

Another thing you could try is getting the manifold coated with a ceramic coating, then if you wrapped it, it would keep the temps down even better.

 

[Yamahaulin]

Alternator took care of my problem. Now i need to get everything wrapped so i don't kill it again. BTW if you guys don't know on 2g's you can buy the canadian alternator and it puts out 90 amps instead of 75. There is no fitment issues at all and it's plug and play.