This is exactly it. When I turned wrenches for a living you checked everything on that new motor you just installed. I personally would let it run for about 4 hours making sure everything was nice and tight, do a test drive, Triple check everything. I did not want to pay for a new motor out of my paycheck.

If you start changing things on the motor they can say it was because of you messing with something. Have it towed back asap.

 

oh yeah the heater helps a ton. Still no loss of coolant after burping it. Im going to go pull the thermostat and flush the system.

 

Dirty/Clogy radiator.

If you're not loosing coolent (except for the coolent turning to steam and spraying out of your cap), and your heater is working as "mini radiator" in the car to cool the engine. Then you must have a bum radiator.


Take the radiator out of the car and run some acid through it to really clean it good. OR get a new one.

 

you know if changing the thermostat doesnt help they sell sum **** especially for radiator flushes to get all the crap out but i forget wat its called! i know prestone makes it tho! buy it and pull the radiator out and plug it. fill it with this **** and let it sit. flush with water after and repeat process.

 

thermostat helped a ton, car doesn't overheat even without the heater on. But its still creeping around halfway under high speeds. I'm thinking ill just take the radiator to a shop, but at least its derivable right now.

 

Of course this 105 degree heat doesn't help my evaluation.

 

Half way while driving in 105 degree heat doesn't strike me as all that out of the ordinary. A little high but not panic-zone stuff. Probably just means the rad's a bit clogged but not horribly so.

Haven't seen it mentioned yet; you're not running straight water, are you? You MUST run proper AF mix (50/50) or you will overheat, and you will also rust the hell out of the inside of your end plates!

 

yeah, I was using water as a panic solution yesterday, but when i pulled the thermostat today i flushed and replaced with 50/50

 

Good point.

Does this car get picky about using more than a 50/50 mix?

 

yes at 105 degree it will creep to half way. **** mine went 3/4 when racing in rosemond in 103 degree heat but its fine. rite now driving my SE in 85 degree weather it only goes 1/3 the way u[p and freeway a 1/4. wait till you can really check it in normal weather! lol. looks like your good to go tho!

 

If it is getting hot at highway speeds, then I would suspect a flow issue. Are your belts tight?

One other option might be to run a cooler thermostat. I run a 170 degree that I got from autozone. Temp gauge never gets over 1/3 now.


.

 

Well, last things last, the radiator was 50% clogged. Just goes to show you how important properly storing an old RX7 is, and how quickly a good radiator can go back if its sitting with a bad engine for a year.

lesson learned