Which sucks in the middle of summer. And she was like this last summer, too.

I can feel the hot air coming in through the shifter boot. The faster I'm going, the stronger it is. Also, the shift lever itself gets mighty hot, AWA the center console and anything in the center console storage bins (I've had lip balm MELT in there.) Also, the rear seats (the butt cushions, not the back) are hot. And anything left in the foot well on the passenger side will be warmed up nicely after a little while.

What are the possibilities? My first guess used to be that air from the engine compartment is entering the cabin. Except that the only detectable draft is very small (from the shift lever boot.)

Now I'm suspecting that this is just a fact of life in an FC without A/C. The heated areas pretty much follow the path of the exhaust system.

Is this a common thing or should I look harder for what's causing this?

ADD - And to the best of my knowledge, all of the heat shielding is in place.

 

I have an 89 GTU, beautiful car that runs great but I also suffer from some very warm air coming into the cabin below the radio and around the ash tray area. If I take the ash tray out you can really feel a pretty strong air current flowing out. Like Amur, this air heats up everything around the center console. The gear shift lever warms up significantly.

I thought it might be a heater malfunction but I can adjust the heater controls and fan speed and everything works in sync with these control settings. The flow of hot air is always the same, at the same location.

It seems to also follow the exhaust system and becomes a problem about the time the engine and CC would be warmed up.

QUESTIONS:
I know a lot of FC owners have had the problem.

1. Has anyone discovered the cause and remedied the problem?
2. Where is the air coming from and how is it getting into the passenger cabin?
3. What has been done to successfully divert or block the air?

Bert

 

Have you guys checked your cats/etc to make sure they're not glowing underneath there? Do you still have A/C units behind the dash? Any grommets missing from the firewall? Also, have you checked your shifter rubber boots under the actual leather boots? If they're bad they'll let a TON of heat in, and it works it's way out the leather boot, and up through the radio surround.

 

there's insulation around the shifter area, probably not anymore, (I loose more and more every time I take it apart) and possibly the rubber shift boot is whored! as for the rest the 1000 degrees exhaust

 

or the 1600-1700 degree exhaust gases leaking out?

 

Mine does the same...it happens when you lose the shift insulation. REALLY sucks on a hot day with no A/C.

-Joe

 

Hi-Flow Cat is almost new, replaced about 7k miles ago with the engine rebuild and street porting. Yes, I do still have AC unit in car. I have checked the firewall for holes but haven't come across any obvious ones yet. I'm thinking about taking to a muffler shop and having it put on a lift and carefully examining the heat shield and the underside of the car.

It appears that the gear shift and boot are heating up from the hot air that is funnelled to them because of the center console. Most of the hot air is coming from the bottom of the console around the ashtry area.

 

heh, Amur, I'v got no shifter bushings or boots-- I look down and see the driveshaft/finger chopper. The driveshaft shoots some mad air into the cabin, and the tranny is hot enough, combined with the exhaust, that its easily enough to burn my wrist sitting on the shifter. I stopped wearing a metal bracelet because the bracelet would get so hot that it would leave marks when I went to move my wrist (hard to notice how hot really is when your holel forearm is in that hot air...) I'm curious for someone to take a temp sensor and find out how hot that air is... I"m sure its 120+ degF.

Not to mention the aerodynamics is probably shoving air under the car, and that air will find its way into the cabin any way possible :/ Especially if you've got the windows or sunroof open.

 

its ur heatshields underneath ur cars fellaz, trust me, i took it off on purpose due to the rattling i was getting.

 

^^ meh probably, I've got no heat shields anymore

 

It'll still spit air up their if you don't have those boots on. Replace the boots, the air is sneaking up there and blowing out the front of the shifter boot and into the ashtray area.

 

Nothing sucks more than that! I agree with you all! It blows!!! Hot air, that is! Mine is because the Speedo Gromit is not there and there is a big hole in the fire wall and my shifter boot rubber things are gone...It gets HOTT!!! <----Like that!

 

yeah it does...I made some attempts a couple months ago to remedial the situation using some spare pexiglass I had (better than nothing right)...

It lasted two weeks until the pexiglass started to get soft and warped to the shape of the shifter hole... I took the shifterboot off one day and the only thing that was left was peieces where I had the pexiglass bolted down and a couple inches sagging off down into the shifter pit

I got a kick out of it. It doesn't appear that it melted entirely (nothign on the tranny), but warped it enough that it started to become thin and break off when i shifted.

 

I have noticed this with a lot of fc's, and my own vert does it. I have a RB exhaust, so no cats to clog or glow. Also no exhaust leaks. All the shielding underneath is in place, and the shift boots look good. Still, the whole damn floorboard heats up. It's just one of those things I don't like, but accept, because Im sure there isn't anything more to be done about it.

 

Replace the shifter boots (the rubber ones underneath the leather boot). I have fixed tons of FCs this way.

 

Add more shielding?

 

The shifter boots don't have jack to do with the floorboard itself getting heat soaked. The longer you drive, the hotter it gets. With my top down, after about an hour of city driving, it gets so hot you either wanna turn on the a/c to the floor vents, or take your shoes off.

 

I agree, I don't like it but will accept it as just something 7s do. I guess if it was easy to own a 7 everybody would have one. I'm still going to look at all the things y'all have suggested, hey nothing else really wrong with the car at this point and I've got to have something to keep me out of trouble.

 

The only good thing is when it's winter. In the winter it's not that bad really...

 

where do you get those rubber shift boots? was looking at mine, and the rubber is all cracked and torn.

 

mazdatrix.com has them... but they don't come cheap

Shifter boots and such


I was going to try and fabricate something to take their place, but never got around to it. Do you guys think some aluminum flashing would repel the heat, or not good enough?

 

I'd keep those puppys on if its that hot.

Rotaries always have had heat issues in the cabin from the exhaust. Should have had an rx-2 as a daily driver, now that was hot.

 

Wow! Back from the dead!


I thought I'd done follow-up to this thread, but it looks like I missed it.

Shortly after starting this thread I bought new shifter boots from Mazda and the draft completely disappeared and the shifter was no longer hot. Problem 100% solved.

As for floorboards heating up... Kevin, do you have the stock carpet in your vert? Other than that, I'd almost expect your overall exhaust temps to be lower than those of us with stock pipes since yours is freer-flowing (unless I'm completely misunderstanding the thermodynamics of the exhaust blah blah blah.)