Turbo swap, coolant buzzer, a little smoke, way too hot, please help.
06-01-03, 12:38 AM
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Turbo swap, coolant buzzer, a little smoke, way too hot, please help.
Okay, first of all, yes I did search. I found lots of useful information, and I think I know what the problem is, I just want to get some confirmation (or correction). 
I've practically been working on the car since Friday afternoon and all day Saturday. The job for the weekend was swaping out the stock turbo for another stock turbo with a ported wastegate. Overall, I think the install went pretty well, especially for being the first exstensive work I've done on my car (up until now, I've just been doing tune-up/maintenance stuff). Friday was spent basically just taking everything off, and there was coolant drained in the process. Then the car sat in the garage overnight and in the morning, I got to putting the other turbo on and putting everything back to their proper places. Then since I was at it, and it was about time to do so anyway, I changed the oil, tranny fluid and rear-end fluid. The coolant in the resevoir was low, so I filled that back up again. Now I was ready to start the car up again.
She starts up a little roughly, idle bounces between 500-1000rpm for a little bit then settles at 750rpm. I take a peak under the hood and everything seems to be in working order, even though there seems to be a sort of dry, pungent smell. I start to drive off and not 30 feet from my house, the ADD COOLANT light comes on with it's horrific buzzer. By the time I turn around and get home, the temp gauge is at 1/4, when it would usually take a good 5-10 minutes to get there. I open the hood and there's a decent amount of white smoke wafting around the turbo area. Great. It appears I have a coolant leak. I shut the car off and head to the computer and do a little searching on the forums.
About 30 minutes later, I decide to try the car again. She starts up a little stronger this time, and almost immediately, the add coolant light comes on and of course, the buzzer. I try driving around my entire block to see what would happen, and the temp guage shoots upward. I see it rising quickly and nurse the car home, going about as fast as I could push it. After about a minute of driving, it had gotten to 7/8 on the temp guage
. Upon opening the hood, I'm surprised to see that there is no smoke, but the dry pungent smell is very strong. This has lead me to believe the following:
Having been sitting for almost two days with open coolant lines, practically all the coolant has drained out of the engine. Much, much, much more than I had thought when I refilled the coolant resevior. The white smoke from the first run must have been coolant burning away that was still spilled on the engine and hadn't yet dripped to the floor/drain pan. Does this make sense? I have plenty of coolant in the resevior, so should filling the coolant from the filler cap solve the problem? Should I drain, flush and refill the coolant entirely? Your help is appreciated.
P.S. Sorry for the length. I just wanted to mention everything that could possibly have something to do with the problem. On the brighter side, the turbo seems to be boosting fine, from what I could see, but I didn't get a chance to see that ported wastegate in action.
I've practically been working on the car since Friday afternoon and all day Saturday. The job for the weekend was swaping out the stock turbo for another stock turbo with a ported wastegate. Overall, I think the install went pretty well, especially for being the first exstensive work I've done on my car (up until now, I've just been doing tune-up/maintenance stuff). Friday was spent basically just taking everything off, and there was coolant drained in the process. Then the car sat in the garage overnight and in the morning, I got to putting the other turbo on and putting everything back to their proper places. Then since I was at it, and it was about time to do so anyway, I changed the oil, tranny fluid and rear-end fluid. The coolant in the resevoir was low, so I filled that back up again. Now I was ready to start the car up again.
She starts up a little roughly, idle bounces between 500-1000rpm for a little bit then settles at 750rpm. I take a peak under the hood and everything seems to be in working order, even though there seems to be a sort of dry, pungent smell. I start to drive off and not 30 feet from my house, the ADD COOLANT light comes on with it's horrific buzzer. By the time I turn around and get home, the temp gauge is at 1/4, when it would usually take a good 5-10 minutes to get there. I open the hood and there's a decent amount of white smoke wafting around the turbo area. Great. It appears I have a coolant leak. I shut the car off and head to the computer and do a little searching on the forums.
About 30 minutes later, I decide to try the car again. She starts up a little stronger this time, and almost immediately, the add coolant light comes on and of course, the buzzer. I try driving around my entire block to see what would happen, and the temp guage shoots upward. I see it rising quickly and nurse the car home, going about as fast as I could push it. After about a minute of driving, it had gotten to 7/8 on the temp guage
. Upon opening the hood, I'm surprised to see that there is no smoke, but the dry pungent smell is very strong. This has lead me to believe the following:Having been sitting for almost two days with open coolant lines, practically all the coolant has drained out of the engine. Much, much, much more than I had thought when I refilled the coolant resevior. The white smoke from the first run must have been coolant burning away that was still spilled on the engine and hadn't yet dripped to the floor/drain pan. Does this make sense? I have plenty of coolant in the resevior, so should filling the coolant from the filler cap solve the problem? Should I drain, flush and refill the coolant entirely? Your help is appreciated.
P.S. Sorry for the length. I just wanted to mention everything that could possibly have something to do with the problem. On the brighter side, the turbo seems to be boosting fine, from what I could see, but I didn't get a chance to see that ported wastegate in action.
06-01-03, 02:43 AM
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Re: Turbo swap, coolant buzzer, a little smoke, way too hot, please help.
Hmmm...here's my thoughts:
You say that you hear the low coolant buzzer going off and then open the hood and you are greated by a cloud of white smoke.
The white smoke is obviously coolant that is being burned off of a very hot surface. When you swapped on the new turbo did you keep the old heat shields? I bet not. You probably have a leak from the hard metal coolant line that connects to the block. If you didn't re use the gasket and some gasket junk there is a good chance there is coolant leaking onto the super hot turbo/mannifold. That will create a nice pretty white smoke show. Either that or it could just be the engine that has standing coolant on it from a messy turbo swap. Don't worry I do the same.
If you're coolant is low and you're temp guage is skyrocketing it's obvious what the problem is. When you refilled the coolant did you take out the filler plug by the radiator? It uses a phillips screw driver. Take it out, that way you can bleed the air out when you fill up the coolant. I'm not real sure about how you filled the coolant up, but you shouldn't be filling the resorvoir. Open the cap near where the thermostat is and start pouring in from there. You should keep pouring it in until water starts coming out the bleeder valve. Screw back in the bleedr valve and top off the coolant. Bingo you should be good to go.
You say that you hear the low coolant buzzer going off and then open the hood and you are greated by a cloud of white smoke.
The white smoke is obviously coolant that is being burned off of a very hot surface. When you swapped on the new turbo did you keep the old heat shields? I bet not. You probably have a leak from the hard metal coolant line that connects to the block. If you didn't re use the gasket and some gasket junk there is a good chance there is coolant leaking onto the super hot turbo/mannifold. That will create a nice pretty white smoke show. Either that or it could just be the engine that has standing coolant on it from a messy turbo swap. Don't worry I do the same.
If you're coolant is low and you're temp guage is skyrocketing it's obvious what the problem is. When you refilled the coolant did you take out the filler plug by the radiator? It uses a phillips screw driver. Take it out, that way you can bleed the air out when you fill up the coolant. I'm not real sure about how you filled the coolant up, but you shouldn't be filling the resorvoir. Open the cap near where the thermostat is and start pouring in from there. You should keep pouring it in until water starts coming out the bleeder valve. Screw back in the bleedr valve and top off the coolant. Bingo you should be good to go.
06-23-03, 08:46 PM
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Gees.... well, you have to take the rad cap off and fill it up there!!! Filling the overflow resevoir up will do nothing if a lot of coolant has drained out of the block- it needs vacuum to suck it into the radiator... won't work if there's tons of air in the system- also won't work if it's really hot!!!
Why did you drive it around again after it was overheating?????
Well, hope you didn't do any damage.
Don't drive the damn thing, just let it idle, and put water in the rad, looking for water dripping under the car.
Anyways, just do the following:
Take the filler cap off (the rad filler cap, not the damn resevior cap)
Turn the heat up all the way. (opens the heater core)
Run the engine while filling up the rad with water/coolant.
Once it's full, and the engine is warming up, you should be fine. Put the cap back on and let it run for a minute at it's regular full temp.
Fill the overflow tank up too.... and you might need to put some in later on- After the car has run and completely cooled down.
Why did you drive it around again after it was overheating?????
Well, hope you didn't do any damage.
Don't drive the damn thing, just let it idle, and put water in the rad, looking for water dripping under the car.
Anyways, just do the following:
Take the filler cap off (the rad filler cap, not the damn resevior cap)
Turn the heat up all the way. (opens the heater core)
Run the engine while filling up the rad with water/coolant.
Once it's full, and the engine is warming up, you should be fine. Put the cap back on and let it run for a minute at it's regular full temp.
Fill the overflow tank up too.... and you might need to put some in later on- After the car has run and completely cooled down.
06-23-03, 09:13 PM
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Re: Turbo swap, coolant buzzer, a little smoke, way too hot, please help.
Originally posted by ZenRXSeven
I have plenty of coolant in the resevior, so should filling the coolant from the filler cap solve the problem? Should I drain, flush and refill the coolant entirely? Your help is appreciated.
I have plenty of coolant in the resevior, so should filling the coolant from the filler cap solve the problem? Should I drain, flush and refill the coolant entirely? Your help is appreciated.
the resevior tank is the over flow tank no?
ahhhh lol why would u not put any in the COOLENT FILLER...the name speaks for its self. the resevior is jus for any extra coolent, correct me if im wrong.
06-23-03, 09:48 PM
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Whoa dude... This is old stuff, lol, like a month ago. Yeah, I know it was an idiotic thing to do, but seriously, I had been working on my car for like 10 hours straight that day, and I was tired as all hell and I wanted to finish things up that night so I didn't have to worry about it later, and hearing that ADD COOLANT buzzer had me panicing around like a cat in a thunderstorm.... So obviously my brain wasn't getting the juice it needed to function properly. The next day when I got up and I read gsracer's reply to my post, I realized what a retard I was, and I topped off the coolant. Everything's fine. The only reason why I didn't reply to gsracer's post was because I was too embarrassed, lol. Now look what you've done!! You've gone and unveiled my shame to the entire rx7club.com community!! Ahhhhhhhh!! 
Lol. No, but seriously, people do stupid things.... stupid things such as NOT LOOKING AT THE DATES OF POSTS AND REPLYING TO ONE THAT'S ALMOST A MONTH OLD!!! .......Nah, I'm just messin' with you.
By the way, I don't think I caused any significant harm to the engine. She's runnin' like a champ at the moment (gonna take her to the track soon). Maybe dropped a few k miles off the life span of the motor, but that's a few k miles sooner that I'll get a streetport.
(Edited for spelling errors.
)
Lol. No, but seriously, people do stupid things.... stupid things such as NOT LOOKING AT THE DATES OF POSTS AND REPLYING TO ONE THAT'S ALMOST A MONTH OLD!!! .......Nah, I'm just messin' with you.
By the way, I don't think I caused any significant harm to the engine. She's runnin' like a champ at the moment (gonna take her to the track soon). Maybe dropped a few k miles off the life span of the motor, but that's a few k miles sooner that I'll get a streetport.
(Edited for spelling errors.
)
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