majikeye

i can drive all day in any kind of traffic in any temp with the parking lights on but as soon as i turn them off...up with the temp needle. why is this? i assume that the low fan setting is a little high. what can i do to make the low setting come on sooner w/o ecu upgrade or fan mod? i know it shouldnt have done this from the factory, so why now?

i have already put in the koyo rad, new water pump, thermostat, cap, fans, and all the relays work.

so what now?

JONSKI

The fans come on sooner when you have the parking lights on.

rotorbrain

maybe you put the wrong thermostat in or the water pump is messed up. how hot is it when this happens?

paul

majikeye

i know they come on sooner, my question was WHY!

rotorbrain

its just a thing that fd's do. all of them do that.

paul

majikeye

what i really need to know is how to make them come on sooner w/o having to use the lights.

majikeye

well was this something that the dealer was supposed to cover when someone just dropped $35k+ on a new car...."oh, well it might seem like its going to overheat but if you just turn the parking lights on it wont seem so bad."

dubulup

what's wrong with driving with parking lights on, all the time?

rotorbrain

you never answered my question. what kind of thermostat did you put in? check all your coolant whatnots.

paul

rynberg

I just drive with my parking lights on all the time. Not only do the fans kick on much sooner, it makes you more visible to other drivers. Believe it or not, I have been almost hit by other drivers more in this car than any other. How you can't notice a bright red sports car, I don't know.

airborne

just search for "fan mod".

Nathan Kwok

The reason the fans come on sooner with the parking lights on is because it puts the ecu into "high electrical load" mode, this kicks the fans on at around 209F instead of 221F. The others way of triggering this mode: defroster on, headlights on, or fans set to 3 or 4 (no A/C, not totally sure about this one). If you are overheating according to the stock temp gauge without the high electrical load condition then either the gauge is incorrect or something is wrong (relays?) preventing the fans from coming on during normal operation (221F). Normal operation is: thermostat opens around 180F, if you aren't moving fast enough, temp slowly rises until you reach 221F. Then the fans kick on, and temps should drop back down to around 180-190 before they cycle off again. Then this just repeats over and over if you stay stationary. With the parking lights on, you get the same thing only the fans cycle on at 209F instead. Either way the stock gauge shouldn't go more than a few angular degrees above horizontal.

azndisgrace

whenever i drive i got the a/c fan turning and the heater at 4 just to be sure

reza

Maybe you have a bad fan.
One of my fan died. So when the parking light is off, the other one, only goes slow. Then my car temp would start to climb up.
If I put on the parking light, the fan goes medium/high speed. Thus my temp goes down.
CHECK your FAN, see if both running.

majikeye

the thermostat is a autozone stant 185. also i dont mind driving with the parking lights on, i just shouldnt have to. it shouldnt be nessasary.

rynberg

That is way overkill in this area (not hot enough). Damn guys, these cars aren't THAT fragile....

I drive around with my parking lights on and have never overheated the car, even on a 90+ day with the A/C on. This is with stock 60k mile cooling system.

majikeye

i completely understand, people just love to try and hit me when im cruzin around and since my horn dosnt work, i have to sit there and yell and throw the bird.

oh yeah, about the horn, does anyone know where the fuse is for it. ive looked under the dash where the rest are and none marked horn and i cant for the life of me decifer what the wiring diagram says

majikeye

^

rotorbrain

no idea where the horn fuse is, but reza has a valid conclusion to your problem. you should turn your car on and have one person watch the gauge and the other watch the fans. your t-stat is okay. i have the same one. some people say that the mazda oem unit is the one to go with, but the stant is still a quality part.

oh, and thanks to nathan kwok for explaining why the parking lights turn on the fans. i didnt think to explain that part. oops.

paul

fdracer

uh, but why would the mazda engineers want the fans under "high electrical load". it doesn't make sense, **** under the hood doesn't get any hotter w/ the lights on, and even if it did it's negligible when the extreme heat of the rotary is taken into consideration. my thought was always that when your parking lights are on you're normally parked, hence you don't get airflow through the front airdam as you would when your driving. thus, the fans are designed to turn on to cool **** down. this would be helpful especially if you're parked and idling. this makes sense to me. by no means am i saying nathan kwok is wrong, those engineers have some stupid ideas sometimes.

majikeye

i completely agree with fdracer. i just dont understand why i would HAVE to drive with the parking lights on just so i wont overheat. i want to eliminate the need to do this w/o making getto mods to my car.

Mahjik

iTrader: (1)

It's me (Kyle). I should be mad at you for half stealing my online name.

The car shouldn't overheat without having the lights on. Mine doesn't. I'm thinking that thermostat might not be working properly. I can't remember all the messages in the KC group, but did you install the thermostat or did someone else?

We might need to take a trip out to Art's and see what he says.

Actually, those guys are heading out to the drags this weekend. You should hook up with them and see what Art has to say about it.

If you need some help, let me know. I'll be around most of the day Saturday.

majikeye

what time are they heddin out?

ill give you a call saturday and we can discuss thermostats and online names all day .

the thermostat should be ok tho. ive done plenty before but its not a Mazda one and it wasnt that hard to do so i could just try it again and see what happens.

ttb

does the parking light trick work on all FDs...i thought i read somewhere it's only for 93s.

Nathan Kwok

I might have said that in the past but I found out it is incorrect. Still haven't gotton total confirmation but I do know people with '94s say it works.