Coming home from work today was quite an undertaking..10 miles of bumper to bumper with a bad clutch that wont go more than 3500 RPMs. Suffice to say, it took a long time.

When I got home, I parked my car in the garage, and let it idle for 5 minutes to cool off...I turn off the car, close the garage door and go schlep around for about 30 minutes. I come back out to reroute some vacuum hose and turn the key so the radio will be on, the fans turn on and a loud buzzer wont go off...i noticed that i heard some bubbling coolant when walking to my car but thats somewhat normal since I still have my stock radiator and no DP (yet). I turn on my car briefly to check if its an electrical failure since i have a turbo timer wiring harness installed without the timer...no luck, car is still buzzing and the coolant light is on. turn off the car immediately after having it on for 10 seconds and check the floor for coolant overflow...nope...check coolant level....normal.

Left the fans on with the hood open and the car cools down drastically. An hour and a half passes and my car is cool (sexy too)...i turn her back on again and everything is fine...16hg vacuum, steady idle at 800rpm @ 15psi oil pressure. No coolant/temp light.

Im sure my car is fine, and think it probably just got hot from turning off the fans. What will cause the coolant buzzer to go off like that? My coolant levels seem OK and when the buzzer went off, the thermo needle (stock) was smack in the middle....it's never gotten higher than that.

Will a high temp cause the coolant light and buzzer to go off, or is that a coolant specific dummy light? My car's always ran like a dream, doesnt even give a puff of smoke when I start it. Is it possible that I could have damaged the car from turning it on for a few seconds when the light was on? The car still idles and drives great...i just want to be extra careful since ive never had that buzzer come on.

Bad thermostat? Bad thermo gauge?

Im gonna buy a new thermo gauge since the stock one doesnt tell me my exact temps...never goes beyond the middle, but i figured that its normal since R1's run a bit cooler

Any help or opinions are apreciated.


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93 R1 ~ 74k miles stock engine
A'pexi Power Intake
A'pexi PFC
A'pexi GT catback exhaust
A'pexi gauges/turbo timer
soon 2 b installed ACT street/strip clutch and downpipe

 

the lamen's answer: the buzzer goes off when the sensor in your coolant system sees that it's not wet - this can happen by air simply bubbling up to the location of the sensor... get enough air there, and the sensor will think you're out of coolant.

Have you removed your AST? If so, that might be the cause of it - your AST would no longer be the highest point in the cooling system, therefore air pockets could form up around the filler neck (which I believe is were the sensor is - correct me if I'm wrong) from your coolant boiling.

shouldn't be anything to worry about as long as you have plenty of coolant. Wait until morning when the car is dead cold and pop open your radiator - you should see coolant up to almost the top of the filler neck. if you do, you're fine.... if not... fill it up and watch for that thing to come on again - to be safe, carry a bottle of distilled water with you for a few days just in case something is wrong, so you can top off the system if you're away from home when it goes off again. However, if you didn't see a puddle of coolant under your car, you're probably ok.

 

Thanks! I believe that's what it was, I completely forgot about that little nuance in the cooling system.

Shoot me for still having this and going perf mod crazy, but I have the stock AST. The previous owner replaced the old one with an OEM AST (still looks brand new) I'll be switching to pettit's AST in a couple weeks to be on the safe side

 

My coolant light has gone haywire a couple of times. Its been a long time since its happened so I never did anything about it, but one time it went off when the car was STONE COLD and BEFORE I started it! I turned the key to ACC power, and suddenly it just went off for about 5 seconds. Sometimes the lead on the sensor gets weak and causes it to go off, so it could just be the sensor.

 

This is the worst case scenario: a water seal has gone bad in your engine and is dumping compression into your cooling system. The way to test that is to put a see-trough column on your water pump and rev up the engine. If you see bubbling then you're fucked like me. Get a water temp gauge if you dont have one so you can see if it overheats. If it does than stop driving it because you'll warp your rotor housings. (Like Me) Take it to a shop that knows what they're doing. Dont even mess with this crap, it's too serious for a rotary.
Check to see if your fans are working and if not check the relay switches. Always check your water level.