Might be a simple question, but for all of you guys that have a vintage red 3rd Gen with a stock radiator, is your radiator painted. Mine is and I'm trying to find out if this might be the reason I seem to be having a cooling problem.

Also, I'm looking into getting an aftermarket rad that will fit into the stock setup and be able to give a higher cooling efficiency. Anyone have any recomendations ??

 

The stock radiator is not painted.

What are the indications that you have a cooling problem?

 

if your radiator is painted it's because of two reasons:
1) The previous owner got a LAZY paint job
2) The previous owner painted it god knows what reason.

No stock FD's had the radiator painted.

Search for radiators (koyo or fluidyne) and you'll get all the info you need.

 

djseven was selling a fluidyne radiator i dont know if he still is but im sure of it he will give you a good price

 

oops

 

yeah, I found out after the purchase that my car was in a pretty bad collision (carfax never reported it, so I'm assuming the previous owner had never filed a report). The chassie is in good condition though, nice and straight, but the entire body got repainted in the repairs (you can see evidence from small streak markes around the rear quarter panels and the front end).

This was my first 7 and I had thought that a cooling problem was normal, but when I started comparing stories with others, it seems my cooling system is out of whack:


When I'm driving on the highway, my rad temps will sit at 180F constantly while my oil temps are 150F (I got an R1 so dual oil coolers help that out a bit)

If I come into traffic, my temps will rise from like 180 to about 200 in less than 10 minutes (by this time I have the ac turned on to let the fans run, but they seem to slow down the heating, but the temps still rise).

I was sitting in traffic on friday and my temps got as high as 230F (and this was with the ac runnin) before the car started moving again and I was able to cool down.


On question though, my fans will kick in at about 220, but they only come on for about 8-10 seconds, then turn off for 30 secons, then come on again for 8-10 seconds and cycle that way. Is this normal???

 

my radiator is not painted

and i never had a cooling problem in the summer..i did the cheapy cheap fan mod and with the fans on, i see 195f average when at a standstill and 185-190f with the fans off during the highway...(i turn off the fans when im on the highway, dont know if thats necessary or not)..

 

If you are running 180 f while moving, maybe the fans are not working right. From what I've read here, they are 2 speed and it does'nt make sense that you cool ok while moving but not at a stop