My FD has re-medly water pump, koyo radiator,PFS SMIC, Gotham pulleys, new caps 13psi ast cap, and fresh fluids 30coolant/70water mix burped.

I just got back from a pretty intense canyon run and my FD let me down. 65 degrees outside and driving uphill my water temps were maxed at 104c. I was going half throttle too. Normal driving flat or downhil my temps stay around 88c even on hot *** days. I can leave the car on sitting parked and it wont go up. I dont understand why when my car is under load either buy wot or uphill drag at high speed and rpm it heats up soo much. Sometimes on the freeway it starts to heat up also normal driving. When I exit and drive normal at 40 mph it cools down. What else can this possibly be? Thermostat or bad radiator? I dont know how people track their cars in heat and still manage their temps. Ive done absolutely everything possible to help keep temps in check and still am having this issue.

I can really use some advice guys..

Thanks,
Armen

 

I'm not sure i entirely understand the problem - you are driving your car more quickly, and the water temps are going up, but still at a reasonably safe level - I'm not sure what the issue is? If you drive the car harder/extended periods on WOT/more load, it will produce more heat, that's the nature of an engine, surely?!

 

You shouldn't be surprised. Believe it or not, the stock ECU doesn't even turn the fans on until 105C. If you haven't already, read the "big fat FD3S cooling thread". https://www.rx7club.com/3rd-generation-specific-1993-2002-16/big-fat-fd3s-cooling-thread-571088/

1. How much boost? 13 psi with lead foot driving and stock turbos is a recipie for HEAT, and lots of it.
2. At what temp do your fans come on? You sure they both work?
3. Is your undertray installed?
4. Single or dual oil coolers? It's said that about a 1/3 of engine heat rejection is accomplished through the oil cooling mechanism.
5. Radiator sealed and ducted around the sides and on top?
6. Where are you reading your temps? (PFC commander?)
7. What kind of air-fuel ratio are you running at 13 psi? (leaner tend to run a little hotter)

Bottom line is you're dumping too much heat into the system and not rejecting enough of it. I bet if you turned your boost down to 10-11 psi you'd be at 10C cooler or better under the same conditions. Almost every car that makes decent power will, at some point, not be able to keep up with heat rejection when running all out for extended periods. I ran my car like hell on a road course for about 15 minutes at a time on 11 psi, 10.5 A/F, safe timing, my water temps never got past 95C. My oil got hot as hell (up to 260F!), which gave me advance notice my water was going to get hot.

Just beat on the car in spurts, cool down, repeat I'd be curious to know how much better the single turbo guys do when it comes to engine heat.

 

^^ He's correct that if you're only running one oil cooler that's likely the next step for you to take.

Also, if you're running A/C still that could be making a difference. Vented hood?

Every little bit helps. I keep low temps at the track, but admittedly I've never been to the track in some of the temps that some of these guys see. The hottest I've seen is 80-ish ambient at the track and I was running 87C water temps.

I have the exact same intercooler you do, Fluidyne, crooked willow dual oil coolers with carbon ducts, no a/c, no p/s, vented hood, 60/40 water/coolant.

 

First step I see is to get your fans running the way they should - didn't see that mentioned. Doesn't matter if you have the biggest cooling system ever, if the fans don't kick on until a high temperature, that isn't helping anything.

If you haven't done the FC thermoswitch mod, that's the first one - that should drop an easy 8-10 degrees off the temps. If you have a PowerFC, program the fans to kick on at 85 deg. C. Finally, even if it's not in the car or not working, kick the AC on - that will run one fan speed at all times.

Dale

 

If the Gotham pulleys are underdrive pulleys, you need to put the water pump pulley back to stock.

The purpose of using an underdrive pulley for the WP is because the stock WP cavitates at high RPM.

The Re-medy pulley does not have that problem, and should be used with a stock pulley setup.

 

Yep. What he said.

 

What he said too.

That link should provide you with all the info you need to troubleshoot this.

Also, it sounds like you may have air in the cooling system or perhaps even a leak where air is being sucked in when driving. The later happens if you have a weak hose clamp or other leak that sucks air back in while the car is running.

 

You should change up your water mixture to 70-80% or go evans. FC thermo is a quick fix to get your fans running sooner.

 

^His water mixture is at 70% to 30% coolant. Evans won't help to fix the mentioned problem.

 

during the canyon and all canyon runs I set my boost to 10psi. My car is an r1 so I do have a two oil coolers. My car just has the waterpump, alternator pullley not underdrive. My a/f is at 10.8 also. Fan work great and tun on at 85c and go on high I believe at 93c and my understray is surely on.

I dont think 104c is normal for cool weather under these circumstances. I wasnt pressing full throttle going up either. If I was going full throttle and when temps where that high id understand.

You guys think 104 is not dangerous?I was about to pull over if i hit 105...

 

Turn your temp controls to max heat & run your fan on setting 4. You can direct the heat to your feet so you don't cook your hands & face.

I run 30 minute lapping sessions with the heater on full blast (windows down) my temps stay under 95.

The heater core makes a great heat exchanger. It's like an extra radiator in the system.

 

IMO You should not be reaching those temps in the situation you described. Even in east county SD, the only time I hit temps like that boosting up a long hill was when the system was sucking in air from a weak hose clamp.

On the track, I'd hit those temps all day long but that is another story.

Read the coolant system link as that will give you lots of good info and troubleshooting tips. Also get to autozone and rent a coolant system pressure tester with the adaptor for imports and use it. That will help you pinpoint any leaks very quickly.

 

Ive read through the link. Nothing really relates to my problem. The only thing I could think of a is a faulty thermostat but I think that would cause heating issues no matter how I drive. I'm still gonna get a new one just in case.

Another I'm going to look at is water wetter. Other than that I dont know what else to do besides start saving for a V-mount.

 

but cruising on the freeway and still having issues is unacceptable. start with something simple. try and burp the coolant, might do the trick.

 

Its already burped and topped off. I always check the coolant level and for the past month or so since I changed the fluid its been at the top and hasnt changed.

 

1. Do you have anything obstructing air into the car (license plate or something)?

2. Do you have the radiator sides blocked up to force all air through the radiator?

 

A radiator with plugged coolant passages will give these symptoms. How old is the radiator? Has it ever been flow-tested? How often have you flushed/changed coolant?

 

I'm not sure you really read through the cooling thread that was mentioned above. In in, you'll find this information:

65C (150F): too cold. According to service manual, EGR valve is non-operational below 150F, "to improve drivability when cold."
82C (180F): getting warm. Thermostat begins to open, circulating coolant through the radiator. Some coolant is still bypassing the radiator.
95C (203F): fully warm. Thermostat is fully open, not bypassing the radiator at all.
100C (212F): boiling point of pure water at atmospheric pressure.
105C (221F): getting hot. Stock ECU will activate fans to cool the car down. Fan speed will be low, or medium (if A/C is already on).
108C (226F): hot. Stock 93-95 coolant thermoswitch activates, changing fan speeds from low>> medium (or med>>high if A/C is already on) (switching to an FC thermoswitch will change this temp to 203F)
115C (240F): getting dangerous. OEM temp gauge begins to rise.

Notice, as was mentioned before, that the stock ECU doesn't kick on the fans until 105C and the thermoswitch doesn't boost the fan speed up until 108C. If I'm driving hard, my coolant temps will jump pretty quickly from 80C to 95C. If I keep driving hard then it will gradually go up to 105C. 105C is not a problem for your car. If you notice that it drops down nicely back to ~90C when you back off the throttle, I wouldn't worry about it.

IMO, the fans are only really effective at cooling the car when it isn't at speed. Once you are up to highway speed, the normal airflow over the rad should probably be as effective as the fans. At least in my experience using the fan mod switch, I don't see a drop in coolant temps on the highway at cruise when I turn on the fans. At slower speeds, there is a big drop in coolant temps when I turn on the fans.

 

One other thought: search for posts from Fritz Flynn on the matter, IIRC he was running temps above 105C+ (on the track no less) without ill effects. How his car(s) is/are setup and how long his motors last... I have no idea

May be a longshot, but are you having coolant seal failure symptoms? White billowing smoke when you start the car? You may want to pressurize your coolant system too to make sure it's really holding and check with the FSM for the spec. I think it's 20 something odd psi.

 

NOthing is blocking the air passage way, and The sides are blocked off with metal tape.

I dont know how old the radiator since I bought it used. It looked pretty clean though.

Even though people run their car at ~105c its not really accpetable for me and I personally think its alittle too hot.

 

slipping waterpump belt above 5k rpm as howard coleman pointed out in his new post?

 

Now that I think about it... It may be from the pulleys slipping because even though I wasnt going all out, I was keeping the revs kinda high (3.5K-5.5K)
Im looking into the pineapple idler and see if that will make sense.