my car will stay at 175-180 F if im moving constantly without the fans on in 70-80 degree heat. I do have the A/C condensor removed and the P/S loop line. I also have a new undertray thats in a lot better shape then most trays out there.

I never see more then 200F in traffic before I turn the fans on, most of the time I just turn them on whenever im in traffic regarldess of the temp.

Ive got 87k on my original motor and turbos, and have no sign of an o-ring goin

I'll see what my temps get to at gingerman this weekend.

 

Bump.

Keep the responses coming. Also, could you post your radiator setup (i.e. Koyo, stock mount)

 

You know what's really weird...The first time I ever overheated...(busted coolant hose...The one under the TB) Ihit 107°C on the PFC....It ran fine after but when I took it to RP to have some other work done I told Chris Ott about it and he said "Ohh, that really hot" from what I read around here, yes, it's above normal temp and close but...I didn't think it warranted that kind of reaction...But Chris knows his **** so I don't know...

 

pwr
autometer water temp gauge

185f on the freeway cruising 70+mph
190-200f if im on the boost for a couple miles
210f sitting at a long light on the street. this is where i usually take action and either turn on my parking lights or hit the a/c to 1 on the dial.

i dont get paranoid though. i learned to accept fast rising temps with this car. just avoid traffic all you can. these cars love to move.

 

my car runs really cool.....almost too cool. driving around i NEVER see over 75 C. if i am beating on the car for a while it will go to the low 90's...thats all.

and i live in SOUTH FLORIDA!

 

It's amazing how many guys here have there temps as low as 75C that is what temp my car has just began to warm up even at 80C unless car is running freeway with cold air. How do you guys that have temps this low? What is your set up and mixture?

 

i see around 85-88C when cruising on the PFC i have stock rad and Greddy FMIC so i run the fans on med while i drive.

 

I have a stock cooling system, and on the freeway @ ~80 cruising, I see ~190F. In bumper-to-bumper stop and go traffic, it will go up to ~210. The fans are supposed to come on at 221F, however, at 210, as "scratchjunkie" does, I run the A/C on fan 1, and water temps drops down to ~190. I plan on doing the fan mod soon.

 

damn, i just dont get it..

i have a stock rad and i get the following temps:

during light traffic and easy driving- 200f
during heavy traffic-205f
during any traffic or a slow pace after boosting-210-213f
highway doing about 70mph-195-198ff (fans off)

all the ones stated above are with the fans on except for the highway and this is like 70-80 degree weather

im running 50/50 mix

time for a new rad huh?

 

Why does everyone panic with 210 temps?? The fans don't even kick on from the thermosensor until 228!! That's why we put in the Miata one, so they kick on at ~208. I just got my car back from a rebuild, and it started to overheat yesterday. So today I tried to monitor it and see what I could make it do. At the coolant neck, I was measuring temps of 245 with it idling in my driveway with the AC on full. The stock temp guage never moved, however, when I was overheating yesterday, it did, so I wonder what temps I was hitting then. I don't have an aftermarket guage, I just have a temp gun, I can use with the hood open. Jesus, I wish my probs were like you guys where you can't keep them below 205, oh no!!!

Oh yeah, and I have a FAT Koyo radiator.

 

I run a stock radiator with baffles added to the sides of the nose. 80% water/20% coolant mix. Miata thermoswitch that brings the fans to high at 205F degrees. No other cooling mods.

I can run down the highway at 75 mph with the a/c on while pulling my tire trailer with it 100+ degrees outside and see temps stay between 200F and 210F all day long.

Cruising around town with it 100+ degrees outside and the a/c on I would expect to see it get up to 210 or even a brief instant at 215 if caught in a traffic jam before cooling back off to 200ish once moving again.

Blasting around the racetrack at 11psi with it 100+ degrees outside I would expect to see temps climb to 225ish pretty quickly.

If it's only 90 and not 100+ degrees outside I may see temps creep just past 210 if I get caught in traffic. Otherwise it's not an issue unless I'm on a racetrack and carrying boost for extended periods of time.

My car flat will not overheat unless it's a very hot Texas summer and I'm banging its brains out around a racetrack. Not a worry on the street.

 

Because apparently Chicken Little was once here and now everyone runs around screaming "The sky is falling! The sky is falling!"

 

Str8Down: Didn't you just buy your car less than a year ago w/ only 28K original miles? Why the rebuild?

 

Why the hell does my car run so hot? Granted, it's Florida, and it's 98 degrees with high humidity, but I have no mods (other than Koyo, and DP) and my car runs crazy hot. I even have the miata thermoswitch like I said, but with the AC on in stop and go, it will overheat or at least run up to ~245. What else can I do?

Is it normal for a rebuild to run hot while breaking in?

 

SK, yes, I guess the other owner didn't take care of it, because it ate an apex seal about 3 weeks ago, with 34k miles.

 

Your big Koyo radiator wont help if there is no air flowing thru it. At a stop, your car will just take a little longer to get hot, or overheat. Sounds like your fans are not working properly, if they are working at all.

Get a temp gauge, or linearize the stock gauge. The stock gauge is useless ........... but you already know that

 

That sucks! And your car is so nice. I remember your posts on you detailing the car, getting new wheels, and installing that stereo system. Don't know if you remember me, I bought one of your stock wheels.

Anyway, your car is not supposed to be running that hot break-in or not. Take it back to whoever did the work and have them fix it, otherwise you'll fry your coolant seals and you'll be rebuilding your engine again.

 

The fans work fine Adam. When I ws doing my testing in my driveway today, I checked that. It's pulling air through the radiator. Can hold a piece of paper up against it with the fan force. Also, as it gets that hot, my AC compressor starts surging on and off, making my idle surge down and up, but I assume that is somewhat normal?

 

But if I take it back to him, what do I say? What the heck could be making it run so hot?

 

If the fans are working fine, then you may have one of several problems.

1. Bad thermostat. Easy, and cheap to replace.

2. Clogged radiator. I have heard of new rebuilds that have had extra sealants come out of the engine, and clog the radiator.

3. Bad water pump. Possible, but very unlikely.

Most likely that your problem is 1 or 2

 

Thermostat is new. It never overheated, so I doubt any seals ended up in the radiator. Keep in mind, it only does this when running AC on full at idle or stop and go traffic for a long time, like 30 min or more. But still, I can't ride home in a shirt and tie from work everyday, and not run the AC. Should I look into an aftermarket intake to open up some of that area where the radiator fans blow? I feel like all that plastic crap is really cause heat to soak up in there. But still, my FD is stock, but with a better radiator, so I would think it should be fine, but it's not.

 

Did your car run this hot before the rebuild? If it didn't, then it is possible that your radiator has been clogged by sealing materials that wound up in the coolant passages after the rebuild.

Its a PITA, but I suggest that you pull out the radiator, and flush it out from the bottom. Put a strainer under the upper radiator hose inlet to see what comes out.

If your car was running hot before the rebuild, you may have a bad radiator. This happened to a friend of mine with a Fluidyne. He got a bad radiator.

 

Well, it has just gotten this hot in FL in the past week. So prior to the rebuild, I had never really run the AC.

 

Does your car overheat with the AC off?

Perhaps the AC pump is so hard to turn, that it is putting too much load on the engine.

 

No, it doesn't over heat without the AC, as far as I know. Like I said, when it is hot enough outside for my car to overheat, I would of course be using the AC.