Originally posted by Jeice
FIRST of all things, before you pay money to have parts replaced that aren't even broke or still good, consider the following:
Why your car could be overheating:
#1. Did you happen to check your radiator cap? If the seals are broke or loose on it, you could be losing pressure. I see this happen alot and people replace their whole cooling systems just to find out they had a lousy radiator cap. Check the cap, make sure it's good, no rips, and it seals tight.
#2. Get a pressure tester and pump pressure through your radiator to see if it is losing pressure, you might have a coolant leak somewhere and not know it, or you could have a faulty hose somewhere, sucking in air in the coolant system causing bubbles throughout the lines.
#3. Are you using a 50/50 Antifreeze/Water mix?
#4. When is the last time you flushed your cooling system? You could have scale built up on the inside of the motor or the radiator as well and not know it.
#5. You wired your radiator fan to be on all the time? Why did you do that? That is definitely not helping the problem! The fan is only meant to cool the car at low speeds, idle, and when the car is off! The air moves in MUCH more quickly at high speeds, and the fan becomes obsolete, because it just cannot produce as much airflow as the air coming in can.
#6. Headgasket could be going bad and exhaust gas might be leaking into the coolant causing air bubbles. If it is bad, make sure you get a much thicker headgasket, it will help lower your compression and make your turbo alot safer for daily driving.
#7. The added heat from the turbocharger is quite a load on the cooling system. Make sure you are getting a little oil to the turbo!! You definitely will need an oil cooler! Some may say it is not necessary, but believe me, you will want one! Turbos get hot QUICK from that exhaust gas and definitely need proper lubrication to reduce the friction of moving parts.
#8. Is your Thermostat bad?
#9. The water pump could be going bad, but I guarantee you, your problem MOST Likely lies in the stuff I listed above.
Good Luck...
Well, here I go again.... I'm a certified technician, so I'll be brief on my responses.
1. I have a new cap. Came with the radiator. Replaced the cap with the old radiator, too.
2. Brand new radiator.
3 + 4. 2 months ago with 50/50. Tried running straight water, too, but obviously water has a lower boiling point than coolant (thx for reminding me WCS).
5. Mine isn't and it cuts on when needed, but stays on when overheating.
6. Yes, a bad headgasket could cause problems. With the boost level I'm running, if the headgasket WAS bad, I would have coolant in my oil at this point with a blown headgasket. I run at least 10 times at each track visit.
7. No duh.
8. No. I've replaced it and removed it. Same results.
9. Of course it could be and I've eliminated all of the above points, so by the process of elimiation, either the water pump is bad or the amount of coolant in the radiator is too much for the stock pump to circulate.
Anyone else for this game??