overheating

guyn

New Member
Joined
Jun 11, 2001
My GN, after approx 1hr of stop and go driving , heats up and begings to affect performance,will stumble von excelleration, and shifts harshly both in up and down shifts,I brought to my friends rad shop and tested it with a heat gun and it read 212 at the rad and 213 at the intake,he suggested changing the fan clutch which I did as well as a 160 thermostat to replace the 180.
Any suggestions
Thanks, Guy
 
Sounds like my car back in July/August. Actually overheated my car and spun a bearing. Just got a new engine in and she's running good so far. Although it is cooler out, my car has yet to go over 165F (according to my gauge) w/a 160 stat.

put in a new 4-core rad (mine was blocked fairly badly).
just installed an electric fan (in addition to my clutch fan, with no shroud)
and I've also got aftermarket engine oil and trans coolers.

Dave
 
Thanks Dave, these were things I was considering, the rads new, not a 4row but good quality 3row my rad man fabricates cutom rads and he was saying he could only increase cooling by 10% and said not to bother, he suggested removing the A/c condenser, as A/C is not charged , I was thinking running an oil and tranny cooler, where's the best location for a temp gauge sensor , my car is completely stock with only idiot lights, another suggestion from my mechanic was to run Valvoline syn oil to increase lubrfication.
 
An oil cooler may or may not actually affect your temperature. But I certainly consider it a must if you drive in hot summer weather, because the oil would otherwise not get cooled much at all. It's a nice piece of insurance against engine damage. The trans cooler only protects the trans :) Also, a good idea for the same reason above.

With a new rad you should be able to keep your coolant pretty cool. A few things you could try:

Put in some water wetter ($15 CDN). This makes the water conduct heat better, and claims to reduce temps by anywhere from 8 to 20 degrees depending on your antifreeze/water blend.

Use more water than antifreeze in your cooling system. Water conducts the heat, the antifreeze just makes the mixture able to handle colder temps without freezing. Careful though, you wouldn't want water to freeze in your block.

You *may* want to consider an electric fan. I don't want to endorse this too much because I just installed mine and I can't really claim that it provides better cooling. But I'm pretty sure it does :) It's also nice to be able to have the fan run while the car's off. A good way to cool down the water in your rad at the track :)

A temp gauge you can mount anywhere, it's pretty much completely up to you. I've got 3 aftermarket gauges (oil, water, boost). 2 I have on my a-pillar (bought an apillar gauge holder made for GNs) and 1 I've got temporarily under my radio. Installing gauges is not the easiest thing in the world (you may have to drill a hole in your firewall). Also, installing the sender in the engine is no day at the beach :) For info on how, either ask again or search the forums. I know it's been asked, at least by me about 2 months ago :) But after overheating my engine and damaging it, I'd consider a temp and oil pressure gauge a must :)

Synthetic oil will help a lot of stuff in general. I really don't know all the technical details, but I've heard only good things about it. I'm using mobil1 10w30 in mine.

Removing the condensor should help cooling as it somewhat blocks airflow to the rad. I personally wouldn't do this, even if my a/c didn't work, because it would be nice to allow for the possibility of A/C in the future and I wouldn't want to risk damaging anything expensive :) It's up to you.

Good luck, and feel free to keep asking questions, we're a helpful bunch.

Dave
 
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