Car was overheating all day on track, help?

[jacobzking]

So i took my s14 out to a road course today and the car was overheating really bad. I was able to drive an hour to get to the course just fine, and drive home just fine. But on the track the temp gauge would soar to the top line; it'd get so hot that sometimes it would kill the engine momentarily.

Occasionally it would jump from super hot to normal in about a 2 second period. I'm guessing the t-stat is just bad. Anyone think otherwise or agree with my logic? I bled the system of air bubbles and that didn't help. :(

SR w/ t28 @ 11psi, big aluminum radiator, factory fan shroud

[xGUNKX]

Loose connector or bad t-stat

[riprodder]

Try cleaning the connector by scraping the tabs on both the connector and the sensor with a precision flat head screwdriver. If the connector feels loose, you can tighten it up a little by bending the edges of the female connector down a bit and see if that helps.

[jacobzking]

The car was actually getting so hot it would die. Would a bad sensor cause that?

[xGUNKX]

Check your cooling setup.
But the connector would be the fluctuating gauges

[jacobzking]

if the sensor was bad, and that was causing the gauge to read HOT... is there any reason that would cause the car to turn itself off (sudden loss of engine power, could restart engine easily by dropping clutch?

i'm pretty sure the car was physically overheating.

[fliprayzin240sx]

This is the reason why you buy an aftermarket gauge. Stock temp gauge is worthless, if it was actually overheating, why would you continue to push it? Fastest way for you to blow the HG or warp the head.

What are you running for fans? Stock clutch fan w/ shroud or E-fans? Stock setup is the best.

[jacobzking]

Stock fan w/ OEM shroud. Aluminum 3 row radiator I didn't keep pushing it. I packed up.

[fliprayzin240sx]

Try changing rad cap first and see if that fixes it. If its a bad thermo, it would be doing it all the time.

[SR20PWRALTY]

Have you been to the track with your current cooling system setup before this event?

I had similar experiences, I changed the T-stat and took care of it.

[az_240]

Swap out the rad cap and test the thermostat.... if those check out good rent a cooling system pressure tester from Checkers/O'Reilly ($160 deposit). It plugs into the radiator and pressurizes the system... if pressure drops you have a leak somewhere.

[jr_ss]

A big problem is not having the correct or adequate ducting. Is the factory under tray in place? It's that huge black splash guard. I also agree with checking the radiator cap, highly doubt your thermostat has anything to do with it.

[jacobzking]

I'm using the Megan racing radiator with the megan cap that came with it... maybe a bad cap? Its brand new. I don't have any of the factory ducting either.

[jr_ss]

Well that's one of your problems... You need the factory ducting. You have a huge gap inbetween your fmic(if you have one) and the core support that allows air to bypass your radiator. Air will travel the path of least resistance, get that ducting in order and you'll increase your cooling efficiency.

[jacobzking]

Thanks for all the help. To be on the safe side I'll go ahead and get a Nismo t-stat since the one I have is who knows how old, the engine under tray and a new radiator cap. What pressure radiator cap do you guys recommend?

Also, should I do a new water pump?

[jr_ss]

I wouldn't get a Nismo t-stat. It's way to low to drive around everyday on. Your car will never get to operating temp. My koyo cap is a 1.3kgf/cm. Is your car tuned for the t28? running lean would cause your engine to overheat as well, especially in a track atmosphere.

[jacobzking]

its a track only car so i think the gismo t-stat would be fine. the car is tuned for the t28. at idle, it runs lean, maybe 14.5, but under boost it runs at 11.5ish (innovative wideband)

[jr_ss]

Alright then, you have some stepping stones, fix/replace what you need to and have at it again. Bump this thread if you continue to have issues or you resolved your problem!

[dreamin240sx]

check for air pockets in the cooling system since u said u just replaced the rad

[jacobzking]

check for air pockets in the cooling system since u said u just replaced the rad

i tried bleeding the radiator a bunch of times

[rcdad123]

it sounds like the thermostat is stuck open causing the engine to overheat due to the coolant not staying in the radiator long enough to cool. on normal driving condition where the rpm is not high enough, the coolant actually have time to cool. but during race conditions(constant high rpm`s), the coolant passes thru the radiator so fast, it does not have time to cool. install a thermostat with a temperature that you want the engine to run on. i rec. around 180 degrees. also perform the other recommendations mentioned above.

[XxHybridx]

how hard is it to replace the temp sensor? is it just disnconnect old sensor-plug and play new sensor?

[jacobzking]

how hard is it to replace the temp sensor? is it just disnconnect old sensor-plug and play new sensor?

thats it, pretty simple, and easy to get to