Help with running hot

dkmac

Registered User
I have a 93SC with pretty much an entire new cooling system. It has new head gaskets "felpro", heater core, hoses, just replace water pump today, what looks like a newly replaced radiator, and a 180 degree t-state. My car will start to get hot towards the R to M on average, then when I turn on my AC it gets real close to the red. I noticed that the AC is not putting a real drag on my car. I have also recently replaced the radiator fan. So now I am banging my head trying to figure out, why she's running hot :confused: . Any imputs will be greatly appreciated. Thank you and God bless.
 
Does the fan work? If you turn on the A/C with the engine idling, the fan should come on. If you then shut it off, the fan should continue to run for a short time. If you let the engine idle in the parking lot, the fan should come on and shut off regularly.
 
mine mostly runs cool even after 230 k miles with original radiator even on a 90 degree day it may go up to halfway im guessing still air in the system or headgasket or cracked head
 
The fan seems to operate correctly. As soon as I turn on the AC the fan comes on. With out the AC on the fan seems to cycle correctly. I know it is not the fan itself, becouse I put a brand new fan in it. When I bought the car over a year ago I replaced the head gaskets. I noticed after I replaced my head gaskets and drove my car for the first time, my car was driving very cool for a while around the N part. I went to change out my thermostate and, well there was no thermostate there. So I put in my 180 deg. Ever sense I notice that it runs hot. Temp stays good at crusing speeds, just around town that I am having the problem.
 
You know, this is a tricky one. My friend Jeff also had a red 93 S/C with similar problems. The car would not run cool. It was purchased with really low milage, he was the second owner. This car visited many Ford dealerships trying to figure it out. They replaced head gaskets many times, heads too.
The high engine temperatures took its toll on other components. The increased pressure in the cooling system blew the rad apart, the higher temps in the rad caused the transmission to run too hot and the tranny failed. Eventually, the motor developed a bottom end knock from running too hot. The entire engine was rebuilt under warranty and it still had the same problem.
In a year and a half....this particular car had 9000 in warranty work done to it and still wasn't fixed. He got fed up with it and traded it in on a brand new 96 Mustang GT Convertible. I think Ford should be looking into this as it was obviously an engine manufacturing defect. I wonder if there are more like that out there. My 90 XR-7 has never had any problems like that. It may be worth your while to check some obvious things, then perhaps look for a good replacement motor. It may be cheaper to find a good used engine and swap it out in the long run than keep spending money on head gaskets and things like that. The red S/C was never figured out.
 
Air in the system?

If you replaced the waterpump and/or other components recently, you may have some air in the cooling system causing "hot spots". Try opening the air purge valve that sticks up from the thermostat housing while filling the system. You could also try adding some "Water Wetter" to the coolant and see if that lowers the temp. Another thing to look at is the temp sensor. It could be bad, or have a bad connection giving you false readings....
 
I second the opinion of possible air in the system. Sometimes the air is real stubborn to purge out. However, I think your problem lies with the radiator. You said it "looks" like it was recently replaced. It may just have been halfa$$ed cleaned and painted. Once it gets clogged with alkali deposits it won't transfer out heat. It is almost impossible to even rod it out to be efficient again. For the price of working on your radiator you can get a new one from Radiator Express for around $140.00. I have one from them and have been very happy with it for two summers now. I, like you, chased a heating up problem assuming my radiator was good (it looked perfectly clean looking into it). But I found it to be partially blocked up in the bottom. To help keep deposits from forming again use only distilled water with the coolant. Good luck, John
 
If it stays cool on the highway but really heats-up around town, then I'd say your high speed fan isn't working. When you said you replaced the fan motor, was it the correct 2 speed Siemens fan, if so maybe your IRCM isn't functioning properly.
 
When I get home this afternoon I am going to attempt to burp the system and see if that will fix the problem. I was bumping heads with another friend of mine about the problem. He thinks that when my AC is on it is creating too much heat for my fan from the evaporator combined with my radiator. I told him that I bought one of those aftermarket 15" quite fans from PEPboys. The radiator seems to flow very well. Infact I did notice yesterday that my top radator hose was pretty tight when it was a little past M. Any imputs???
 
You should only get the burping problem for a few days after re-filling the rad. Any trapped air will eventualy dissapate thru the reservoir bottle, but using the vent pipe or installing one of those ventable rad caps will obviously dispel the air quicker. When you mentioned a 15" quite fan from PepBoys - that's not what you replaced for the stock rad fan I hope!!!
 
When all else fails, my thinking is relocate the condenser http://www.sccoa.com/forums/showthread.php?t=64624
(note: Current system works great until it gets to +95 F, then I can not use the A/C)

I am also thinking splitting the condenser & putting it in the fender wells and ducting it throught the fog lamp holes with fans.

This company makes custom size condensers http://www.uacparts.com/products.html

or maybe a couple of these
http://www.polarbearinc.com/PBPC/homepage/Search/CN/CN_6mm.html

or one of these horizontal with fans
http://www.polarbearinc.com/PBPC/homepage/Search/CN/CN_PF.html
 
dkmac said:
a 180 degree t-state
There's your problem. You make no mention of adding a thermostat controller to turn the fans on sooner to properly work with your colder thermostat or a chip or tuner to adjust it in the software.

Paul
 
There's a possability that something in your tune is off. My reasoning for this is that there are a couple of my customers that while there cars run cooler with my rad there still not quite where they should be. Then there are guy's that run there cars on the track(roadcourse) like Fast Ed in 115 deg weather with the AC on and his cars temp gauge barely gets up 1/4 the way up and thats the way 99% of my buyers cars cool now.
I've not heard of anyone thats running a good tune on there cars and my rad getting hot or even very warm.
This is not a sales pitch and I only mention this because sail7seas is one of my customers. There's no way you should have to resort to any custom AC condensor setup or anything with my rad. Another possability is that your present condensor's fins are stopped up with bugs and road debri. However if that should prove not to be the case look into your tune, more than likely something is not right there.
 
MIKE 38sc said:
However if that should prove not to be the case look into your tune, more than likely something is not right there.
Please look at the attached link on 'dyno tune' for chart (I have a MP FMIC)
http://www.sccoa.com/forums/showthread.php?t=64311

Maybe someone can see something in the chart in link above to help me with a tune.
(I emailed a file to Dalke and NO reponse)

At 70mph temp (+95F day) is just before 'M' with 2-10" pusher fans, 1-14" pulller fan, and extended air dam, dremeled bumper holes, and water wetter. I also added duct tape around the radiator to bumper gap to insure wind was directed to rad. With a infared gun 'N' is at 180 F.

As for fan control I use the www.dccontrol.com controller along with Jerry of SCT who programed the SCT chip to come on at 180-185F wired for backup. NOTE: two fan controler systems used here, and they work!

I'll try cleaning the conderser again, as I just did a mild clean the first time.
Thanks, Chris
 
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Joisey Jim said:
You should only get the burping problem for a few days after re-filling the rad. Any trapped air will eventualy dissapate thru the reservoir bottle, but using the vent pipe or installing one of those ventable rad caps will obviously dispel the air quicker. When you mentioned a 15" quite fan from PepBoys - that's not what you replaced for the stock rad fan I hope!!!
Precisely.. trapped air in the block will work itself out within 1 to 2 heat up/cool down cycles. You just need to keep the coolant bottle filled to the proper level. I never thought about the brand of fan... I had a problem with a noisy computer fan a few years ago.. bought a quiet fan only to find out that the reason it was quiet was because they simply designed it to spin slower and subsequently it didn't move as much air :( This caused the CPU to run hot and reboot itself from time to time. Talk about annoying.
I would double check the speed rating and CFM rating of the newer fan.
 
Does anyone know the stock CFM on these. BTW when I replaced my water pump I went ahead and replaced my power steering pump with a CARDONE. Where did the whine go. It is great. Just a heads up.
 
dkmac said:
Does anyone know the stock CFM on these.
Are you saying you replaced the entire fan, not just the fan motor? I believe it has been mentioned that the stockers move around 3500 CFM on high speed.

Paul
 
Chris I took a look at the thread you linked and I'm pretty much in agreement with what was said by the 2 Daves, but you deffinetly have something else going on if you're still runing too hot. Do you know what your temps actualy are?
Let me give you some advice on cleaning that condensor.
DO NOT shoot water from the front of it into the cooling fins. Spraying the water in that direction only forces what is trapped in there even deeper and helps to wedge it in tighter. I know its a pain in the butt but you need to remove the IC and rad and useing a pressure washer shoot that water from the engine compartment through the condensor fins towards the nose of the car. I think you'll ba amazed at what comes out.
When cleaning my condensor I was able to learn that method works best.
I was lucky because since my car is completely torn down I have the condensor out where I can play with it easily and trying the water spray in both directions I learned spraying back to front made a big difference.
I must have blown out 10 lbs. of bugs and had a small pile of pebbles to boot. :eek:
I know you tow a hobie cat so you do hang out at the lake in your area. Bugs are abundant at the lakes. I live 4 miles from the largest lake in Ky (Ky Lake) so I do have to deal with this problem myself on every vehical I have, and believe me they build up fast. I've even resorted to makeing bug screens that set in front of my rads so that they collect the bugs rather than my rads and condensors. I have them hid behind the grills so they cant be seen and they are much easier to clean than a rad or condensor.
Haveing said all of that if you can completely eleminate the cooling fin blockage as a source of your problem I'de be looking at ignition timeing issues.
Wrong timeing regardless of A/F ratio's will cause an engine to run hotter.
 
OK sorry for keeping you all waiting. This is what I have come up with. After throgh reseach, I was not able to find the stock CFM rating for the radiator fan assy. I did however found out that I put on a 1400 CFM rated fan. Looks like that was a bad move on my behalf. It appears that these have at least a 2000 CFM requirement, therefor I will be replacing it with one of Victor Malvor's of Spinningwheels-sc 2950 CFM radiator fans. I also checked out my radiator and rest of the cooling system and all seems to be good. There is adaquite pressure and flow through all hoses. When I get my car up to highway speeds my car runs at normal temp even with the AC on. Which was the final conclusion that I put on a weak fan. Guy's don't cut corners, it will just cost you more in the end. I am curious to know if the fan runs with AC on speeds of 50 and above? Well there it is. I will be ordering my new fan on the 15th. I will write back and let all know how it does. God bless.
 
it was 96 out today and mine ran below the n without ac my 90 the other day it was 90 out with air on climbing pennveiw mountain with clogged cats went up to m highest i ever saw it , all stock radiators
 
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