Rick_Leuce
Registered User
Hello everyone.
My car has 2 main problems I'm trying to solve. It idles rough when cold and the radiator fan doesn't kick on when it's supposed to.
I'm putting together a video of my 1991 SC 5-Speed starting up and running. I'm hoping someone out there with more Super Coupe experience can help me track down the sources of these problems. I used 3 cameras, so I'm going to need some time to edit it. I'll reply to my own post with the finished video soon.
For starters, the car has a really hard time idling for the first minute or two. If I don't rev it, the car stalls. After revving the car at 2,000 RPM for 1-2 minutes, it can idle normally around 900-1,000 RPM. It's annoying, but I can live with it. I wasn't sure if someone out there might know what I could adjust or tweak to fix it. I keep starting it up and letting it rev/idle every few weeks or months, so I know the fuel is fresh because I keep filling it to about 1/4 tank of gas. I put in a bottle of Techron injector cleaner a while ago, but I don't know how much it's helping. My battery terminals are a little corroded, so I had to run a second ground just to enable the car to start.
Secondly, and more importantly, this car has had a cooling problem for years and it has been garaged ever since Spring 2015. The radiator fan does not always come on when it should. It's always been like this since I owned it. Even when it had the original IRCM relay and radiator fan, the fan WOULD NOT come on if I turned the AC to max. I first tried replacing the IRCM relay with one from a junkyard, but it didn't work. Since 2013, I have replaced the radiator fan motor (which is 1 speed) the IRCM relay (with a Chinese-made one), and I bought some aftermarket thermometer/relay kit from Autozone that was supposed to trigger the fan when the included thermometer (which I stabbed into the radiator) gets hot and trips the relay. However, the radiator fan does not always come on even when the radiator is up to temperature. I'm giving up on this crappy relay and was wondering if there was a good kit out there I could buy that would just make my fan come on when it is supposed to. I've almost overheated my car 6 times (including today) so I desperately want to know what to do to get my fan to come on when it should.
Also, my radiator go so hot today that coolant started steaming out (which you will see in the video). It actually happened a second AFTER I turned the car off. I was wondering if there are things now that I need to be on the lookout for that could have been damaged. I will mention that I turned the engine off, but left the key in the ON position so that the car's vents could cool off the engine while I stuck a battery-powered fan in front of the radiator to cool it off. The car was in the shade with it's hood and front-bumper assembly removed, so I'm hoping things didn't get too hot and were able to cool down relatively quickly.
I'm thinking my crappy little Autozone relay is the problem, but could my Chinese IRCM relay (image below) be a problem too?
Thanks in advance!
View attachment 69540View attachment 69541
My car has 2 main problems I'm trying to solve. It idles rough when cold and the radiator fan doesn't kick on when it's supposed to.
I'm putting together a video of my 1991 SC 5-Speed starting up and running. I'm hoping someone out there with more Super Coupe experience can help me track down the sources of these problems. I used 3 cameras, so I'm going to need some time to edit it. I'll reply to my own post with the finished video soon.
For starters, the car has a really hard time idling for the first minute or two. If I don't rev it, the car stalls. After revving the car at 2,000 RPM for 1-2 minutes, it can idle normally around 900-1,000 RPM. It's annoying, but I can live with it. I wasn't sure if someone out there might know what I could adjust or tweak to fix it. I keep starting it up and letting it rev/idle every few weeks or months, so I know the fuel is fresh because I keep filling it to about 1/4 tank of gas. I put in a bottle of Techron injector cleaner a while ago, but I don't know how much it's helping. My battery terminals are a little corroded, so I had to run a second ground just to enable the car to start.
Secondly, and more importantly, this car has had a cooling problem for years and it has been garaged ever since Spring 2015. The radiator fan does not always come on when it should. It's always been like this since I owned it. Even when it had the original IRCM relay and radiator fan, the fan WOULD NOT come on if I turned the AC to max. I first tried replacing the IRCM relay with one from a junkyard, but it didn't work. Since 2013, I have replaced the radiator fan motor (which is 1 speed) the IRCM relay (with a Chinese-made one), and I bought some aftermarket thermometer/relay kit from Autozone that was supposed to trigger the fan when the included thermometer (which I stabbed into the radiator) gets hot and trips the relay. However, the radiator fan does not always come on even when the radiator is up to temperature. I'm giving up on this crappy relay and was wondering if there was a good kit out there I could buy that would just make my fan come on when it is supposed to. I've almost overheated my car 6 times (including today) so I desperately want to know what to do to get my fan to come on when it should.
Also, my radiator go so hot today that coolant started steaming out (which you will see in the video). It actually happened a second AFTER I turned the car off. I was wondering if there are things now that I need to be on the lookout for that could have been damaged. I will mention that I turned the engine off, but left the key in the ON position so that the car's vents could cool off the engine while I stuck a battery-powered fan in front of the radiator to cool it off. The car was in the shade with it's hood and front-bumper assembly removed, so I'm hoping things didn't get too hot and were able to cool down relatively quickly.
I'm thinking my crappy little Autozone relay is the problem, but could my Chinese IRCM relay (image below) be a problem too?
Thanks in advance!
View attachment 69540View attachment 69541