RB20's temps higher than normal when driving hard or going up a hill

[blues14]

LIKE THE POST SAYS. my car car is an s14 w/rb20det, basically stock except FMIC and 1 12'' pusher fan (ign hot) i/e and walbro 255 fuel pump. it runs really cool normally, but if i go up a hill, or drive it hard, it heats up. I dont have an actual temp, but normal is about 1/4 of the gauge and the needle gets up to 3/4 the way to H on the temp gauge. it happens really quickly, but it doesnt overheat. What could cause this?

[Vkoslak]

make sure its wired correctly.

I have 2 12" fans. One is a pusher from flex-a-lite. I put it on the far drivers side of the radiator core. The other is some cheap crap I got at advance. I set it up to be a puller and put it on the far passenger side of the core support. The problem was that the instructions were wrong and so I ended up wiring the puller fan backwards and it wasn't doing anything.It caused some overheating. After re-wiring that fan so that it pulled air instead of pushed it, everything runs nice and cold even in TX heat.

[Joe]

please refrain from making thread titles in all capitol letters, its very annoying to read.

[blues14]

sorry bout the caps......anyways, the fan is wired correctly. can running either rich or lean cause this??

[Yellow4g63]

Are you running the Stock KA radiator? if so it's not big enough to cool the car in warm weather and uphill. Get the Modine one, it's an aftermarket one for the auto KA and it's thicker. It will help a little but a bigger one is needed and ducting.

[Carl H]

retarded base timing can also cause this, seen a few cars so bad off that the manifolds were red after a few pulls.

[tecnic1]

try to get a water temp gauge...It's sorta scary that your stock gauge is moving that much. My water temps fluctuate from 170-205 and my stock gauge does not budge.

also, try adding a bottle of redline water wetter. I have had great results on 3 different cars now with that product. on my rb20 s14 with stock radiator, My water temps decreased about 15 degrees.

[blues14]

thanks guys, i will give it a shot. is it difficult hooking up the coolant temp gauge? where does the probe go?

[tecnic1]

thanks guys, i will give it a shot. is it difficult hooking up the coolant temp gauge? where does the probe go?

I retapped the bleeder port on the top of the intake manifold. It was not particularly difficult.

use whatever tap is appropiate for whatever brand gauge you get. For the autometers it's 1/8 npt. (1/8-27) and for the jdm-ness is gonna be bspt(no idea what that works out to)

use the proper drill bit for your tap, and dip it in some vasoline so most of the metal shavings stick to it, and drill the port out.

dip the tap in vasoline for the same reason, and carefully tap that &hit out, rembembering to back it off 1/4 turn every 1/2 turn.

get about 50 q-tips, and dip those in vasoline, and use them to blot out and metal shavings that might have excaped.

screw in the sender with some teflon tape, but be careful not to meathead it too bad, because those threads are pretty soft, and there are passages you could potentionallly block if you screw it in too far

wire it up and find out how hot you are really running.

[Cpt_Impossible]

OR.... There is a site, I forget the name that was selling really cheap adapters to go on the radiator hose. It had a nipple on either end with a pipe section that had 2 ports on it in the mid that you just clamp inline on the hose which you would need to cut.

I have had some weird heating problems a little while back but am not sure if they are gone completely. I have two 12" fans, one as a pusher one as a puller. The big thing is making sure you take out that release bolt at the top of the intake mani when you top off the system. There are two temp sensors for rour radiator where the top hose ghoes to the engine. The little one is for the dash temp gauge, the other is for the ECU. I have read that if your ECU temp gauge goes bad, it can tell your car to run the cold maps all the time and make the car run too hot. Email me if you figure it out.