Thermostat failure?

[onecrazyfoo4u]

What are the symptoms of a thermostat dying? I think mines going out on my redtop. The car will run just barely over half way on the temp. gauge when cruising on the highway. The main thing I noticed is that the heat is barely warm all the time, even when the engines really hot. Isn't that a thermostat problem? If so, I'm wondering if it's worth it to dish out twice as much for the nismo thermostat? Anybody have one and get any benefits out of it?

[TKOcrewSR]

i dont personally have one. but i do want one and it does sound like the thermostat or air in the system but air in the system gets hot then cool and then hot again repeatedly. i would most definetly go with a cooler thermostat only b/c sr's are very sensitive to heat .

[silverarrow27]

Check for the temperature gauge wire on the dash plug above the ecu location for looseness first. I remember a while back the connection on my old car came a little loose and it did the same thing. Reconnected the wire and never had the problem ever again!

[onecrazyfoo4u]

Yeah, I'll have to check out that wire. My air isn't random, it's just luke warm on all the way hot and cold on full cold...this is all on a fully heated up engine. What I'm confused on is that it says it opens up like 25 deg. F. earlier then a stock one. What does it mean by opening, just starts letting coolant in earlier? I don't exactly understand what the thermostat controls?

[corey240]

thermostat controls when the coolant is let through the system by a certain temp.

[TKOcrewSR]

the thermostat allows the engine to warm up to operating temp it does slowly start to open and fully opens at the temp specified. but understand this the thermostat controls flow of the coolant through the block, for example you take the thermostat out even in dead coldwinter you will probably over heat. it will do this b/c the coolant doesnt get enough time to puul the heat out of the engine while it flows through it the thermostat block flow or restricts it to alow the coolant time to pull out or absorb the heat from the engine. the lower temp thermostat will just fully open sooner then a stock 1.

[onecrazyfoo4u]

Cool, thanks alot for the help. My car heats up pretty darn fast, or at least according to the stock gauge...and it heats up fast even on really cold morning starts. Kind of wierd, I'm wondering if it's already got a colder thermostat already?

[corey240]

sorry t jack a little but, my temp gauge isnt working, what would this be from? i let the car sit and idle today for like 20 minutes and had the fans on and it was definatly up to temp but the gauge still was reading nothing, would this be that sensor on the thermo housing? i swaped it with another one i had and still did it. and im getting the 13 code on my ecu, would the ecu be holding me back from not going over 5 psi until thats fixed? it wont boost past that and theres no leaks, i looked it up and thats what was said befor about the ecu being in safe mod.

[silverarrow27]

I think there are two sensors...one to the ecu and one to the gauge cluster. Perhaps the one that sends a signal to the gauge cluster is dead? Not sure though...maybe someone can chime in on that.