So I am at a loss guys, ever since I switched from my old china turbo to a garret gtx2867r I've been having overheating issues. Its strange because it seems like the problem came all of the sudden . The car has singular motorsports hood louvers, supermiata coolant reroute, and a supermiata crossflow radiator, and an lrb undertray so I kinda know it should not be having a cooling issue.

More background, the car is on an ms3pnp unit, the motor was built over a year ago. Has Arp headstuds, pistons, rods, & a ported head, and with the turbo swap I switched over to e85. It's also on dw 1000's and flowforces ls2 conversion.

Before changing over to the new turbo it just had a china dual core rad & the reroute and was able to hold 180 no problem. My previous set up did have a turbo blanket & the downpipe was lava wrapped, so could it really be that there is that much heat escaping causing my issues?

I am trying to wait to lava wrap the downpipe until the materials arrive to recirculate the wastegate but vibrant has been taking months leaving me with a bare stainless downpipe and stainless dump pipe.

At this point in time I am thinking I must've lifted the head or something and am now pressurizing the cooling system because I just replaced my thermostat and filled it with water wetter and 70/30 water to coolant and its still overheating. I haven't thoroughly tested this theory but Im pretty sure it can cool itself down if the hood is open...

Also my definition of overheating is 220-230. those are peak number though and the car is always cooled back down to operating temp before shutting down just an fyi.
I can/will attach photos when possible.

 

What is the ambient temperature? What usage - street only, dual duty, racecar?

What re-route, and have you tested the thermostat?

Have you sealed the radiator, and all the air, ALL of it, goes through the radiator core?

Have you read the cooling thread (sticky)?

 

+1 on radiator ducting. Car was consistently in the 220's with AC on and IC poorly located in the mouth of the radiator. Moved the IC back, cleaned up the ducting with ABS, suddenly everything's fine.

I'm also a fan of the coolant pressure tester, rentable from autozone/oreilly. It used to be $100 to rent (refunded upon return), but they jacked the price up to like 180 (again, refunded on return). Any small weeping leak in the coolant system becomes a **** stream.

 

It is a dual duty, street and track car leaning more towards strictly racecar. It has a new 180 thermostat that was tested before installing and verified opening temp with a temp gun, The reroute is the Qmax Supermiata coolant reroute, the radiator is the Supermiata Crossflow Radiator, and the car has Singular Motorsports Hood Louvers. The system has been bled using the bleeder valve on the reroute & by having the car on ramps with a funnel that raised the water level above the motor. Ambient temperature during drives have been in the 60's, and yes I've gone through the thread it's pointing me towards head gasket but before tearing that deep into the car I wanted more input.

 

So with ebay radiator and china turbo, no overheating problems. Switched to SPM radiator and Garrett turbo and have overheating problems now? Running the same power and everything?

It's possible the rad cap was bad out of the box, you still have an air bubble in the system somewhere, or you're having head gasket issues.

Normally I would point at radiator ducting but if it is ducted identical to the previous setup and now overheats, logically speaking it should have been okay, although improved radiator ducting wouldn't hurt.

 

almost, more so I switched to garret turbo, and because of the different the turbo I couldn't use the turbo blanket or the previous 2.5 in heat wrapped downpipe & then maybe a week into running the garret I started having overheating problems. I bought the radiator and hood vents in hopes to remedy the problem but haven't made very much of an improvement. But I'll upload a photo of the opening in the bumper, a top down photo of my engine bay & a few others tomorrow when theres some daylight out.

 

Did you get the new turbo and then turn the power up then you started overheating? Because if that's the case then yeah... throwing the parts at it wasn't going to help you...

The turbine housing and downpipe being exposed is not going to play a large role in how well it can cool itself at all.

 

All good points - but burping it gets you a gold star.

Something has changed - exactly when did the overheating start - straight after the engine teardown and rebuild? Was the turbo done at the same time? Ditto radiator? Photos would be good.

If they were all done together I'd start with a good burping, do the pressure test (I wish we had access to that here), do a compression test, recheck the thermostat. Unless otherwise indicated, absolute last resort would be a new HG.

How's your tune, not running a lot of advance are you? Power gone up with the Garrett? Running more revs? How is the oil temperature?

 

I'll post a photo of the timing table along with the others tomorrow, but its practically the same table I ran on pump gas as I hadn't even gotten to refining the timing side of things yet in tuning before I couldn't drive the car for more than 45mins. The plan with the garret was to turn it up from 21-24psi to 32psi but the issues started before the boost could even be turned up, currently it overheats on gate which is 15/16psi. The over heating started a week into running the garret turbo which was in total only a few hours of street driving and few hours tuning. At the time I guess I had just assumed it was the no turbo blanket and unwrapped downpipe causing the heat build up but looking back at it the china setup made 21/22 psi max so maybe those couple extra psi from the garret were actually enough to lift the head and blow the mls head gasket. Tomorrow Im gonna pressure test the cooling system, compression test, & start looking into setting up a CLTP sensor with megasquirt, and get you guys some data and photos.

 

Burp it first. Be absolutely sure there is no air in the system. Then do the pressure and compression tests.

If you are getting more power, that means more heat internally and externally. It may mean the cooling system has passed its limits, which probably points to poor ducting/sealing. If you have a slot in the bumper, that may be an outlet when you think it is an inlet. Did you do the water pump, if not are you sure it is working? If you run water (no coolant) corrosion can eat a water pump to nothing.

If you have to set up a CLT sensor, how is the MS seeing engine/CLT temp now?

ETA: If you have not got the magic funnel, get one when you get the pressure tester.

 

Will do, I'll definitely try burping again & with the funnel I used the water level in it was probably 3-4" above the valve cover
&
Correction not CLTP but CLP, Coolant pressure sensor, stock CLT sensor works fine, hood seals good, undertray seals pretty good (LRB Undertray), stock bumper is completely intact, & personally I dont know of a better radiator on the miata market unless I were to have a custom one made. The waterpump is a good note but the car had a brand new gates water pump put in a year ago running a bottle of water wetter, and 70% water to 30% coolant. I dont think I've reached this cooling systems limits here as there are other people making way more power than I am without going to such extreme cooling needs so I'm leaning heavy on its a head gasket issue. Especially seeing as most people at these power levels aren't running stock mls head gaskets, but rather a cometic style.

 

Here are some photos, I have yet to go get my pressure tester and compression tester from my dads but I will get those later and post results.

 

I see aftermarket fans and what looks like electrical taped twisted connections. Are you certain the fans are blowing the right way? Easy mistake to make.

 

Aftermarket fans unless they are expensive SPAL fans also do not flow anywhere near as much as stock fans.

 

How is the seal between the heat exchangers and the mouth of the car? It looks like air holes on the sides.

 

Sure looks like you have a problem that isn’t IC related but the boost and power you are looking at running will benefit significantly with a much larger one. I’m running the FAB9 Stage 2 and a 19 row oil cooler to manage the temps. That’s after you get the other stuff already mentioned taken care of.

 

Fans look to be the weak point here. Were they changed?

is it overheating at idle, at speed, or both?

is the reroute also new?

 

Just got back from vacation so I'll get those tests ran soon, but it appears some of you are missing the point. This car ran perfectly fine as is until about a week after installing the new turbo. Only things that have changed on the car in the last 2 years is the the turbo, exhaust, radiator and hood louvers. Before installing the new turbo I ran practically the same boost with out an issue. Once it began to have overheating issues, I threw more parts at it since they were ones I had plans of upgrading to later on anyways. It overheats at both idle and at speed, the only thing that will cool the car all the way back down to operating temp is running water over the radiator while idling with the hood open. Coasting on the freeway reduces temps greatly but the car struggles to get below 195.

Also IAT's don't seem to be an issue here yet, I have plenty logs showing them at peak 5-10 degrees above ambient temp outside.

 

No, YOU are missing the point. We had a bunch of convoluted information about what mods were done when, what order they were done in, what was done before and after you started overheating, not to mention you put on a new turbo and are running a pretty significant amount of boost. Did you go to a larger turbo? Are you making more power now? Did you tune it properly? Is it bled properly?

A few other things to note, you said it struggles to get under 195F, well no ****, the thermostat in the QMax reroute kit is a 195F thermostat so it's doing its job. You don't really ever want to run below that anyways. You said that sitting still you have to spray the rad with water to cool it down, that is a great indicator that your fan is garbage even though it may not be the root cause. Reinstall OEM fans.

Now that we know you changed turbo, and it didn't start overheating until a week later, something else had to have changed.
You need to take a step back, and do proper diagnostics.

Compression test. Check and see if the motor is hurt.

Cooling system pressure test. Does it hold pressure?

Combustion leak test kit. Find out if there is exhaust gas escaping through your cooling system.

Leakdown test. If it's not sealing up, try to find out where the problem is.

If those four tests don't indicate any problems whatsoever, there are four things left on the suspect list.

1. Bad radiator cap that will not hold pressure properly.
2. You still have air in the system and have not bled the cooling system properly.
3. Shitty fan. The OEM ones work just fine. But if this worked before, it would not make sense that it is a problem now.
4. Shitty ducting. You have tons of air gaps and ways for air to escape around the radiator. But again, if this worked before, it would not make sense that it is a problem now.

The next time you post, provide the results to those tests.

 

Are you sealed left, right, and below the radiator?