1st Night Out: Terrible! Options

[turbohcar]

Tonight was the first night for the Talon. The first night on insurance and plates in the last three years. Everything started out right. I drove to town (about 12miles) to the nearest gas station where I met a friend of mine. I put some premium in her and discuss how happy I am that nothing has happened....yet. Rolling back down the main strip after filling up we make the long cruise to our get-off point. We came to several reds but this one was unlike any other. This one, the beast in me came out. I couldn't help it. The car wanted more than just cruising, and my right foot couldn't help but bury itself into the firewall. As quoted from my friend, "That thing shat and took off like a Tomahawk missle!" Cruising through town (another 4 miles) we got to the turn off and made our way to our destination. Just before we got to our destination (11 miles from town) the car started overheating. Not just "it's overheating a little bit it'll be fine till I get it looked at". NO, it's just humming along just fine, the temp gauge is reading straight up and down and then all the sudden it starts climbing like crazy. Logger showed it got up to 111*C (or 232*F) when it had been running at 96.8*C (206*F). I didn't know until just now that it was running that hot regularly but it didn't show any signs of overheating. I had the fans running all night as a precaution.

It has done this one other time though. Almost a year ago it overheated when I blew a heatercore hose. It climbed to the mark just before the red on the temp gauge and I nursed it home without going into the red to fix it.

At this point I'm tired. I've been wrenching all night and I want to go to bed. If any of you have any suggestions feel free. The cooling system is as follows:

2G aluminum radiator
brand new OEM Mitsu radiator cap
new thermostat with the rebuild
new (Felpro) headgasket with the rebuild
1G fans running full time
new coolant

Like I said, suggestions will be taken. Right now I'm just trying to pick my pride up off the ground. AWD DSM 1 you have a PM.

[jvb6806]

230 degrees isn't really a big deal. did the temp come back down when you were driving? or when you turned on your fans? i would check to see if your thermostat is opening properly. might be a cheap fix.

[BudmannG]

When you filled the radiator did you make sure all the air was out of the lines before you capped it. An air bubble will cause this also. !

[turbohcar]

Fans were on full time.

The thermostat (I'm told) was replaced when the engine rebuild was done.

The water pump however, is used but felt good when we put it back on.

I did NOT check to make sure all the air was out of the lines on the radiator. Not sure how to check that one.

Like I said, the car only started overheating about 20+ miles into the trip. From then on, it would overheat even at idle. Temp would not stop climbing after it started getting hot even when the car was moving.

[wntsom4]

Sounds like the thermostat is sticking, that's an easy fix 5 minutes and your done.. that would be the first place i looked. Or the air pocket deal...

[turbohcar]

OE Mitsu headgasket and thermostat will be here on Thursday. Thanks for your help guys. I'll have more info tonight when I look at it in the light.

[awd4kicks]

Brett, if your going to change the head gasket I would recommend the Mitsu 4 layer metal gasket to make sure your covered if you decide to turn up the boost. If you want to go higher get the Cometic multi-layer gasket and if your going all out- O-Ring that head. But what ever you do I would never recommend the Felpro Head gasket in the 4G63.

[turbohcar]

Well, when I had the engine rebuilt, I couldn't argue with the price and the builder was adamant about putting a FelPro unit in it so, I gave in. I don't plan on turning up the boost more than the stock turbo can handle before I put in some forged goodies.

The Mitsu dealer here only shows the OE replacement for my car. It does not say in their description how many layers it has. If there is a way to tell, let me know and I'll have them order the right one.

[turbohcar]

Mitsu ordered the correct gasket. I just confirmed it with the parts guy over there.

On a side note, I called FelPro myself. They were very receptive to my comments and were actually appauled that there was that many problems with that headgasket. They are checking on it as to why the composite gasket was substituted for the Multi-Layer metal gasket. She said that they go by the rule that if OEM put a MLS gasket on the car, then Fel-Pro is supposed to supply an MLS gasket to put on it. Somehow, they suggest the composite ones and she doesn't know why. So, they're going to check on it and get back to me.

[awd4kicks]

It would be great if Felpro got that straightened out, because they rock in every other application that I've used gaskets.

[turbohcar]

I just ordered some ARP's through Slowboy as well. Hopefully, this will fix it. I don't know what I'll do if it doesn't.

[badbu68]

Are you going to resurface the head?

[turbohcar]

If it's a headgasket, YES of course. More than likely, I'll have the headgasket swapped out either way so no worries.

[turbohcar]

BTW, what coolant temperature do your DSMs usually run at?

[90GSX]

For future reference you can go here and get one. These guys have done a good job with me so far, and their dealer items are cheaper than the dealers around here.

on a side note, im running the regular OEM headgasket with arp headbolts, do i need to worry about blowing my headgasket out on just a 14b running about 14 psi?

[AWD DSM 1]

Last head gasket I got was around $50... MachV is a good place though.

Should have no worries about your head gasket... if you get up towards 20+ psi, then you might start to worry.

[jvb6806]

depending on what thermostat you put in that is the temp the car will run at. at advance auto you can get a 210 and a 180 degree F thermostat. i have a 210 in my car and the needle is straight up and down (right around 210 on the logger). i would swap out your thermostat and burp the lines before i pulled the head you can check and see if the thermostat is opening by turning on the car cold with the cap off and hold a constant RPM (3Kish) it untill you see the thermostat open (gush of coolant through the thermostat). you can use your logger to see what temp it opened up and that will let you know if your thermostat is bad. you might spill some coolant but don;t worry about it... just top it back off when you are done.

[turbohcar]

My price on the OE Mitsu headgasket 4-layer steel was $43.xx, those guys are really starting to like me. They better since I just ordered about $200 in parts from them.

OK, now that I've had a good look at it in the daylight I'm even more confused than before. Nothing is leaking (I checked it last night too when it was overheating), no milk & creamer in the oil, no oil traces in the antifreeze, the water pump is making the coolant flow out of the head and at idle (cold) the thermostat was open and coolant was flowing out so.....I really don't know. I don't have a compression tester either so I couldn't check that and I'm still not sure how to make sure that I got all the air out of the lines. I did let it run for a minute without the radiator cap on though. I didn't let it warm up tonight either but I don't know if that makes a difference.

Besides that, I was looking at the logger and I'm reading some knock even at cruising speeds mainly when the rpms go up (when climbing a small hill). The other thing I noticed today that was very strange was the knock when cold and getting around 3000 rpms. I started the car, drove it maybe forty feet, turned around and parked it. In that span of time I revved it to 3000rpms and it had 37 counts of knock! No knock any other times and on the way home last night it had a max of 8 counts and it was not steady. I do know the O2 sensor is not working and I'm not sure if this is Phantom Knock from being overly rich or not. I really don't want to blow this motor up. Let me know what you think.

[jvb6806]

i would bet money that you aren't really detonating especially if your o2 is bad. my logger reads some knock sometimes too when it is cold. and then 10mins later the logger knock is gone.

did the thermostat open at 210 or was it not untill later? you might try and drain all if you coolant and refilling to make sure there are no air pockets in the system. when you were overheating on the guage what was the temp on your logger? when my alternator wen't out it was making the temp guage go up but the logger was still reading around 210*F beacuse it was putting out too high of voltage... just another thought.

your thermostat should not have opened untill it reached temp. it might be stuck open a little bit and that is why it flows through but then when it reaches temp the metal spring doesn't compress and open the rest of the way. i would try and replace the thermostat and see what that does for you. they are like $8 at advance and i think the new gasket is like $1.

[turbohcar]

I didn't know Autozone had a 180* thermostat, interesting.... I've already ordered an OEM thermostat from Mitsubishi and it'll be here on Thursday or Friday. If anything, the alternator is bogging. It did bog a bit when the temp started going up but came back up within a minute or two. I've got a big *ss stereo in the back and I still haven't brought myself to buy a $130 dry cell Optima red top battery. Soon enough though, I'll end up buying one. I'm not totally positive that the alternator is good, I picked it out of a Mitsubishi scrap pile and it was the cleanest one. It was running right in the 14.6v range all night so I'm not sure why all the sudden it would have dropped when the car started overheating.