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.

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.

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. !

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.

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...

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Are you going to resurface the head?

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

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

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

If it's at idle and cold, your thermastat should be closed. New thermastats are designed when they break they stay open. What is a possability is that your coolant just flows, never stays long enough in the rad to get cooled.

^Good point. I did not know that about thermostats. I do know the one that is in it is the one that came with the engine rebuild kit (it's supposed to be anyway). I'm thinking about picking up a 180* thermostat though to make it run colder and keep the Mitsu unit as a backup. Anybody disagree with that?

Sounds like a good place to start at. Best of luck with getting her back up and running.

Sounds like a plan.

Boosted motors probably like colder temps than na.

Thanks Goat. And yes Badbu, they do like colder temps more so than N/A cars. Less heat generated in a turbo motor is always a good thing.

advance has thermostats in stock... why are you waiting for one to come in at mistsu? hell there are two sitting in my garage right now. i am pretty sure one of them works.

If its not oil and comes from advance it would stay sitting in the garage

even though with them sticking open, the fluid never stays in the radiator long enough to cool, it is a hell of a lot better than the thermostat sticking closed and never allowing the fluid to flow at all.

yup

I would have to disagree with you on this one, I have installed a whole lot of parts from Advance with very little problems.

I would have to say that I have had a lot less problems with parts from Advance than with AutoZone parts.

JVB, I already picked up a 180* thermostat from Autozone and put it in last night. I'll go out and test it tonight when I get home from work (had to let the RTV setup). Personally, I think Autozone and Advance are identical twins but that may just be my opinion.

Spy, I'm curious as to how this "burping" process is performed. I've never done it before so, my answer would have to be no, I didn't do it when I refilled it.

All you have to do to burp the system is:
Fill with anti freeze, Leave cap off, Let the car run and you watch the air come out of the top. You will know a burp when you see one, And don't worry if you lose some anti freeze. It's just pushing the air through the system before the thermostate opens.
It will take you a good 15-20 minutes to do this. So don't get in a hurry.

Thanks! I've heard of burping your baby, but never a car. Do I have to pat it on the *ss while I do it?

Actually, you have to pat spy on the *ss to get it to work right...

I can just see Dan in his Halloween costume....giant diaper, baby rattle, and white bonnet. It'll be just like home Dan!

Got the car to run at a proper temperature tonight. While at cruising speeds it's at 96.8*C and once you slow down or the revs come down it cools down to about 95*C or so. The old thermostat looked like the original one, so I hope that's all my worries. My next big question, and yes you'll all make fun, is there any telling if it'll be fine to drive to Peoria tomorrow? I'm going to try and drive it to work tomorrow to make sure everything is not just a fluke. I need to get the car to Rob tomorrow and I really don't want to take the rear axles apart and tow it on my tow dolly. Not because of laziness, but I just would rather drive it if I can. Either way it's got to get there. I may just borrow a hitch, put the tow dolly on the back of the service truck (1990 CK2500) and take it with us just in case. I'll have to make sure the service truck has the hookup for the lights though. I definitely don't want the fuzz on our tail. Anyhow, opinions welcome.

BTW, the car was burped and 180*F 'stat put in it.

Awesome! sounds like you found your problem... only one way to find out if it's really road worthy!! If you have problems, give me a call, worst case I can toss the kids in the truck and meet you. It's funny how once you have a problem like that, you are paranoid for a while after... then when you finally get your confidence back... BANG! something else breaks!

Well, considering 180*F is 82*C, I am a little paranoid. Just don't want it to get hot and then take the rear axles off in the middle of I-74. BTW Rob, PM me some directions to your house if you would. I'll give you a call before I start the journey.

keep in mind that the stat will open at 180, but the car will only run as cool as the radiator can cool down the coolant. is the radiator in good shape? make sure the a/c condensor fins aren't all bent up and blocking airflow. I'll look at it some more when it gets here! sending directions now!

Is your stock gauge running straight up and down? If it is, It is running in the norm of radiator temp. That's where mine sets all the time.

where did we get this guy, he knows just about everything!!!

good to have you aboard, looks like you will be a valuable asset to the boards




I am not trying to get this thread off topic, but the two companies, get the majority of the big parts from completely different vendors and the parts are different brands. I have just had better luck personally with the parts from advance.... Advance also has longer warranties on some stuff too.

ok, thread hyjacked enough, back to the topic at hand.

Radiator is an aluminum 2G unit rigged up to work on my car. It's pretty new and in good shape. The AC Condensor on the other hand, is 145k miles old and I'd like to just take it out all together because I'm not using the A/C anyway.

BTW, I drove it to work this morning. It kept going from 96.8*C back down to 95*C and cycling.

Perhaps the radiator could use a good flushing? Your temps are stable, but mabye a tad on the warm side. Nothing to be concerned about, but if it hasn't been done recently, I'd go ahead and get the system flushed again.

Most definitely the headgasket now. I drove it home last night and then to work this morning. I took the radiator cap off and the coolant was a bit low....lower than it should be to cool an engine efficiently. So I filled her back up and no more cycling temperature! WOO HOO! Headgasket and ARP's here I come.

Well, believe it or not, I've got MORE bad news for you boys. Drove it to work yesterday and for some reason, the logger wasn't working. At first it wouldn't show any values, like it wasn't connecting. Then, it showed some values but they weren't correct. Like coolant temp would jump from -72*C to 59*C and it was 50*F outside. All the values were doing it, not just coolant temp. So, I checked all the connections, they were all correct. After that, I just shut it off, there was no point in it. Got to work, checked the coolant, it was a bit low. Filled it up, ran all my errands in town and parked it. After work I went to meet my friend that was going to follow me to Robs and I noticed it was a bit low before we left so, I filled it up again. As a precaution, I bought a 2 Liter of Dr. Pepper, drank some, and poured the rest out to be used as a water container just in case along with an empty Gatorade bottle. We headed out on I74 from the north side of Bloomington off of Veterans and headed towards Goodfield. Everything was fine until 6.5 miles from Goodfield. It started to overheat quite a bit. Not as bad as it had the first time but enough that I knew I had to pull over. I carefully (Don't try this one at home kids!) removed the radiator cap with a rag covering it to prevent any splash. I turned it to the first click and it let off a huge cloud of steam, second click blew the radiator cap into the ditch and spit water all over the front of the car. There was little to no water in the car. In fact, it took the entire 2.5 Liters I had in the car and that didn't even fill it up. At this point, I called Rob. He was EXTREMELY nice and drove out to pick us up in his pick'emup truck. We then drove the entire 20-30 miles back to my house to pick up the two wheel dolly. Then it was all the way back to the car, helping to disconnect the main driveshaft, hang it up with a bungee cord and push it onto the dolly and strap it down. Needless to say, he went wayyy out of his way to help even though his wife wasn't really happy about it. Tom and I followed Rob to the gas station at Goodfield so that I could fill up his truck and check the straps again. That's when we noticed the front bumper on the Talon. Evidently, the car sits low enough to scrape on the sides of the dolly's ramps. In fact, there was evidence of the three or four times we tried to push it up the ramps. So now there's three gashes in the bumper on either side.

So now my car's broke, the front bumper is torn off, my back hurts from laying on the asphalt next to semi-tractor trailers doing 65mph three feet from my head, I've got a deep cut on my right finger and I swallowed my left contact last night.

To try to make things better, Tom and I drove to Peoria to find a straight patch of asphalt and someone to drive next to us. We drove through campus, through Pekin, Creve Cour, all over Peoria and there was nothing to be found except for a Mustang GT that just liked the to hear the sound of his own exhaust. Not only that, but while in Pekin near the waterfront, he ran over someting. That something happened to be a small crowbar. When he went over it the bar kicked up against the side of the car on the drivers door. We got out and inspected it a bit only finding a small chip out of the top coat of paint, no big deal. Upon further inspection this morning, there's a 2inch long gash about a 1/4 inch deep just under his drivers side mirror. It wouldn't be as bad if he wasn't driving his (darn near mint condition) 86 Buick Regal T-Type, which is the same as a Grand National.

Last night sucked. I guess it can only get better.

Man I'm sorry to here about your luck. Mine is about the same as it goes with DSMs. I just have a mysterious idle surge when cold start.
I'm to here about your friends car, I love those cars too. I used to have an 83 Buick Regal, Dropped a 455 Olds Rocket in it. Man that thing would scream. And I had another 83 Buick Regal that I dropped a small block Chevy in. I have to say the small block ran alot better off the line.
Well I sure hope you get the problem fixed and are able to run again. And I hope your buddy will fix his problem before it ruins that door. Good luck to both of you.

Thanks Budmann. I'm more concerned with his car I think. Mine has always been this way, so I'm used to it. Bad luck after bad luck. His car was painted about three years ago and like I said, could easily win a car show. Not only that but up until about two weeks ago it was his daily driver.

Here's Rob's diagnosis. What do you guys think?

got the head off, no obvious signs of the gasket being bad. the plugs had a little white residue on them, and the exhaust ports looked kinda wet. Compression was 130-135 across the board. not real good, but the motor isn't broke in from the sound of things. was the water pump new or used? might look into putting one of those on it while we have it apart. I can look at it better after I get the timing cover off.


I'm going to replace the water pump, take the AC condensor out, try and find a good 1G radiator to put in it, new headgasket, deck the head, ARP head studs. It's already got the new 180*F stat in it and new radiator cap.

Man, that SUCKS, bro. I feel for you with this. It's an interesting problem, and it seems to be avoiding detection somehow. A leak would be nearly impossible to identify after spewing coolant all over the engine like it did. And Rob's saying there's nothing goign on with the headgasket....

I'm assuming the obvious cloud of white smoke hasn't been present. Do you smell coolant while driving? Any leaks in your resevoir? Perhaps a deviant leak at the heater core hoses or at the throttle body. I'm just spitballing here, trying to get gears turning in your heads. Hope you guys get it figured out.

Well, I couldn't identify a leak before the coolant went spewing and no, there wasn't the tell-tale white smoke cloud coming from the tailpipe. I didn't see any leaks in the resivoir either. The only thing identifiable is the missing coolant and the fact that on the way to Peoria, the friend I had following me said that my car was spitting water all over his windshield. I've been putting straight water in it since I found out it was loosing coolant simply because of the availability of it.