Coolant - Engine wont warm up - stays cold

[maxhag]

Sam, that EXACTLY describes my issue ...... We def have the same problem.....

As you said, The only 1 time my bottom hose got slightly warm was when the water temp at the remote housing actually got to 80deg, with a 82deg thermostat. Which makes sense, as the thermostat is starting open when it should. That only happened once, during the middle of the day (10deg MAX)

[maxhag]

Sam, is there any way you might be able to post up a pic of your water plumbing?

[rianwest]

The things that I can think of:
- The coolant is mixed at the wrong ratio. It will make little difference but running the wrong ratio will mess up the coolants specific heat capacity (i.e how much energy is required to increase the coolants temp by x degrees).
- The coolant isn't flowing and therefor not heating up uniformly?
- The gauge/sender is faulty (unlikely because you said the hoses were cold)
- The thermostat has somehow been bypassed with the coolant lines for the turbo, or the hoses are routed incorrectly?
- The system has air in it

The heat off the engine at idle has to be going somewhere, the alloy radiator is essentially a big heat sink even when the car isn't moving, but there should be no coolant flowing through it until the engine is hot?

[Lexsmaz]

Can you leave the Radiator cap off whilst it is idling & warming up, if you can leave it off till the engine temp reaches 60 -70 or a bit more in my opinion you haven't got a air lock or lack of flow issue within the motor as if you have air locks it will soon start to show up with the cap off it will start perculating out, it will happen when the temp reaches around 80 or more but not before that though .. But in saying that there is no way in my mind you have incorrect plumbing or an air lock etc as the car would behaving Very poorly after running for the 30 minutes plus you say it runs for & is still coldish & also the cooling system would be physically thumping from boiling spots within the engine cooling system & pumping out water etc, etc .............. My Money is still on the Radiator : )

[Matt]

Is the water pump working?

[maxhag]

I am guessing so Matt. Belt is good, pump turns as normal by hand, no bearing noise or leaks. I havent taken it off. Unless the blades have completly corroded????? which would be strange to happen in 8 months....

[sundee]

Jojo, did you try a stock radiator? I haven't seen you post any results?

This is weird.
I think you may have a combination of problems working against you.

1st - you and Sam have the same issues..
Observation - you both live in parts of this country where night time temps are well below Zero and day time hardly reaches +10'c.

2nd - your (not sure about Sam) running a huge alloy rad
3rd -your running an oil cooler in winter??? Hope it's coupled to a thermostat?
Cold oil and hot oil is bad! .. But cold oil is taking a lot of heat away from your engine.
Observation - this combination in your environment could lead to very low operating temps.

I think that the issue is that the engine is actually not getting up to temp.. (No shit you say)
But really, it's not!
You have changed thermostats with no change.
(82 up to 90) you should have gone the other way.

What you need to do I think is :

1. cover half the radiator with some cardboard (reduce its working area)
2. Remove the darn oil cooler ( it's doing the engine more harm then good during winter)
3. Run a lower temp thermo stat ( see if you can gain uniform temps though out the entire cooling system.)

Question -

1. what coolant/anti freeze are you running and what was the mixing ratio?
2 . Where in the remote thermostat is your microleb temp sensor?
3 . Disregard the dash temp gauge.

If the microleb temp sensor is in the engine side of the thermostat
Then this would lead me even more to believe that your gauges ( microleb and top rad hose) are correct and your engine is really operating at those temps.

[Matt]

Take the thermostat out and i bet there is no difference. Seams like the water is bypassing the thermostat somehow.

And always measure the water temp on what is leaving the engine, not going in from the bottom.

[maxhag]

Nah Matt, its NOT a thermostat issue. Its all been tested. Bottom pipe stays cold until 80deg, then gets warm. Thats what it should do.

JOEL:

1. The oil cooler has a sheet infront of it blocking flow. Sure, it will act as a heat sink, but it should warm up eventually, and it doesn't.
2. Coolant is Penrite green coolant, 50/50
3. The Ecu and hand controller Temp sensor is right where the thermostat is, so that reading, is the exact temp at the thermostat.

Re; combination. I would agree with your combination of things, but only if it was running cold while driving. The fact that this wont warm up idling for some time, leads me to believe its not the main cause here.....


I have thought of a few things, which i will try later today......

[maxhag]

Back to what Johan said.

I am thinking that possibly with a stuffed heater tap PLUS Joels 'combination', could prevent from warming up. The water would still be passing thru the heater core and the turbo, before going back into the waterpump, so to me, I would still think it would eventually warm up after 30 minutes of day driving. :/

What do other people think? Stuffed heater tap?

Either way, I have one here to fit up when I wake up later today. I have checked my hose routing and all looks correct.




EDIT; I then just thought...... If the above was the case, then the heater would blow warm air as least. And it doesn't. Just cold. Switching from hot to cold, seems to make no differance to the air blowing out. I have touched the heater core by hand and its not all that 'hot'.
:/

Someone kill me.