njt50

Like many of you my Vette ('94) was running 225-230 most of the time. Everything was working but still was hot. I understand the engineering of this engine but come on it's pretty hot operating temps. I could never drive in a parade due to possibility of overheating issues. My car only has 46,000 miles and as I stated everything is new. My barber who knows nothing about cars bought a '96 and he asked me if I had burped the engine. I looked at him like he was a little off until I researched this concept. I followed everyone's advice on overflow levels and made sure the system was burped (there is a bleeder screw on the upper thermostat which lets excess air escape the system. Today I drove high speed and slow speed and it ramained no more than 205 and on the highway about 180. What an easy fix. I wanted to pass this on.

mat1227

what I did on mine was, I bought a wireless remote relay (4 channel) I pulled 12v from the wires to the fan relays, for the relay, and applied a ground to 2 channels then to the relays ground, now if I get slowed in traffic I just hit A on the remote and it turns on one of the fans, hit B turns on the other fan, I can control both fans independently or together, car normally runs somewhere 170 - 180 on the highway, as I get slowed in traffic, I turn on one fan, seems to stay no more than 180. I'm pretty happy with how it works, since I can use the 2nd fan that rarely gets used until it gets pretty hot normally.
Mark

njt50

I get both fans by turning the air on. Since I live in Florida that's fairly often. I like your idea, just not sure most of us could figure that out.

Benny42

That is the stock fan setting. It isn't overheating at that temp range. The best way to get it to run cold is to get a tuner to lower the fans. There are relay fixes out there but a tune is easier.

njt50

I guess I'm not really understanding your fix. Can you put it in simple terms. What do you mean get a tuner to lower the fans? I've never heard of that.

Benny42

The fans are controlled by the engine computer to maintain the temperature you are running. There are handheld tuners. Hypertech, Diablosport, etc. that can reset the on-off settings. There are also companies that can reflash your computer with lower fan settings, and make other changes.
You can drive it in a parade or stop & go traffic like it is. It is not over-heating.

Tom400CFI

Benny42 is right. If you let your car sit stationary, idling, (no airflow over radiator) temps will still climb to ~230 when the fans come on. It sounds like you did have air in it, and letting that air out was a good move, but still the car has a whopping 50* operating range from 180* - 230* or so. IDK why it's so broad, but it is.

RLowindy

How timely is this thread? I've literally owned the '94 a month but I've only had it out a few times. Today I took her out to meet the ex to drop my son off at our usual meet up spot. Idling for about 6-7 minutes the temp got to about 230F, which seemed high. Being new to the car, I was a bit concerned. Outside air temp was about 70F. As soon as I got back on the road she dropped back to 202F.

So is 230 a reason to be concerned? Should a tuner be added to kick on earlier, or as suggested, perhaps a manual overide? I'm familiar with flashing the ECM, I had it done on my Harley when I added a more open air filter and it made a world of difference.

jay23ls

I believe 228 or 230 is the temp 1 or both fans kick in. LT1s in this car w no tstat mods or fan mods will always reach that temp quickly idling or slow driving, it's normal. Once fans kick in it should drop from 230 to like 210 or 215. Then fan or fans will shut off and temp will again reach 228/230 n the cycle repeats. Once driving about 40ish+ mph temps should drop to 195-210 depending on ambient temp.

Always good to check coolant n radiator for clogging just in case. I read the high temps are for the engine to meet strict emission standards like in my dumb state.

Tom400CFI

No. It was just stated above your post that temps up to 230 are how the car was designed to operate.


Only if:
1. You wish to treat a psychological problem. Temps of up to 230 on a stock engine isn't an actual problem so changing "fan on" temp settings would be treating psychology.

2. You've modified the car and thereby changed the criteria for the cooling performance.

If neither of those situations are present...don't worry about it.