Motohead279

Did a spirited drive from Tampa to Miami last weekend, car ran great. Once I got to Miami spent about 20 minutes in traffic getting to the hotel. So I am sitting in the parking lot for about 5 minutes in front of the hotel waiting for cars to get moved and I noticed the "engine overheated turn AC off" message come on my dash. So I shut the AC off and let the car idle and the next thing I know I see coolant/steam coming out of the top right corner of my hood. Open up the hood and coolant is spraying from around the cap.

So I let the car cool for about 10 minutes, move it into the garage and check the coolant. It took almost a gallon of coolant to fill it back up. Now I have had some work done to the car a few months ago, including a new thermostat and the LMR housing.

Trying to figure out what happened. My only guess is that maybe the system never got fully burped and the coolant was low, or an air pocket got trapped somehow. Its just weird that I have driven the car about 1500 miles since the work and had no issues. I did a track day at PBIR the next day, in about 90 degree weather, even 3 or 4 runs back to back with no wait and the temp never went above 220.

Any ideas?

Mike Campbell

If you replaced the thermostat you need to re-program your fans for it. This is a common point most folks miss. Good luck!

C7&7

This is fact...but the coolant being low makes me think it just didn't get refilled / burped when the Tstat was installed.

I say fill it back up and make sure the tune has been adjusted for fan control and it will be fine.

Mike Campbell

Motohead279

I'll check with the tuner.

Theta

This is an excellent point - it's tedious, but extremely important to do this process properly.

If you want an awesome solution for doing this, I use this:

It's seriously the best thing on the market for doing coolant fills/air purges and it's cheap. I use it for methanol fills, too - the plunger allows you to transport liquid safely without dripping everywhere.

RussM05

Most likely coolant wasn't full. You added missing coolant so that's good. Check all hoses and clamps for leaks. Especially around the 'stat. I recall pulling the small hose going to the 'stat housing helps bleed out the air. When coolant comes out, put the hose back on. Drive and check again.

Drive it and let it sit idling. If it full of coolant and still overheat, put the stock 'stat back in to see if the new stat is defective.

I'm in central Texas and the most I've seen is 225 in the summer when it's over 100.

Motohead279

Fans were adjusted, probably just trapped air/low coolant. Car has been running fine and level has remained. For the next few drives I'll check it after every drive.

Although a really weird thing happened after that trip that day. On the way home I noticed that the fan would stay on for a little bit after turning the car off. Thinking maybe because of the temp outside I didn't worry? Stopped a couple of times, for gas, to eat etc. when I came out the fan was off. Same thing when I got home. The weird thing was that night i washed the car. After I washed it I started it and pulled it into the garage. The car was only on for about 30 seconds, turned the car off. The fan continued to run. I went inside, came back out 10 minutes later and the fan was still on. I started the car and turned it immediately off and the fan went off.

Weird.