91 VR4 overheating issue... kooky ...

y'all are gonna love this ... so after 3 weeks of poking wires with a meter and ordering parts i don't need, come to find out that the POS Motorad thermostat is defective, so i run to a different auto parts store and buy another one, get home, turns out to be the same brand, i test it to see if it opens at 170 degrees, no dice again ... what a piece of crap product. don't even bother with this brand "Motorad" ...

So maybe the problem was a stuck thermostat all along, now I'll have to mark the price up even more when i resell it, new owner gets a new radiator too.. :) ... will keep you folks posted ...

btw ... is there a thermostat you folks'd recommend for this vehicle? 1991 VR4 ... trying to avoid the stealership ... thanks

OEM. They are cheap enough from cherry hill to not bother with chinese crap.

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Originally Posted by anyonebutme

OEM. They are cheap enough from cherry hill to not bother with chinese crap.

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Because Japanese crap is SO much better....

Bob. :)

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Originally Posted by OhioSpyderman

Because Japanese crap is SO much better....

Bob. :)

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Yes, it actually is. Buy a piece of grade steel from each country, and test the strength. Same grade, I bet you get different results. I still believe the US is the leader in steel consistency. I won't even touch quality control aspects, China is the only place I've ever seen a company attempt to get ISO certification on only 1 line just to say they are certified while the entire rest of the plant had zero quality control.

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Originally Posted by OhioSpyderman

Because Japanese crap is SO much better....

Bob. :)

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Your car and all the mid range sport cars from the 90's simular to the 3s are Japanese dude :p Out cars are just as good quality as any other american car in the same price range from the 90's in terms of quality. That should tell you something. Also look at the NSX for example. Work of art imo. Japanese has better industry and engineers than China everyone knows that. And as anyonebutme says they use better material, don't "cheat" and cheap out as much as the Chinese.

FYI

I FINALLY found a cooler thermostat! - 3000GT/Stealth International Message Center

this is your daily kooky overheating issue update ...

installed a new radiator and forward flushed the radiator core ... a lot of crap came out of there... some gooey stuff.. some sealer (previous owner used some on the thermostat housing) and some rust flakes...

took the resistor off my junkyard fan and put it on the passenger side fan (thanks to box's help)... lost track of whether the black temp switch that screws into the radiator goes on the left or right...

refilled with 50/50 mix of coolant and started her up ... here's what happened ...

1. the heater works regularly now, so that's great ...
2. the right side fan now works, but the left side doesn't (opposite of original problem) ... LOL.. wth?
3. it takes a lot longer for the vehicle temp gauge to approach the red, it overheats REALLY FAST if you take it for a drive.. i mean within a minute... if you let the engine idle with the ac on (both cooling fans working) the temp gauge goes way back down to the midway point...

so the left side fan doesn't kick on unless i turn the AC on, the right side fan now kicks on (it was the opposite, before the resistor change and possible sensors that screw into the radiator switching sides; left came on, right didn't)... with the AC on and both fans going, the vehicle doesn't overheat at idle... but with AC on and both fans going, if you drive it, the temp gauge almost instantly goes into the red zone... what about this tube attached to the water pump with two o-rings... can the timing belt have skipped a tooth?... maybe the wrong tension isn't turning the water pump at high rpm? ... do the turbos have cooling lines feeding off the engine cooling system?

any thoughts? thanks

skipped tooth doubt it would run like crap.

do you have a working thermostat now?

idk what else it could be. seems most things are excluded now except waterpump. it could be bad.. maybe.

checked for oil contaminent in water? worst case could be headgasket

and yes turbos has water feed lines. aswell as oil lines.

As per the link I posted above he tested a stock unit and it did not crack open until 179deg. It's very strange that it idles fine but overheats once moving. I'm starting to suspect a head gasket. To eliminate the thermostat remove it and go for a drive. The point of the thermostat is so the engine reaches operating temp sooner. Once it has opened it acts like it's not even there and stays open.

ange, i checked the original thermostat, it opened just fine, so i reused it... is unhooking the catalytic converter easy?