What else is left to do? Need help badly.

[UTKarmann_Ghia]

I just spent the entire weekend doing temp improvements to practically no avail:
1) My car started running hot so I ordered a cooler to replace my trombone.
2) Threw in a oil filter cool collar as well...just for insurance.
3) 1 & 2 didnt seem to make a difference...it's still damn hot (between 220 and 240 on a 60 degree day).
4) Tightened my fan pully (who knows, when I changed it a few weeks ago maybe 1 cm of play is too much?) Now it's tight with couple mm's of play.
5) Got adventurus and acutally opened the external thermostat and pulled the valve. I guess it was just dumb luck cuz in about 20 minutes I had it out.
6) Did a "stove" test in hot water and watched the little plunger open at about 180-185 degrees.
7) Rubbed my head some more as it's still running hot.
8) Test drove it when there was little rain on the ground...stayed at like 180!!! I mumble something about friggin water cooling.
9) Took some steel wool and cleaned the entire oil lines as they had undercoating all over them.
10) Test drove 1 more time on a 50-60 degree night...sigh...220 degrees.

The internal oil cooler feels hot at about 180 degres. The lines to the new oil cooler (and the oil cooler) get hot at about 200 degrees (hard to tell exactly). The oil lines are also insanely hot. The ext tstat seems to pass the static test and appears to be working in the car also.

I'm going to degrease the internal oil cooler next weekend (just for grins), but at that point I dont see a dang thing else that I can do. I just spent over $450 that I didnt have, and my cooling is barely adequate on a cool day. Is there a really smart guy who can tell me either what else to do or what I'm doing wrong? What have I missed?

[82SC]

i have not had this problem, but things that come to mind...

lean running engine

or you have a bad sensor/sender unit

MJ

(if you have access to a hand held temp measuring gun you can prob measure your case and see if it is even close to what you read on your guage)

[Vipergrün]

Mixture lean? Rodant nests under fan shroud? Wouldn't be the first time. Are the oil lines on the front side of the thermostat getting hot?

Best of luck....

[HarryD]

HAve you removed the fan/alternator and looked at the road adobe caked on your cylinder heads/cylinders yet? You might want to to do this (iffen you haven't already). When I pulled mine, there were NO visible fins on the tops of the heads or cylinders.

[Jim Sims]

For a cooler 911 engine:

It's a little late in your case but the below should be checked/done in the situation of an excessively hot engine before installing additional oil coolers.

Is the grille on the hatch in a condition that allows outside air to flow freely into the engine compartment? Is there an A/C condenser on the inside of the hatch that is so dirty or damaged (smashed and folded over fins) that it is not allowing air to pass?

Check engine timing, mixture and check for induction system vacuum leaks. Vacuum leaks can make the car run lean as the leaks are air that is not metered by the fuel injection system.

Check that all the air seals and sheet metal that separate the top of the engine from the bottom are in place; there should be sheet metal around the entire perimeter of the engine and this should be trapped around the entire perimeter between two fins of rubber to make a seal to the body. Check that the round rubber air seals are on the spark plug wires and sealing the holes that lead to the spark plugs. Ensure that the air ducting to the heater boxes is either in place or if not in use the nozzles leading out of the top of the engine are sealed up so that the fan driven cooling air isn't lost.

Then as others have mentioned remove the fan, alternator and fan shroud and check the top of the engine for debris that is impeding air flow over the cylinder and head fins. Clean as indicated.

Remove the engine mounted oil cooler and clean as required paying special attention the the air side; use new seals when reinstalling.

Pressure wash outside of oil tank in right rear fender wheel; the oil tank can loose a fair amount of heat to the air provided that it's not coated with insulating mud, oil, etc.

Ensure the oil cooling lines going forward are not crushed or clogged; is the new cooler up front getting hot from oil flowing through it?

Good luck. Jim

[john70t]

The mixture can be affected by vacuum leaks too- distributor boot, manifold, injector seals. Carb cleaner or propane at the lean should drop the idle it that's it.

[scottb]

Have you inspected your oil lines carefully? Maybe one is damaged. Could it be time for some Elephant Racing oil lines?

[UTKarmann_Ghia]

Wow, thanks for the replys guys, lots of info to digest.
1) The oil lines are 95% perfect (ie not crushed).
2) The ext oil cooler does get hot as do the lines to it.
3) Have not yet checked the mixture, but have checked the timing and it's dead on.
4) Dont think it's engine sheet metal as it just started happening a couple weeks ago.
5) Have not yet had access to a thermometer, but will verify temps this week (OMG I'll be pissed if it's the sending unit).

[UTKarmann_Ghia]

Just drove to work in 50 degree weather and the temp got to half way (225 degrees I believe). The oil lines and oil cooler were hot...but not that hot.

Just because the ext tstat opens in hot water and appears to pass the static test, does that mean there's nothing wrong with it?

[Groesbeck Hurricane]

Matt,

Check the top of the motor. I had very little "debris" in the top of my fins (under the shroud) but removing the small amount of debris lowered my overall operating temperature.

[Hetmann]

My warm up regulator failed recently. When it quit the car ran like it had a potatoe in the exhaust and get very hot. You might want to check the WUR and AAV.

[kstylianos]

Another to add to the list.......have you checked the internal engine thermostat?

The engine mounted cooler may get hot just from being mounted to the engine itself, and not from oil flowing through. Could be deceiving

[Superman]

There are some really good suggestions here, all of which should be checked out. But, based on what I've read here, I'm curious about the condition of the engine-mounted oil cooler fins, and the cylinder fins. My guess is that they are gunked up.

[UTKarmann_Ghia]

Could be Superman. I'll check that this weekend, but the temps seemed to change fairly suddenly. If my tubes are getting pretty dang hot, is that a verification that the tstat is really working?

Charlie, there's a BIG difference between when the internal tstat is routing hot oil to the internal cooler and not. I watched my engine heat up to 180 degrees and it was actually very cool. Then the tstat kicked in and it got hot quickly. All of this when the engine is first running, not after you've run it for awhile.

Jerry, my car actually runs very well (cold or hot), would it not run well if the WUR failed?

[Rick Lee]

I vote for the bad temp. gauge. I did the numerical upgrade in my Carrera and the sensor died in about 6 mos., making me think my car was running super rich and could never get to oper. temp. Charlie gave me a new sensor and the gauge immediately came back to life.

[UTKarmann_Ghia]

Guage or sending unit? I'm going to goto a shop and get a temp reading to verify that something in the temp circuit is wrong. Funny, but the engine doesnt seem hot really when I open the lid. Should it feel hot if it's running like 235+???

[masraum]

235 will be pretty hot in the engine if it is not running, but if the car is running then the hot air will be coming out from under the car.

[jdowty3]

I'm guessing you have a numerical guage since your stating temperature instead of noting the white marks on the non-numerical guages. Your concern should be if your hitting 240 + when at idle. The oil temp needs to get to atleast 215 on a normal drive so that any condensation will burn off and prevent acid formation as the oil breaks down. I had similar high temp problems on hot days in Dallas. What worked for me was to add a Spal fan to the top section of the fender mounted oil cooler and get a 99 degree celcius themoswitch from Pelican. Before I installed the thermoswtich, I just wired the fan to run when the engine was running. No problems oil temp problem since.

[UTKarmann_Ghia]

I dont have the numerical guage, I have the little white lines. The first line is supposed to indicate 200 degrees, the second 250 degrees, then third 300 degrees. I'm going by that. So when I say like 230 degrees, I'm almost dead in the middle of the temp range. That's pretty high considering I'm running in 50-60 degree weather when it's happening. I'm afraid of what's going to happen when it gets hot here...

Funny tho when a little rain came down and the cooler got wet, the temps automagically dropped to 180.

[Jim Sims]

"I watched my engine heat up to 180 degrees and it was actually very cool. Then the tstat kicked in and it got hot quickly." Is the thermostat installed incorrectly!? Jim