Cayman S Radiator Service

[edherrin]

My 2007 Cayman S has ~68,000 miles and I am about to install a new water pump, and 160 degree thermostat.
My question is should I remove the radiators and have them power flushed at the same time?
The car will maintain normal operating temperatures when moving, but a little too much time at a stop light on a hot day and the temperature goes up significantly.
If anyone has insight or experience with this please weigh in.

[tonythetarga]

Using a 160 degree thermostat will not let your engine get to optimal running temp of 200. Most likely the water pump will fix the issue. Use factory fluid for replacement of old coolant mixed with distiller water. With a center rad you should have enough cooling capacity provided the pump is working well. Check also the cooling fans on the front corner rads by turning on the a/c with the car running and listen to make sure each fan is running.

[tonythetarga]

Another thing...if you've never taken off the bumper cover and cleaned between the rad and ac condenser you need to do that. There will be everything from sand to leaves and cigarette butts clogging up air flow. Back wash the condenser and rads.

[JFP in PA]

Originally Posted by edherrin

My 2007 Cayman S has ~68,000 miles and I am about to install a new water pump, and 160 degree thermostat.
My question is should I remove the radiators and have them power flushed at the same time?
The car will maintain normal operating temperatures when moving, but a little too much time at a stop light on a hot day and the temperature goes up significantly.
If anyone has insight or experience with this please weigh in.

We do this for customers all the time; the 160F thermostat is an excellent addition to help keep the engine's hot spot development under control, and will bring the car to a steady state operating temp of around 175F or so. It also goes a long way to improving the oil's life expectancy due to the oil to water cooler. When stuck in traffic, your coolant temps will still rise until the fans kick in, but will cool back down to the same steady state temperature once you get moving again.

Unless the cooling system has been gummed up, you really don't need to flush the radiators, they stay pretty clean as long as the coolant is in good shape.

[tonythetarga]

Can you confirm that you do have a center radiator? If you don't then a lower temp thermostat doesn't give you extra capacity for cooling...it just opens the flow sooner. Did the same thing with my Boxster. Not a significant change until I added the Boxster S center radiator and added cooling capacity. I went back to the stock temp thermostat too. I can run the car hard on a hot day at the track with no overheating issues. Rock steady in the center of the gauge. Repeatedly overheating these engines to the point of boil over will give you engine trouble before long.

[edherrin]

Thanks for the input.
I don't have a center radiator, but you have given me something to think about.
I live in Central Texas and it gets very hot in the summer.
The corner radiator fans are working (checked them with Durametric).
This time of year the temperatures are fairly mild, but if I see the temp go up while in traffic I turn on the heater full blast to get get things back to normal.

[edherrin]

Just a follow up on this.
I replaced my water pump a few weeks ago, and installed a 160 degree thermostat.
Since then the temperature gauge is rock steady in the middle of the range. Even on some pretty hot days my auxiliary fans haven't kicked in since the work was done. We haven't had any 100 degree days yet but I am confident that the overheating problem has been solved.
Just an FYI. I bought one of those Air Lifter vacuum cooling system refill kits and it did not work on my Cayman S. None of the adapters would get a tight enough seal.
Thanks for the great advice.

[JFP in PA]

Originally Posted by edherrin

Just a follow up on this.
I replaced my water pump a few weeks ago, and installed a 160 degree thermostat.
Since then the temperature gauge is rock steady in the middle of the range. Even on some pretty hot days my auxiliary fans haven't kicked in since the work was done. We haven't had any 100 degree days yet but I am confident that the overheating problem has been solved.
Just an FYI. I bought one of those Air Lifter vacuum cooling system refill kits and it did not work on my Cayman S. None of the adapters would get a tight enough seal.
Thanks for the great advice.

Weird, we have to matching Uview units and both work just fine on Caymans. Which model Uview did you get?