Timing and overheating question - Hands up who had a piss poor day today ;)

Howdy chaps and chapettes,

Those of you who may remember my over heating woes from a year or two back, well..... their back!, or more correctly I don't think I ever truly licked it to be honest. Just had it running borderline enough to be driveable. Bear in mind i'm lucky to do 2000 klms a year or even less. I did find a very small leak in one of the under plenum hoses recently when doing the bypass so this was probly contributing to the original problems.

Last week I finished a 6 month long upgrade/maintenence/blingfest session and was taking the car for it's first major run today up the coast to meet up with everyone for the cruise down to Gerroa. Long story short I didn't make it. Ended up at a servo near Austinmer with coolant pissing out everywhere all over my freshly polished and powdercoated engine bay.





I'll save the hugely long diatribe of everything i've done to the car past a present to try to sort out this overheating issue. Right now i'm just looking at the timing.

I've put my timing light on it and I can't seem to get a decent reading. I've tried clipping the induction thingy onto both sides of the ptu wires, but the strobe just fires away much too fast and there is no clear timing marks illuminated. I think it's picking up the signal of all 6 plugs firing.

How do I get it to only pickup plug one?

And how bad would the timing have to be to cause drastic overheating?

Just for a quick reference i've got/done the following:

New UAS twin pass 55mm Rad
3000cfm Spal thermo fan, at the moment running constantly
Near new pump
New Thermostat
New water hoses everywhere
Plenum pulled and bypassed.
New Ross Harmonic balancer, only slightly underdriven
FMIC
Deleted EGR
Microtech LT12
Vented bonnet
Air guide
Both bottom panels

I'm sure there is alot i've forgotten to mention, and I know the first thing someone will say is "refit the stock clutch fan" lol.
But there are too many people using the spals, and some with even lesser fans succesfully for this to be the cause of my issues I believe. With the big radiator and everything else i've done the cooling system should be well and truly in tip top shape. Hence why i'm looking at what can cause the engine to generate so much heat and not the ability of the system to dissapate it. Hell, I think the under bonnet temps got hot enough to boil my power steering fluid or at least make it overflow and leak everywhere.

So, after all that, do I need a special kind of timing light or am I just doing it all wrong?

Thanks
Ben

 

Put timing light pickup on wire to No.1 coil pack (right next to oil cap).

Where is the coolant leaking from?

 

i have found that my cheap timing light reads double if i use the pickup on the ptu

 

Even though you have put in new thermostat, it is possible it is not opening properly. Water pump could be stuffed. With cold engine try disconnecting a heater hose, connect a long hose into a catch bucket, start engine and check coolant flow. Park with nose a bit uphill so you can easily keep adding fluid.

Check engine oil level and pressure (if low can increase water temps)

Check radiator cap for release pressure (better to use 0.9bar)

 

It was just gushing out from under the rad cap. no actual hose leaks or anything.

I tried putting on no 1 coil lead but nothing happens.

 

Yeah I read that the other day so I prepared for it but there is still no real readable marks being displayed.

 

Time to look at the radiator cap, overflow line and bottle in a bit more detail.

Disconnect overflow hose and blow some air into it to check it is not blocked (should hear it bubbling in overflow bottle.

Locking tabs on cap may be too loose allowing coolant to bleed past outer seal of cap.

Also check you have a two stage cap designed for overflow (maybe somewhere along the line the wrong cap got put on)

 

are you

attaching the timing light clamp directly to the cp wires Ben, no shielding at all between the clamp and the wires is the way to go.

 

Thanks mate, but I figured it out, well with a little simple observation from a friend
I didn't know the inducer clip thingy or whatever it's called is directional.
I was showing a friend how it didn't work and he says, is that arrow on there for a reason? lol

Anyway, turns out the timing was set at about 12 degrees, i've reset it to 15 but still doing the same thing. Temp shot up to 100 in about 3 or 4 klms.

 

I'd be trying another rad cap. If it's not sealing, coolant will start to boil.

 

hmm, the one on there now is an ARC 1.2 bar one, but in the past i've also tried a stock one. Pretty sure the line is clear but I will check.

When it overheated earlier this is what happened:

Watched temp rise to around 100 while on the freeway and seemed to stabilise. Then apparently the fuse for the thermo fan blew at some point as it was not rated high enough. (discovered this after the fact.
Temp continued to rise to about 106 so I pulled over at a servo and let the car idle for a min or two with the heater on but temp did not fall. (This was when I discovered the fan was not running)
Shut the car down and then shortly after water started coming out from under the rad cap, and steam was coming from the overflow filler. The water in the overflow bottle was boiling so the system must have purged to their first before the pressure was too great to take it anymore.

The cap does seem to fit well but i'm not 100% sure what type it is so i'll try the other one anyway.

Thanks
Ben

 

Yeah

that bloody arrow got me to first up, forgot about that.
This over heating problem sounds cap related mate, what bar or psi is it, and how old is it? I'd go and get a .9bar cap and see what happens! If your really luckly it may even cure it.

 

Now that i've ruled out the timing, i'll see how the flow is from the heater hoses, then beyond that i'm out of ideas, and frankly almost out of motivation to persevere. I've put too much effort in to get rid of the car, but I'm at the point where I'll be happy to pay someone to just fix it.

The car has not been 100% cooling wise in the 3 odd years i've had it. My own fault I know I could have just paid someone to look at it ages ago, but i've done everything on the car myself to date and wanted to keep it that way. ohh well.

Anyone recommend a reputable mechanic in the Wollongong area?
Or i'll even go to syd if I have to.

PS, i'll buy a new cap just for the hell of it, but i'm not convinced its the problem. But hey, i've been wrong many times before

Ben

 

Go get a genuine cap , aftermarket ones are always trouble.
Heaps of members here have found that problem out, some probably the hard way.

Cheers
Patrick

 

i dont know if anyone here has had a problem with him but the guy at bezerkly in wollonong knows his imports.

from seeing your car and the GTR32 v8 he is building atm i would go have a chat to him, i think he is the only local guy around doing those types of cars.
maybe try olis at shellharbour aswell.

 

I don't think it is the cap at all.
ur getting 100 deg on the highway? wow thats hot Should be in the 80's
Is ur aircon running ?(it adds 10 deg)check to see if the fan for that is working.
sounds like a coolant flow prob to me, either ur thermostat or waterpump is fubared.

Trev

 

wtf....what happened there

 

I thought that Caz told me a few weeks ago that Bezerkly has shut up shop?

I'll give them a try, She has always spoken highly of them so hopefully they are still operating.

Ben

 

Blown head gasket

 

Yeah I originally thought about that when I was having problems before, but every test and opinion I got indicated the head gaskets were fine.
Hydrocarbon test was ok, and never any milky stuff in the system, and I don't lose coolant.

Could it still be a head gasket without any of the common symptoms?