So, I finally had a chance to drive the car and get some first initial thoughts before I tore into a nightmare. First, Mazda knew what they were doing when designing these cars. For being a 23 year old car, it handles like nothing I’ve driven before. The coilovers are a bit on the rough side, but they have dampening adjustments on them, I just have not gotten that far into the car. I drove the car for alittle over 100 miles this weekend. The car is stupid fast. 300ish wheel horse power is more then enough in a 2600-2800 pound car, but then add in some boost and it is even more insane. The little 225/50/15 tires don’t stick well when boost kicks in.
The car had some overheating issues, I found there was no thermostat in the motor, so I did a flush. That didn’t help, the car was running at 210f on the highway and 230f in the city. I bought a aluminum three row radiator, and hopefully this will fix the overheating issues. Also found another leak from the water pump gaskets, so I ordered two of those. When I was removing the pump, I found two of the six bolts weren’t even hand tight!
Since I got this far into the car, I figured I would poke my nose around and see what else was half assed. Found the old owner used plastic hose barb for the oil drain off the turbo, and the mess of wiring that he did under the dash. I pulled the dash and plan on cleaning up the wiring. Here are some pictures from my weekend adventure.
pressure check the coolant system. its very possible the head had lifted at one time and that is reason why youre running hot. No stat isnt a big deal if some type of restrictor is in place. I see there is a maf on there, so how much boost is it running? the stock maf maxes out pretty early, find yourself a cobalt map sensor and a new OS for the 2 bar SD, youll have more control over the tune this way.
something to think about for you justin. The stock car over heats and the manifolds glow pretty badly, one of the old head racers mentioned not enough timing will cause this issue.
Sorry to hijack Sean, but pressure check the system see if you have any bleed down.
I did get the LT1 radiator checked, and found out it was bad. I ordered a new 29x19x3 aluminum radiator, and will be reworking the coolant hoses so they are not as close to the exhaust piping for the turbo. Also pulled the B&M ripper shifter, and will be doing cutting it down. The shifter being 8 inches sucks when driving.
I did put a order into siliconintakes and got the hose clamps and couplers I needed so not to have a jerry rigged piping to come off during boost. I still need to fix the reverse lights not working, but other then that a little TLC and she will be good for the summer.
I was gonna mention also that too much timing could also have an effect on overheating. I’d check the tune on this car to see where its at. I cant wait to check mine and try less timing as I think I have too much at idle and low rpms, low map. Could also cause an overheating issue.
i would fix the hoses before doing anything. for those who actually haven’t seen the car, the hoses are kinked really bad. i wouldn’t be surprised if there was very little flow because of the kinks
I can’t see from your pics, do you have an expansion tank? I know I have a tank above the engine and even after its full it will go down eventually and can get almost another gallon in. If there’s even 1/4" gallon of air in the system it overheats real easy.
