qes78

i gotta take a closer look at my under belly, there are lotsa turbo pipings that are protruding below.....
but i see what u mean.
any chance you have the pieces of the ducting before they were installed? so i can try and figure out it's construction.

hustler

iTrader: (6)

I paid a child with Down's Syndrome to cut and rivet the plastic on my car; you can do this. I have faith in you.

r808

iTrader: (7)

FWIW, I had a completely stock 93' 1.6l that would start creeping towards overheating at highway speeds over--uh--130 kph. The problem was completely solved by replacing the thermostat with a new one. This is what I would try first--it's a 20 minute check to see if your cooling system is being exceeded because of your setup or if it is already compromised.

cueball1

iTrader: (13)

Some of the ducting can be done easily with some flexible plastic sheeting and zip ties. Just cut slots and holes to wrap closely around intercooler piping. You want to seal from the mouth of the car to the radiator so air can't bypass it.

Shrouding the fans is another easy diy project. Just make sure you have space between the shroud and the back of the radiator and seal between the shroud and the edges of the radiator.

There are good threads here on both treatments/remedies. May also want to duct the hood to encourage more air flow.

qes78

roger! thanks so much for your help!

qes78

what kinda plastic shroud wld be suitable?

rider384

iTrader: (3)

Since we're on the topic of long-distance driving, I just drove down to visit my sister at college and it was a little rocky (~300 miles). Mainly due to the fact that the manifold-turbo studs came loose a couple times. I had to stop twice to tighten them up. It is very annoying. I'm going to a hardware store with her today and buying bolts to double up, I'm hoping this will help out, anyone done this? I've seen BEGI installed kits do this, so there must be something to it.

NOTE: On this drive I was cruising at 85ish, so like 4,500rpms. Higher than I usually am. Coolant temps steady at 197 pretty much the whole way, MAT anywhere from 69-76, depending on the ambient temp. Couple times in boost, probably 3 pulls, otherwise pulling ~15-12lbs vac most of the time.

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

18psi more clearly stated a point that I was trying to imply.

The turbo is always spinning. It spins at idle, it spins at cruise, it spins at WOT. Depending on the size of the turbo, the design of the exhaust system, and quite a lot of other variables, it's even possible that it may be spinning fast enough at high-speed cruise to make some amount of "boost" between the compressor and the partially closed throttle plate.

But none of this should be causing overheating. I have driven my turbo car (which, incidentally, is missing most of the front shrouding) from San Diego, California to Phoenix, Arizona and back, twice, both times in the summer. You may not be familiar with the geography of the western US, but this is a roughly 600 km trip that goes across some mountains which are over 1.5km in height, and through a desert in which the temperatures in the summertime are commonly 40-45°C.


So, if you are overheating, something is wrong. Maybe there's a pressure leak in the cooling system, maybe your thermostat is crap, maybe there's a blockage somewhere...

A good start would be a coolant reroute, which fixes a major shortcoming in the design of the Miata cooling system, restoring it to the way it was when this engine was originally installed in FWD cars, specifically, removing the thermostat and moving it to the back of the head and blocking off the port on the front of the head. There are a couple of commercially-available kits to help you do this, if you don't want to assemble it yourself:

http://www.etdracing.com/m-tuned/pro...products_id=85

http://www.bellengineering.net/produ...roducts_id=300

Big, aluminum radiators are also very pretty, and some folks believe that they improve cooling performance as well.



The turbo melted the aircon comopressor? I don't even know what this means. But you could always put a heat shield between the two.



Nearly a worst-case scenario. With the top down, the aerodynamics of the car go completely to ****. The engine has to produce far more power to propel the vehicle through the air at 140km/hr with the top down than it would have to make do to the same with the top and windows up while also powering the aircon. It should still be able to do this without overheating, just pointing out that you may be unknowingly aggravating whatever problem exists.

shuiend

iTrader: (24)

I put about 3k worth of miles on my Begi setup driving from NoVA to SC several times and never had my studs come loose. Part of one of the drives was 100+ miles following a vette doing 90+mph.

cueball1

iTrader: (13)

I used a sheet of 1/4" thick ABS. Anything fairly rigid and won't be effected by boiling point temperatures would be fine.

Faeflora

iTrader: (2)

Eerrrghhh these track ****** (savington and hustler) are recommending solutions for racing, NOT for what is essentially just daily driving, albeit high speed driving. You don't need ducting for day to day driving. It might fix your problem but I think that first you should swap out your thermostat. It is much less effort and is likely the real problem.

I also think you don't need a reroute and you don't need a big aluminum radiator.

I think your problem is most likely just your thermostat.

Faeflora

iTrader: (2)

Wow squirtle, I think you're the first person that has ever happened to.

The solution is apparently incolnel studs with resbond.

miatasc

Try replacing your coolant with pure water + Redline Water Wetter, put the fans working in parallel, a lower temperature thermostat, a 1.3 bar Cap...
A bigger aluminum radiator as a Koyo or PWR will help too as well as the re-routing.

Good luck.
Ben.

fooger03

iTrader: (2)

An extraction hood is probably a luxury, but it completely eliminated my highway speed w/AC problem. Worked so well that the radiator fans no longer turn on while going down the highway. When I turn the A/C on, my temp gauge goes DOWN (and I'm not exaggerating to make a point, either), presumably because with the addition of the extraction hood, the additional air that the fans pull through when the A/C is on is far superior to the A/C Condenser in the coolant-temp tug-of-war...and that miata has the coldest A/C system of any car I've ever owned - all the way back to the pre R134 days.

wittyworks

iTrader: (6)

I don't have ac, but my cooling system is completely stock with the stock 95 radiator and ive done a 200 mile drive many times with 0 problems, going between 75-125 mph the whole way, and just did the 5 hour, 300 drive from san diego to slo with absolutely no problems, also going about 75-80 the whole way. I would definitely check things like the thermostat first, probably a simple solution. I have the original belly pan in place, no additional ducting, no reroute, etc.

hustler

iTrader: (6)

Of course he should check the thermostat first...but considering he's in one of the most humid places on Earth he'll need the radiator before anyone on this continent.

hustler

iTrader: (6)

Aren't inconel studs a "track solution"?

Faeflora

iTrader: (2)

Bah, not when regular joes like me were breaking studs on the street. And if you're being sarcastic, my point is that he probably just has a basic problem in a relatively ordinary situation.

fooger03

iTrader: (2)

Humidity shouldnt have any effect whatsoever on the cars ability to cool - our cars do not use evaporative cooling. Actually, the humid air should require more energy to increase the same temperature as dry air because you're increasing the temperature of the water content in the air as well. The cooling effect of humid air should be better, not worse, than the same air in dry form.

...

OP, you still should be running a better radiator than stock though...

hustler

iTrader: (6)

Well, that shows what I know.