Hmm, overheating. How should I go about getting air through the radiator?
 

Alright, I've put in a Koyo half-size radiator with a pretty gnarly fan on my freshly boosted miata. Anyways, driving around today (it was hotter than fugg outside, 95-100F), there was a little bit of tension when the temperature gauge went from a little left of half way to almost 2/3 - 3/4 of the way to hot.

I'm using 50/50 radiator fluid and there's no shrouding for the radiator, no undertray, etc., and the intercooler takes up the entire mouth of the RB typeII front bumper.

I'm definitely going to make a shroud out of hard plastic or aluminum, but here are some questions regarding getting air to the radiator:

- Should I make a scooper ala Begi?

- Should the shroud encompass the intercooler as well, meaning the intercooler and radiator are basically in the same shroud?

Thanks for the help!

make sure it's burped first.

but try a panel where the rest of the radiator would have been, so airflow goes through the radiator.

Hmm, that would be quite easy, wouldn't it =P Alright, I'll do a plate where the rest of the radiator would have been, then a bottom plate.

As far as burping the radiator, I did that already, but it wouldn't hurt to do it again. The upper hose is fairly close to the same height as the filler on the radiator, so maybe there's a bubble in there.

just run it for a while with the cap off, after the car warms and the thermostat opens the level shouldn't drop, then squeeze the hoses and crap.

i had a similar problem after i installed my koyo 53mm. do like scott said and burp the system. its more then likely that you don't have enough coolant in the system right now.

in my case, i overheated because the water level wasn't high enough to open up the thermostat.....

Alright, here's a new question. Should I stick with my koyo half-size aluminum radiator (with shrouding) or go back to my stock all-metal radiator from an automatic (~2x's as thick as the oem one I replaced)?

Here's a problem that I'm encountering. I have the radiator mounted on the driverside of the engine bay. The upper hose does a really nasty s-turn to get to the radiator and since it's a "custom" hose, it has the coils in it to prevent kinking, which means I can't squeeze the hose to get the bubbles out.

Also, overheating occurs on the freeway, which leads me to believe that it's a lack of airflow through the radiator, so shrouding the stock or the koyo radiator will happen regardless.

One Burping method which worked for me was to jack the front of the car up to make sure the cap was the highest point in the system. Then go and squeeze some hoses.