I've got a problem: I live in FL (heat), I have a turbo (heat) I drive fast (heat), and it's usually for several hours at a time on the highway. I've noticed the past severals times I've driven from Orlando to Tampa (about a 2 hour interstate drive) that if I stop for a moment at a rest area (letting the timer run, of course) when I get back on the highway I can smell a very distinct smell, that smells like boiling coolant. On a few occasions, the water level/temp light has come on, but goes out the instant I let off the gas. Now, this is a pretty routine drive for me, so I'm not boosting the entire way, but I also can't say I don't find the need to unleash the fury on some of the world renown I4 drivers every now and again.

The coolant temp gauge never comes off it's mark (I know, that's a terribly inaccurate idiot light), I haven't lost any coolant, and even right after the trip I cannot smell the same odor under the hood AT ALL. Scott from mazsport and I even looked throughly through the engine bay for leaks, and found nothing. So I'm guess what I'm smelling is the coolant being released under pressure into the resivour after the engine gets very hot when I stop briefly. The weird thing is that I can take a 30 minute drive to or from work and boost literally the entire way and not have a problem, but an hour on the highway with the motor seeing very little boost and there's odd smells in the cabin.

That being said, I'm still concerned about this happening when it didn't before the turbo. Obviously at some point a radiator upgrade is in order (koyo seems the only logical choice, any input?), but not in the immediate future (install time/money factor). What other easy and effective options are there to increase my cooling system effeciency? I'm thinking along the lines of watter wetter, thermostat modifications, hose upgrades etc, but I've heard a mixed bag of results with regard to their effectivenes. Has anyone had any experiences with small things of that nature?

 

i got pwr radiator when i got the turbo installed. all i can say is i never smelled anything 'funny' other than the usual oil burning even after an hour long spirited drive in willow springs track (>100*F in hot summer day) with a/c on. i never got that warning light on.

anyway i think it helped relatively speaking. i'm getting a digital temp gauge in a few days (receiving it on friday, getting it installed early next week), and i'll report with the number soon. i can say, however, that heat has never been an issue for me so far.

how hot does it get in FL anyway?

 

You could try the Evans coolant. I am also interested in the electric water pump(none available yet) that in a case like yours when you park and the engine is hot it could be programed to continue to circulate your coolant for a while. But that is only a concept at present.
Are your fans coming on? You could do a fan mod or maybe even get a higher pressure radiator cap.
I suspect also your intercooler is blocking some airflow to the rad.
Let us know --I am really interested in heat problems with this car.
Oh yea ---GET A SET OF GAUGES DUDE! (when you can)
olddragger

 

I see some pretty high water temps here and its only around 75-80deg now. I just bought a koyo radiator and I am working on rewiring the fans, they should help alot. I notice when I turn on my AC my water temp actually drops, and quickly too, because the fans kick on. I also used water wetter, didn't seem to help much, but hey every bit helps.

https://www.rx8club.com/series-i-tech-garage-22/radiator-fan-control-87854/

 

little off topic, but speaking of A/C, after i got the turbo installed, i did notice i'm not getting the ice-cold A/C i used to get..

does radiator not getting enough cold air due to intercooler have anything to do with this?

 

The days this has happened, it's been in the high 80's ambient..but the air is probably much hotter coming off the pavement. Plus we have that wonderful thing called humidity (which was probably 90% if not higher).

I definitely want to get a larger radiator at some point, as well as gauges..but in the interim, I'm just going to connect a laptop to my interceptor so I can monitor the temps under extreme conditions.

I'd assume my fans are on, since they often run for a bit after the car is shut down, but I'm not sure while cruising. I'm fairly sure I get the odor with the AC on as well, but I can't recall since the last time this happend I know it was off. If I notice it again for some reason, I'll switch the AC on and see what happens.

I'll look into the Evans coolant, as well as a distilled/water wetter mixture (like it's ever going to freeze here lol). The fan mod sounds promising too. Scott mentioned something about you doing that the other day, has he had any input on it?

..and oddly enough, my AC is now cold enough to make carmen electra ugly. it was never that cold before!

Thanks for the quick input though guys...your answers were exactly what I was looking for.

 

I realize this would be costly, but has anyone with FMIC's thought about getting a V-mount intercooler/radiator set-up?

 

that's obviously very popular with the rx7 guys, but they have more room to work with in the engine bay. I think it may be prohibitively expensive on our cars, especially since there are cheaper options that will adequately improve cooling given the max power you can get out of a turbo 8 at this point in time. it would be next to impossible with any kit that located the turbo in front of the motor.

once we start bolting on monster turbos, then there will be no choice but to provide both the intercooler and the radiator with ambient temperature air.

 

Staying on the subject of the FMIC, or perhaps splitting the intercooler into two separate ones. This would allow for flow to both ic and radiator. I haven't really looked to see if there would be room for this, and the oil coolers in this case may pose a problem.

 

Not only u , I get that smell too.

I (think) it came from the Boiling hot Coolant that spread into the engine bay, and since it was hot it turned into air and went into your A/C system. Im still N/A but I love to drive at 8K rpm so yes my engine gets really hot.

Theres no good way around it (for me) other than a better Radiator I guess

 

well if that's all it is, then a high pressure radiator cap will stop it, or at least raise the threshold..still doesn't explain why it is impossible to smell under the hood, although that was about an hour later, and this smell only lasts for a few minutes

but it's a bandaid solution, only masking the true problem..that even at light load under cruise the car's gettin too hot. I was readin up on the Evans coolant idea, and I think I may go that route. It's not cheap ($96 for coolant!), but it seems like it would give the biggest increase in cooling effeciency for the buck, short of a larger radiator.

 

I had the same thing going on. I put Fuel injector clamps on the hoses and put pipe insulator from home depot on the AC line. now I have no smell and the AC is Ice cold, Because of the way I did my heat shielding my under hood temps dint really go up that much, I let the car idle for about 40 min the AC on and the passenger side of the floor was hot as hell but the engine bay was copasetic, I added an extra oil cooler with a fan on it so I imagine that helps. I cool the oil from the line in between the Turbo and oil pan.

 

Somebody needs to try the v-mount on the coolers like Knights Sport did. Looks like I don't need to worry about around my neck of the woods

 

I have the PWR Radiator, silicon radiator hoses, and DEI's version of water wetter. Temperatures have been great. Very consistent, never overheated, hell never even moves even in 100+ degree San Fernando Valley summer weather.

I have a C02 cooler for my intercooler. But there was a system that I was looking at that would spray water on the IC & they have attachment that would spray water (or water/alcohol) mixture on the radiator as well. Maybe down the line I will try that.

 

I noticed our radiator cap vents at .9kg (or whatever the unit is), and I thought that seems kind of low. I'm going to pick up a leet JDM y0 radiator cap and see what it does. My choices are 1.1 or 1.3...you think either of those will exceed the pressure capability of the cooling system?

 

.9 Bar

 

0.9 atmosphere/bar, or roughly 13.2 psig

edit: Nemesis beat me to it

Evans coolant will not eliminate the coolant smell. I and other SCCA competitors have this issue. One solution is to run the cap vent tube down to vent under the car. If it blows off in the present location it sprays coolant and gases into the engine bay where the fan disperses the smell. The area surrounding and underneath the surge tank is full of nooks and crannys with hold small puddles of coolant that slowly burn off and release that smell in the process. Running the vent tube down to dump down under the car would resolve at least some of this issue.

 

I'll try that tomorrow and order a radiator cap as well

 

I thought maybe the OE cap was bad and bought a new one, no change

I really don't understand what is happening, based on everything I've seen the coolant temperature is not getting high enough to cause a cap of that setting to blow off

 

wonder if the hot coolant is heating something up in the interior heater core? Possibibly causing that odor ? The air intake for the interior system is up around the cowl so it seems for it to be strong enough of an odor for it to pick up out of the engine compartment then it would be visable?
Curious.
olddragger

 

i'm not all too familiar with the hot side of HVAC systems, but I guess by what youre saying is that there's no valve to stop coolant from circulating through the interior lines when the heat is disabled?

That may very well be the case as well, since ive got a hunch that tells me the smell is coming from the interior of the car. I also turned the heat to high on the last incident of this and blasted it out the open windows (this is also good to do when staging at the track/autox especially if your cars been idling or is fresh off of a run). I noticed the smell quickly dissapear.

 

my smell comes from the engine bay, not the interior, you should be able to determine one or the other very easily

 

Maybe you are boiling off antifreeze? The cheapest thing to try is better coolant or get a ventilated hood

 

All signs point to the interior on my car...

My 8's not my daily driver, and nor do I take trips of that length very often. But next time I do, if I notice the smell, I'm going to pull over immediately and find the source.

 

I agree with yiksing... better coolant maybe a good solution.
Also, im looking for a ventilated hood... theres two ways to keep the engine cooler, and thats internally through the coolant and radiator or externally by getting the heat out.

Only problem is, the only ventilated hood i can find with water drainage is the Varis hood... and it ain't cheap.