Yeah I have pictures, just haven't had the time to sit down and upload and link them yet. Hoping to get that done when I get home from work today.
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Agree with RAF
Probably something in your coolant system. Maybe just an air bubbleOriginally posted by wed3kComment
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In other news we don't have to move now. Which is great and not, I mean most of our crap was all packed up and ready to go. Now we get to unpack that stuff again... On top of that since we aren't moving the GF decided it was time to rearrange parts of the house, so that pretty much ate up the whole weekend.
Alright between Friday night and Saturday I built some new block off plates. These come out from the condenser and go into the bumper, trapping all the air incoming in that area to be force to go through the condenser and radiator without taking the paths of least resistance. I didn't get to go driving and test this, although after a little testing on Sunday I don't think it will matter.
On Sunday afternoon I had a little more time to poke at the car, so I hooked up the A/C manifold gauges to monitor the A/C system while running, with the current configuration. What I learned is that the high side pressure just slowly builds higher and higher. This is due to the condenser getting hotter and hotter. I'm going to unhook the pusher fan I have in front of the radiator, and a second one next to it on the condenser. Hopefully this will help evacuate enough heat from it that the radiator can maintain temps on the engine. If I can't come up with a working solution to this, I may have to swap back to the full size radiator. I'm really hoping just adding a fan directly to the condenser will solve the problem though.
Sorry for not posting pictures, I really didn't plan on rearranging part of our house this weekend.Comment
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Ya, pics are needed here. But some items to note:
- With the car sitting idle in the driveway you should be able to run AC etc. The engine fan and AC fan will kick in once temps go up (20min usually) and after that all systems should run at a normal temp. (temp should not rise)
^^ If temps continue to rise with fans turned on (and the fan is directly over the radiator) then this is not a radiator / fan placement. To my knowledge even if you have fan + AC rad + engine rad, you should still be fine.
But I'm pretty sure you knew this. But I am curious are temps going up just while sitting in the driveway?Comment
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When A/C is on the fans are running while the compressor is. Regardless of temperatures, to maintain the temps on the R134a/R12. Mine is slowly building heat and not being able to cool any of it off. Eventually this would result in it blowing the relief valve. It begins to overheat the engine first though which, while not ideal isn't terrible in this situation.
I'm changing the setup from this:
XXXXXXXXX----Fan------
------Condenser---------
XXXXXXXXX-----Rad----
XXXXXXXXX----Fan-----
To this:
XXXXXXXXX----Fan------
------Condenser---------
---Fan---XX-----Rad----
XXXXXXXXX----Fan-----
I'm going to unplug the front pusher fan and reroute the plug back over to the drivers side. Then mount a fan directly onto the condenser and use it to pull air through it. This will hopefully allow the R134a to maintain temperatures, and allow the Civic half radiator to do it's job.Comment
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Assuming XXXXX = blocked off, your first idea should work, and even with one fan.
Assuming your car doesn't overheat with AC off and parked in the driveway, does your AC work well?
https://www.yourmechanic.com/questio...-car-overheatsComment
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A/C works fantastic. I'm not going to rule out the pump starting to fail, although I did totally go through it and don't see a reason why it should be failing other than wear on the pistons. Then again it is 25 years old. Well I've added a second fan to the condenser only, sitting beside the radiator.
I'm going to go for a drive here shortly to see how it goes this time around. If need be I can always swap compressors, I just don't want to.
Hopefully I'll get the time to go through pictures and upload and link some tonight.Comment
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Hey Will, does your AC give off a funky gassy smell when or if the pump starts getting too hot? Any idle problems also once it starts to go above normal operating temps?5 studded & leather clad - Praise The Lowered
~Mark~Comment
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Alright guys we are finally making progress! With a fan on the back of the radiator and the back of the condenser I can finally use A/C out on the highway without the engine overheating. The only problem is now that it is running a little hot while at low speeds, even without the A/C on. Either I need to buy a race fan to replace the standard fan, as they push quite a bit more CFM of air. Or hook up 3 fans, a pusher and puller for the condenser/radiator, and a 3rd for the condenser alone.
Mark A/C gives off no funny smells, and over heating doesn't affect idle.Comment
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Well I have managed to finally solve the over heating issue. I put the stock radiator back in the car. Rock solid temps all the time even with the A/C on. I guess the Civic radiator just doesn't have enough surface area to keep the fluid cool enough with the condenser generating heat in front of it, and reducing air flow to the radiator. I do have pictures, per usual though I haven't had time to upload any of them. You know spending all my free time working on the car instead. Later today I'm headed out to go on the NWPAC Summer meet over at Rockaway Beach, Oregon. Wish me luck guys, it's only like 9 hours there or something...
No matter how many fans I ran, in multiple different configurations I couldn't keeps the temps down at slow speeds (ie: town driving, stop and go traffic).Last edited by Rilas; 08-02-2018, 09:40 AM.Comment
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Doubtful, I had 2 Civic radiators doing the exact same thing. So one of my good buddies that I drove the last bit of the way to NWPAC with also has his condenser in, and had overheating problems as well this weekend. It seems to hold true that if you have a condenser the Civic radiator just doesn't have enough surface area to keep the fluid cool. I'm going to purchase a full size aluminum radiator and a shroud. I'll get some pictures up today or tomorrow. I finally have a bit of free time.
Lola and I made it to NWPAC and home mostly unscathed. So part of the way there, I swapped out the Black ECU for the stock P13, as my wideband fully died about halfway to Seattle. I didn't want it to lean out as I was descending to the coast, and I couldn't keep an eye on it. It had a few hiccups that I couldn't relate to anything but the gas possibly. Made it to Seattle otherwise fine and spent the night. The next morning we headed off to Rockaway Beach, OR. Both of the cars did flawlessly driving down there. Had a great time for the weekend and headed home yesterday morning. Everything was great on the way home until I bought gas in Spokane. At that point the car started to have hiccups all over the place, losing some power at points. I was getting really concerned as I didn't want to have the car towed home. Well finally near the top of Lookout Pass, Lola popped a CEL (thank god). I haven't checked the codes but I'm 99% sure it was the O2 sensor because as soon as the computer wrote it off, it ran so much better than before. I honestly think this O2 sensor has been faulty from the beginning. It was brand new 4 months ago. It had a really strange slight idle hunt that I couldn't figure out. Now that the O2 sensor is dead the hunting is gone. After the CEL came on she ran perfectly the rest of the way home. The round trip was 1438 miles.Last edited by Rilas; 08-06-2018, 12:11 PM.Comment
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That's a very long way to drive when you're worried like hell the entire time that something will lean out and blow! Congratulations to you on making it safely with an O2 sensor as the lone casualty.
What was the reason for using a Civic radiator in the first place? Did you have turbo "aspirations" in mind, or just trying to save some space?My Members' Ride Thread - It's a marathon build, not a sprint. But keep me honest on the update frequency!Comment
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I really wasn't worried about leaning out with the stock P13. I ran my wideband on it for a few months before getting the KS Black ECU. The P13 even with the Type S pistons was able to keep everything in check. I swapped it halfway to Seattle just to be safe, the only worry was that damn hiccup, which I wish the damn thing would have died sooner. Instead of leaving me 200+ miles from home hiccuping all over the place. Like when I was with everyone else so if it died, I had a ride. Although I did bring all my tools with me and a bunch of spare parts. Granted I didn't have an O2 sensor.Originally posted by Jarrett View Post
I don't want to turbo anything. But I really want to try a centrifugal super charger on something, most likely the F23. If I'm still not happy then Lola is getting a J engine. Although the space gained was really nice to have
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Last edited by Rilas; 08-06-2018, 12:12 PM.Comment
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Alright guys and gals, I know that I've fallen far behind in my updates of this MRT. I finally have some time to do things at home. For the most part since the trip out to the Portland coast, our family hasn't been home a single weekend. We have been spending the weekends over in Washington working on the house we are building. Things have fallen far behind at home with house keeping and just maintenance on the house, to getting ready for winter. Well most of that is all caught up now. When you are only home 4-5 nights a week after work it's hard to accomplish much of anything, anywhere. Also when we are working on the house there is no internet out there, or cell service so trying to keep this updated, just didn't work out.
This weekend I'm going to sit down with my log book for Lola and give you all a run down of what I've been doing while I've been MIA. The next post is probably going to be a monstrous post, I'm sorry but it will bring everyone up to date on my car.
Thanks guys!
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