Need help w/ overheating LT1
03-09-2009, 01:04 PM
#1
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Need help w/ overheating LT1 Hey fellas,
I'm a newbie with the LT1 and have a question about my Camaro. As of last night it started to overheat rather quick and I believe it's the Tstat but would like your opinions/expertise. So here is what happened..........
Started the car, drove maybe five minutes and saw the temp was above 220. Normally the car never goes above mid 180's when actually moving. I made it home, no biggie. So this morning I fired her up, ran to the store real quick.........again the temp gauge just kept climbing and never began to cool off. Each time this has happened I've noticed the heater is not blowing warm either. The upper rad hose is hot, but the lower one isn't. Fans work too when A/C is on full blast.
I recently had the water pump/opti/radiator replaced, so I dont think the issue is with those parts.
Any help is appreciated!! I'm out of free tows with AAA lol so I'd like to handle this myself.
My apologies if this is posted in the wrong forums
Thanks,
James
97 Z28
I'm a newbie with the LT1 and have a question about my Camaro. As of last night it started to overheat rather quick and I believe it's the Tstat but would like your opinions/expertise. So here is what happened..........
Started the car, drove maybe five minutes and saw the temp was above 220. Normally the car never goes above mid 180's when actually moving. I made it home, no biggie. So this morning I fired her up, ran to the store real quick.........again the temp gauge just kept climbing and never began to cool off. Each time this has happened I've noticed the heater is not blowing warm either. The upper rad hose is hot, but the lower one isn't. Fans work too when A/C is on full blast.
I recently had the water pump/opti/radiator replaced, so I dont think the issue is with those parts.
Any help is appreciated!! I'm out of free tows with AAA lol so I'd like to handle this myself.
My apologies if this is posted in the wrong forums
Thanks,
James
97 Z28
03-09-2009, 01:56 PM
#2
Well it could be a couple of things.
First thing I want to say is that, with stock programming, the low speed fan is set to turn on at 226* and the high speed fan is set to go on at 235*. There is nothing wrong if the car reaches ~226 degrees and goes back down in cycles.
If your heater is not blowing hot air, you either have a clogged heater core, or more likely you have air in the system and it needs to be properly bled.
Let the car cool down completely, remove the rad cap, open up both bleeder screws. Cover the opti with a towel so that no coolant gets on it. Fill at radiator until you see coolant come out of the bleeder screws. Once you see it come out of a bleeder screw, tighten up that bleeder screw. Fill until the radiator is full and cap it off. You may have to repeat this one more time after the car has come to full operating temperature and has cooled down completely again.
If that doesn't cure the problem and the car still over heats, then it may be your T-stat. It's an easy replacement and you might as well throw in a 160 while you are at it. Make sure to bleed it again afterward.
First thing I want to say is that, with stock programming, the low speed fan is set to turn on at 226* and the high speed fan is set to go on at 235*. There is nothing wrong if the car reaches ~226 degrees and goes back down in cycles.
If your heater is not blowing hot air, you either have a clogged heater core, or more likely you have air in the system and it needs to be properly bled.
Let the car cool down completely, remove the rad cap, open up both bleeder screws. Cover the opti with a towel so that no coolant gets on it. Fill at radiator until you see coolant come out of the bleeder screws. Once you see it come out of a bleeder screw, tighten up that bleeder screw. Fill until the radiator is full and cap it off. You may have to repeat this one more time after the car has come to full operating temperature and has cooled down completely again.
If that doesn't cure the problem and the car still over heats, then it may be your T-stat. It's an easy replacement and you might as well throw in a 160 while you are at it. Make sure to bleed it again afterward.
03-09-2009, 06:40 PM
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First thing I want to say is that, with stock programming, the low speed fan is set to turn on at 226* and the high speed fan is set to go on at 235*. There is nothing wrong if the car reaches ~226 degrees and goes back down in cycles.
03-09-2009, 06:44 PM
#6
When I first got my camaro I actually got it towed home after i seen the temp go over 220 degrees. Thats actually when i joined this forum and was amazed to find out the above info. With my car being boosted I still wont drive for long amounts of times until i can get it tuned and have the fans kick on earlier.
03-09-2009, 06:52 PM
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no its never been tuned nor has it been over 70mph due to the 4.10 gears. It pulls real hard up to that but then the speed limiter kicks in due to the pcm not being re-flashed. The car hasnt been driving more than 3k miles since everythings been done. I bought the car in november and have put less that 400 miles on it. I had the cash lieing around to buy the lt1edit but then ran into some tranny problems. That should be fixed within the next 2 weeks then tuned most likley the next week.
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03-09-2009, 11:05 PM
#8
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yeah the fans came on..........I forget to mention that a Hypertech tuner came with the car, so the fan comes on much earlier than the aforementioned 226 and 235. The car has never seen north of 210, and that was dead heat summer/bumper to bumper traffic with the A/C full blast. I took the car in to my mechanic earlier and I'll let him deal with it.........to be honest I'm scared to death of accidentally douching the Opti with coolant and dont want to replace that again.
Thanks for all that replied!
-James
Thanks for all that replied!
-James
03-10-2009, 12:07 AM
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i had the same problem with mine. my first problem was that i had a clog in one of my radiator channels. also, make sure that you have the air dam on underneath the car. i learned this the hard way because i took it off thinking it was just a scrape gaurd. my car did this same thing in both instances so if you do have the air dam on then i'd say bleed the system.
03-10-2009, 12:33 PM
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changing the t stat is a 5 min. job and you dont lose but very little coolant doing it. i know you said you already took it somewhere but next time dont be scared of changing it yourself
03-11-2009, 12:03 PM
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Back on topic.............it was a clogged radiator that was the culprit......so I guess it was a good thing I took the car to a shop
-James
03-11-2009, 12:10 PM
#14
I'm a 5.0 guy, cut me some slack lol Seriously though, I'm not really up to speed with all the LT1 stuff yet.......I just didn't want to wet the Opti, as I just replaced it less than 2 months again due to a leaking water pump.
Back on topic.............it was a clogged radiator that was the culprit......so I guess it was a good thing I took the car to a shop
-James
Back on topic.............it was a clogged radiator that was the culprit......so I guess it was a good thing I took the car to a shop
-James
