Having detination problems as well as cooling
Having detination problems as well as cooling I bought the car a few months ago totally stock except for a SLP air lid and Baer Eradispeed direct replacement rotors. Right after I bought it I went out and put a 160 degree thermostat in hoping maybe it would calm down the pinging. Of course after reading the posts I found out I needed to do a fan switch mod or buy a tuner to control the fans. Well I now have a Predator tuner and set the fans basically as low as they would go and they turn on and work great. Only problem, the temp gauge hasn't moved from it's 200-205 reading. Don't know if I have a faulty guage or sending unit or if it's just the nayure of the beast. I had a '96 WS6 and it ran cool all day long except sitting in LA traffic in the dead heat of summer and that was with underdrive pullies as well. Even when the car is fairly cool after start up I get on it and it still detonates like carzy and of course is worse now that the performance tune is in. I bumped the power enrichment up to 4% with the max of 5% to add more fuel at WOT but isn't seeming to help. Any ideas guys. Oh I also have put in a K&N filter too of course. I have a new fuel filter to put in as well as the ever famous NGK TR55 plugs to put in as well. The car just turned 50,000 miles so it doesn't seem like it should be having these kinds of problems. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
The plugs are a good idea. What octane gasoline are you using. The 98's were the only year that the temp gauge actually works. The other years just usually stay around 200. If there is a problem it will let you know, but it isn't reliable for anything other than that. GM got a lot of customers complaining about their car being messed up because when they stopped in traffice the temperature would rise. (This is obviously normal, since air is not moving throught the radiator.) So GM decided to make the gauge a dummy unit, showing only overheating conditions.
I run nothing but 91 in good ol' California. And stay away from Arco and all the cheap stations. I stick with Cheveron, 76, and if I go cheap it's Shell, but that's it. I did replace the PCV yesterday and it helped quite a bit. The old one still rattled but it was definitely covered in gunk. We'll see what the plugs do for me and maybe it's going to be time soon to get a guage pillar and put real guages in. Thanks for the help.
