overheated
Sounds normal? Drives ok? Oil pressure ok?
You're fine.
I was racing with some friends one night (street), threw the belt (it broke), and PEGED the temp gauge before I realized what happened
........I pulled over, let the car cool for an hour, and babied her back to my friend's house (only a few miles). The next morning I got a new belt and have never seen any problems as a result of this. That night, I was VERY VERY happy that I had an oil cooler......I'm sure that the cool oil (never went past 200 degrees) is what saved the motor.....
How hot did it get? You said overheated, but what were you showing on the gauge? I'd say you'd be fine up to about 240-250 for an extended amount of time. I'm surprised it got that hot though, since it was so cold out. Below freezing air usually makes it pretty hard to overheat unless you have a cooling problem. I used to have fun in my old car, I'd go in the snow, and floor it in overdrive and the speedo would peg before I would even start moving. Never got over 230.
Dope
These cars have an overheat protection mode, just like the Northstar Cadillacs. It kicks in automatically if the car overheats. They can run for 50 miles with no coolant whatsoever in them. The PCM accomplishes this by shutting off fuel and spark to one bank of cylinders at a time. One bank fires, moving the car. The other bank cools off. Then they switch.
Supposedly, this works, and all you have to do is change your oil promptly after driving the car in this overheat protection mode, and it's good as new. Seems the heat does a number on the oil, but the engine is fine.
Now, if your car didn't even go into overheat protection mode, then I wouldn't worry about it. You're probably fine!
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If it went past 220, then you need to have the fan setting checked.
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I'd change the oil just as a precaution, but otherwise just quit worrying, nothing's wrong.


