Hey my 2.0 16v mk3 golf has a overheating issue when on track days, it will stay below 100 when ive got the internal heaters on full! Vut with the heater off its goes near enough into the red Its had new radiator and cooling system flush along with new thermostat Im at the point where im unsure what im gonna do now, im trying to keep it looking fairly standard, but now at the point of possibly going down the route of cheap bonet vents to help pull air through Any suggestions? cheers
Are you sure your fans are working. Or the fan thermo switch. My mk3 is turbocharged and temp is always in the middle
i got my water temp over 100 but that was during the third consecutive lap of the ring in 32-34* ambient temp. do you have an OE rad?
The old OE rad overheated worse than this aftermarket one I have... the fan does work but I haven't heard/seen it at proper fast speed, is it 2 speed? What controls the fan speed? Cheers
Fan speed controller mate.. normally located under the expansion tank on the right side of the car. Remove and replace. had the same problem with mine.. tony.
Also consider an external oil cooler. Stock water to oil coolers struggle as the heat transfer is minimal....Water @ 90c & oil @ 100+ With an external cooler, you have air @ ~20c cooling the oil, thus it is far more efficent. The resulting cooler oil will keep the coolant temp in check too
I checked this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZCrTHcXo6Y And the fan works on both speeds by jumping the connector! Got any more details on this fan speed controller, what does it look like? cheers
Oh right niiice cheers.... but couldn't find the relay under the expansion bottle! Am i not looking hard enough? cheers
find the 3 pin plug on the fan thermoswitch on the radiator. pop the plug off and bridge the red wire to the other 2 wires, if fan works you know its the switch on rad thats bust, or a coolant flow issue thru the rad. also, if it overheats while you're on the move its nothing to do with the fan or controller, the fan will only do anything when the car isnt moving. as soon as you're driving along above around 30mph airflow thru the rad is stronger than the fan could ever manage
Agreed, if the issue is on track it aint the fan &/or controller... See my post above..... El Cheapo bonnet vents will do F.A A sustained track caining with the resulting extra hot oil, will cause the water temperature to rise well past normal levels you will see on the road...
Has the car been setup correctly? A weak mixture or incorrect ignition timing will cause this problem too. Yours is an ABF so timing should be fixed by the ecu, but it may be worth checking anyway. Incorrect cam timing would also be something to check.
The car is absolutely fine during street abuse, just around lydden hill after 5ish laps the temp starts rising, and the rad fan isnt running full speed when the temp is high so im going to change that temp sensor in the radiator to cure that Spark plugs are nice tan colour, its religiously serviced with fully syn oil The car doesn't go below 6k revs when on the track sessions and its quite a slow circuit, never really come out of second gear
If I may add to the theme, my ABF is acting on me I think, I was checkin' out my water temp gauge these days as outside temp is about 32-34 celsius, and noticed that when I'm drivin with aircon on engine strugles to keep temp arround 90, it tends to go toward 100 mark on the gauge, driving it on open road with little bit of tempo but nothing special that is. When I turn of aircon it stays under 90 with no problem, and at evening when sun comes down and ambient temp goes 5-6 degrees down it's also ok. My fans work and as I know everything else should be ok, but that aircon on watertemp I dont like, I feel if I slam it just a little bit more that it will overheat and boil up. What do you think is I should check out just in case or maybe somethin realy is not at 100% duty cycle??
switching on the a/c should trigger the fan speed on slow, so make sure that is happening to start with. but a/c puts extra load on the engine and the cooling system so i would expect temps to rise a touch especially in a hot country. what does the oil temp say
I think you may be confusing what full speed is. I thought it had two speeds dependant on temperature. Slow speed would be for the AC. The fast speed would be for water cooling operarations, unless i'm mistaken because my thermo switch doesn't work correctly.. My fans would only work on one speed regardless of temps. Oil temps are much higher in hotter ambients and affect water temps. I need to get an external oil cooler myself to help this.
a/c has 3 speeds afaik, slow which comes on with ac, medium which is same as slow speed on a non a/c car, and fast. fast should never come on in normal use, slow is enough to bring the temps back down to normal levels. My mk2 has never used the fast speed over all the years I have owned it, and thats with 4 different engines if the slow/medum speed comes on, then its fine. if fast was being triggered I'd be worried! givaway is the number of wires on your fan: 2 wires = 1 speed 3 wires = 2 speed 4 wires = 3 speed
mine HAD 3 wires. Have 2 slimline fans now. I wanted to use one fan for slow speed and 2 fans for high speed. I found that only one fan only, ever came on. Rewired so both fans cme on together as the slow speed didn't work because AC hadn't been switched on yet.
