Re: Project Lex
 

Had our spring opener meet this Sunday. *Was a little cold out, very slight occasional mist but not bad overall. *Got a couple nice shots of the car:
http://mitsustyle.com/forums/attachm...1&d=1490624691

http://mitsustyle.com/forums/attachm...1&d=1490624691

Then leaving the meet, in 2nd I gave it a little too much and got a little sideways and hit the damn curb. *Feel like an idiot. *Drag radials, cold weather, slight mist, and me still getting used to the power it has = dumb mistake. *So my wheel is hurt and i popped a tire. *Also the fans had shut off for whatever reason so while we let it sit and idle coolant started coming out of the overflow. *That's when we realised the fans didn't turn on. *Shut off the car, the BTI gauge showed 219* when I finally looked at it. *So... *Now gotta figure out what to do about wheels, and going to investigate the coolant issue, hoping I didn't pop the head gasket. *I've post-poned my dyno appt so I can take my time and make sure everything is OK before I stap her on. *Sucks, but could be worse. *Doing my best to get back on the horse here and fix it and keep moving forward. *I figure it could be worse, it's not like it caught fire the day before trying for 6's at TX2K right? :D *I'll be fine, and I'll get it fixed, not so bad really.

http://mitsustyle.com/forums/attachm...1&d=1490624691

http://mitsustyle.com/forums/attachm...1&d=1490624691

Re: Project Lex
 

Ouch, that sucks, but could always be worse.

Doubt head gasket issues at 219f, but worth investigating.

Re: Project Lex
 

Yeah I wanna be sure the car is 100% before the dyno, so just playing it cautious right now. Gunna spend the next few days slowly going over it to make sure everything is ok.

So if anyone knows a local place that can repair curb damaged wheels, please let me know!

Re: Project Lex
 

219F is nothing for coolant temps so I don't see anything to worry about there. Are you running straight water or a mix of water/coolant/Water Wetter?

The wheel definitely appears repairable, wish I had a suggestion for you on where to take it that isn't in Texas!

Re: Project Lex
 

Well I left a voicemail with Alloy Wheel Repair in Shoreview. I also called and spoke to a guy at Twin City Wheel in White Bear. So we will see what these folks have to say once they see the photos. Hoping they can be repaired. If not, then I guess I gotta start thinking about what to do with wheels.

Yes I agree that temp seems like it shouldn't be a big deal. But at the same time, coolant was coming out of the overflow. So why would coolant be coming out of the overflow. Not just like a few drops, like a decent amount came bubbling out. So that's why I'm a little concerned there. Why would it do that? Is 220-ish hot enough for coolant to come out? Or maybe I cracked the radiator, system lost pressure, and caused coolant to start coming out places. Not sure yet, have to look into that.

Re: Project Lex
 

220 is definitely not hot enough to cause a problem with the engine. A stock C7 will run 230+ just cruising down the highway. My first guess is you boiled the water which is why it overflowed. Do you have anti-freeze mixed with the water to raise the boiling point? How old is your radiator cap, and does it hold sufficient pressure in the system?

Re: Project Lex
 

It's a water, anti-freeze mix. I can't say the exact mix, but probably around 60% water if I were to guess. Yeah it probably boiled, so that's what I'm trying to figure out. I'm assuming that somehow the system lost pressure, and the pressurized system is what makes it not boil. So if it was hot enough to boil at normal atmospheric pressure, then maybe i say cracked the bottom of the radiator, and so then the coolant did start to boil because it wasn't pressurized, not because it was "too hot" per-se.

Re: Project Lex
 

60/40 mix is perfectly fine, C7 and GTR both come with that ratio from the factory. Do you think you banged the radiator on the curb too? Unless you see a leak from the radiator area as well, my first assumption would be a worn out radiator cap.

Re: Project Lex
 

It's an old rad cap, but it happened as a result of banging the curb. There were zero issues with the cooling system until about 2-3 minutes after hitting curb.

Re: Project Lex
 

Did you take out some bystanders?

Re: Project Lex
 

How long do you suspect that cooling fan has been non-functional? Are there any signs of leaks now that things have cooled off? If the impact in some way damaged the radiator fan, and that allowed temps to creep up, that may have been just enough to expose the cap's weakness. If you cracked the radiator, there would be a puddle under the car (besides the one underneath the overflow tank).

As far as you can tell, did anything else make contact with the curb besides the wheel/tire?

Re: Project Lex
 

Only Mustangs are allowed to do that :lol:

Re: Project Lex
 

I suspect everything, including fans, were fine up until I hit the curb. Here's my best play by play run-down.

- Started the car to let it warm up, it sat and idled for probably 15 minutes while I helped clean up and say bye.
- Got in car to leave. At this point I didn't look at any gauges or anything, but I assume the coolant was up to operating temp of ~180*. Nothing looked, sounded, smelled out of place, I fully suspect everything was just fine. Pulled out of parking lot.
- 20sec later I hit the curb.
- 20sec later I was back parked, left the car on/idling, we all were looking at the wheels.
- after maybe 2-3 minutes of us looking and the car parked idling (hard to say i wasn't timing it), someone noticed some coolant under the car. So we shut the car off immediately.
- popped the hood, noticed coolant coming out of overflow.
- After maybe 30sec of "WTF is going on", I went and turned the car key to the ON position (without starting the car) assuming the fans would kick on. We noticed the fans didn't turn on. Thought about that for 10 seconds and then checked my BTI gauge to see if we were over the setting where the fans turn on. That's when I saw 219* on the gauge. Didn't look at my stock gauge to see if i was even near red, didn't even think about it, but wish I would have. But anyway at that point we determined something is probably wrong with the fans and turned the key back off.
- Let the coolant bubble out for maybe another minute before it stopped.


So since the car sat and idled for like 15-20 minutes before I drove off, I highly predict everything was just fine. Plus I drove it a half hour there with zero issues. It wasn't until directly after hitting the curb did the coolant thing occur at all. So has to be related. Still don't know what though.

The coolant reservoir is molded into these fans, so it's pretty much directly above the radiator. So any puddle caused from overflow is right where a puddle would be from cracked radiator. Really hard to say right now.

As for did anything else make contact. It doesn't look like it other than the under side of my front lip. I looked under there briefly with a flash light and didn't see anything sticking out like a sore thumb. I'll have to look closer though. The lower crossmember that the radiator rests on seems like something that definitely could have hit. This is a OEM radiator so plastic end tanks could have cracked. Lots of things to consider, just need to get under there and start figuring it out, and keep my fingers crossed I didn't hurt the motor.

Re: Project Lex
 

Nobody was harmed during the filming of this stunt, other than my ego I suppose haha. You know what it was, I setup that dyno appt at DB, so just being associated with anything mustang related means this was already predetermined by a higher power to happen simply because of that, out of my control!

Re: Project Lex
 

What position wheel is that? I assume the front so that you still can replace the control arms and hopefully not have any bent suspension parts?

Re: Project Lex
 

Passenger side, front and rear wheels. Front one is worse, and is the 2nd picture. First pic is of the rear. I looked under there briefly, didn't notice anything bad, but something I'll be looking at for sure as I get to looking closer. Good news is I have all new front arms that I'll be installing none-the-less lol.

Good news is local place in White Bear said they can repair the wheels. $100/ea to repair (not including coating). Typically 1 day turn around. So I'll be getting those over to them in the next day or two. Seemed like a fair price and an excellent turn around time.

Re: Project Lex
 

But you'd want to match the paint though, and that's another $150, right?

Re: Project Lex
 

Match what paint? You mean my plastidip on the wheels? Lol no I will worry about finishing later.

Re: Project Lex
 

Ouch! That sucks. Might want too check alignment again too lol. Time for some wide stancer wheels!

Re: Project Lex
 

Alignment had to get redone anyway when I put these new front arms on, so no real biggie there. This is exactly why I have cheap fun cars, doesn't hurt so bad when I break it haha.

Re: Project Lex
 

Small update. Did a quick compression test on the motor. Got 165-170-165-165-172-165. Albeit the motor was cold, but none the less I thought that was a pretty good initial sign. I'd like to do it again with the motor warm, but until I've checked over some more things I'd rather not get things hot yet.

Re: Project Lex
 

I didn't realize a hg issue would impact compression numbers, unless it was totally destroyed. Slightly warped might only leak at high boost pressures.
Regardless, 219 shouldn't be hot enough to break anything, but that's only where the temp sensor is, not necessarily at the hottest point. Good luck, hoping for the best for you!

Re: Project Lex
 

Well a HG can fail in several different ways, and at several levels of severity. Depending on how it failed, a comp test may or may not show anything. I have a compression tester, so why not just spend 30 minutes to see if it showed anything. If anything, I think the results tell me there isn't a massive HG failure between two cylinders, or anything like that. And also tells me in general this motor still has healthy compression as those numbers I feel are excellent, so that's nice.

Next on my list are:
- Use brownman's coolant pressure tester to see if I can spot any coolant system leaks and fix any we find.
- Drain oil and coolant and see if it looks good or if there is any signs of mixing. If all looks good then just refill.
- Troubleshoot and fix radiator fans.
- Get wheels repaired, re-finished, and buy some new tires for all 4 wheels.
- Inspect under the car in general to see if I messed anything else up.

Re: Project Lex
 

Grabbed brownmans tester over lunch and ran home and did a test. Pumped it up to about 14psi and not a single leak in sight, which was kinda promising actually.

I drained out the coolant to see if there was any signs of water/oil mixing. No signs at all, still looked good as new. So I think I'm going to skip draining the oil and looking at it because so far everything is looking good.

Re: Project Lex
 

Sounds great! I agree, unless there is foam on the underside of the oil cap or on the dipstick, I wouldn't bother with the oil. This really all does point to the radiator cap being worn/weak and just not holding the pressure needed to raise the boiling point. Most coolant boil/freeze charts assume the cooling system is pressurized to 15psi.

http://ls1tech.com/forums/attachment...-boil101bw.jpg

Note the column at 0 psi with a 33-44% mix; pretty much right where you boiled over. Fun fact, the C7 uses a 20psi cap (most are in the 12-16 range) which explains why it can run such hot temps without boil over issues.

Re: Project Lex
 

The cap is a 0.9 bar cap. Maybe you are onto something, I will probably grab a new cap to be safe then. See if Stant makes one or something for this car. I see what you're getting at, but on the same note I don't think that the cap is holding in zero pressure, but perhaps it just opened up at some amount of pressure, thus relieving the system of pressure putting it down to 0 once it opened up, then the boiling started and kept going from there.

Thanks for the ideas!

Re: Project Lex
 

Stant, Gates, etc. all make a .9 bar (13 psi) cap for your car. I'm sure one of the local parts stores has to have one in stock for under $10!

Re: Project Lex
 

Yeah, just take a look at the dipstick, on the oil cap, and in the head through the oil cap opening (with a flashlight). If everything looks normal(no milky look). Appears all is well.

Re: Project Lex
 

Yeah I see local places all have replacement caps. I like the kind with the little lever on them if I ever needed to manually relieve pressure (had that style on my DSM).

What interesting is 13psi seems to be the norm of the SC (also norm for a DSM). But a supra is the same cap but rated at 16psi (like an evo). Wondering if I should go with the higher pressure version.

Re: Project Lex
 

More Supra parts! Seems like we just had this conversation HAHA

For a high performance engine adding more cooling capacity is never a bad idea, but it will put more strain on the remaining stock cooling components.

Re: Project Lex
 

Looks like there are some 1.3 bar aftermarket offerings for the Supra too.

Re: Project Lex
 

Yeah, I think I'll just stick with the 0.9 bar SC one. If it becomes an issue, then I can upgrade to the 1.1 bar Supra one. But might as well not stress the entire system any more than it needs to be if the 0.9 bar one does fine for what I'm doing.

Re: Project Lex
 

Agreed.

KISS

Re: Project Lex
 

Coolant is refilled. I tested the fans by jumpering 12V to them and they work. I decided to just go ahead and replace the relay that turns them on just in case it got damaged. I started the car, car runs and idles great. As it was starting to get up to temp, I was walking around inspecting things, then I noticed the wiring in the wheel well. What you see in the pic is the black and yellow loom that is the OEM wiring that used to run in the engine bay that I tucked up in the wheel well. Then also my single control wire (and connector) that goes from the fan relay to the Infinity ECU to trigger the fans. When the wheel hit the curb, it must have came up and hit this area and basically ripped that connector apart and left it dangling there. So easy fix, grabbed a new connector and repaired it and tucked it back up there.

Let the car idle for 15-20 minutes. Temp got up to 189 and bam fans kicked on just like their supposed to, then shut off right at 180 when their supposed to. Temp stayed perfect between 180-190. So starting to look promising!

Also dropped the wheels off to be repaired today. Should be done in the next day or two. Gotta get some new tires on order asap.

Re: Project Lex
 

Easy fixes are always nice! Get that exposed wiring wrapped up or insulated!

Re: Project Lex
 

Everything is heat shrunk and connectorized with water proof connectors. Where is there any exposed wire?

Re: Project Lex
 

So while waiting for all the tires to arrive, and for the wheels to get refinished with proline finish, I decided to knock out some other things.

- Installed braided brake lines that I've have sitting here for a couple years now. Went ahead and got the rotors turned while I was at it and flushed the fluid with new DOT4 fluid. Also gave the NA Supra rear calipers a coat of black paint to clean em up a bit and match the fronts.

- Got my new distributor cover design back from Shawn who 3D printed it for me. Fits good except for the ID of the outter portion is about 1mm too tight. So I hand to sand it down and it fits perfect. So I'll be updating the Solidworks model and should be good to go for others to 3D print on their own now.

- Got my two AEM 12 position switches wired into Infinity. One will be for in car boost adjustment. Other for in car traction control adjustment.

- Also got my gauge / switch DIN mount back from Shawn as well who 3D printed it. Haven't fully test fit everything but so far so good, just had to do a little sanding but that's it so far. Once I've verified all fitment I will probably put some sort of vinyl over the front to give it a nice clean finished look.

- Started working on replacing the ABS sensors and then will be wiring them into the Infinity for traction control to function. Plan will also be to use those for a speed signal to the ecu so I can do other cool stuff like boost by mph and what not.

Re: Project Lex
 

Looks good! 3D printing so cool!

Re: Project Lex
 

Did they print abs or pla?

Re: Project Lex
 

Alpha Bravo Shart