I've had my GS-R for a couple weeks now and so far it's great. As some of you know from the other thread, I had the dealer check it out and other than a couple minor things, everything is in running order.

However, there is something that is bugging me about the engine temperature that the dealer says is normal.

We've been having colder than normal temperatures here in so cal with our recent storms and snow up in the mountians.

When I'm driving the teggy, the normal engine temperature is at 40% of the gauge when idling, but when I start driving, on some cases it drops drastically down to about 20-25%! That's a huge fluctuation IMO. My CL never fluctuates that much between idle and cruising. The dealership says that's normal because of the airflow over the radiator; but none of the cars I've owned have ever done it that much. I don't remember my '97 GS-R doing that either.

Could there be something wrong? Should I have them swap out the thermostat since its not really that expensive of a part anyway?

 

thermostat and fluids would be first place to investigate. sometimes the thermostat gets clogged up too

this happened on my TL a few weeks back it would literally goto H when accelerating then when idle at a light it would go up and down and then after i restarted it didnt do it anymore.

 

Thats not normal. Temp gauges on cars are buffered due to the thermostat opening in closing so they really shouldn't move at all once the car is warmed up.

Maybe your thermostat is jamming open.

 

i thought the t-stat doesn't close until the coolant dops past a certain temp?

if you want to test out their claim, put some type of blocking over the front of your car/rad (like cardboard) so that there is actually no airflow over it.. might look dumb but at least u can test it

 

They don't. When the coolant in the engine gets to a certain temp it will open and when the coolant drops to a certain temp, it will close.

 

Sounds like the thermostat is stuck open as others have said. Not that big of an issue except long warm-up in the winter and it is possible that when cruising the lower temp keeps the engine in an open loop which can effect drivability, emissions and gas milage. The same things happen when you install a lower temp t-stat than called for.

 

I think I'll just have them replace the thermostat and see how it does after. the t-stat isn't that expensive of a part anyway, last I checked it was like $12.

As for labor, well I'm going to be doing a 105K service on it which includes changing the water pump and timing belt, and since the water pump is changed, they'll have access to the t-stat so swapping it out won't be expensive. I guess it's a good thing I looked into this now rather than later.

 

Does your car happen to take a while to warm up also? If so, I'm 95% sure its the thermostat. Thermostats have a fail-safe so they get stuck open rather than stuck closed when they're dead, so while driving your car will receive more coolant than it needs, thus lowering the temperature instead of sticking closed. I know because my Integra was like that. Get it fixed, and your mileage will probably increase a bit too because your car may be running a bit rich due to lower temps and it may not be burning all the fuel as efficiently as it should.

 

It does appear to take a little longer to warm up and the mileage does seem to be lower than I was expecting it to be for a full tank compared to when I used to own my 97 GS-R.

I'm not driving the car much yet until I can get this along with the 105K service done in a few weeks. The only reason I have to wait the few weeks is because I need to order parts from acuraoemparts.com and they are a little slow in processing orders, but it's worth it in the end saving as much as you do.

This is off the topic, but I'm also going to replace the clutch, this is why it'll be a few weeks to order the parts and get them installed. I thought about putting in an aftermarket racing clutch, but I want OEM reliability so instead I'm going to put in the OEM Type-R flywheel which is much lighter than the GS-R flywheel and that'll be a moderate improvement which is fine with me.

 

Get a new "stat"

What's with all the bad thermostat threads lately

 

Check the radiator too, they have been known to have problems.

 

Well, got the teggy back today from getting the 105K service done. I had them change the thermostat and sure enough the engine temp needle is reporting the temperature around the mark that I was expecting it should and the car is running 10x smoother because of the service.

Next up will be fixing the cracked trailing arm bushing and replacing the clutch and upgrading to the type-r flywheel.

 

Just my luck, earlier this week I noticed that there was coolant splatter in what was a very very clean engine bay.

Didn't drive it all week because I had a feeling that the top of the radiator was leaking and sure enough it was, getting it replaced now.

My '97 integra needed a radiator replacement around the same mileage as well. Wonder why they are so prone to going bad so quick.

 

Money Pit :wink:

 

It's called No Mortgage yet. :wink:

 

thats a bummer

 

i want a gsr

 

What's stopping you?

With a decent down you can aim to get your monthly payments at $100/mo. That's where mine is at. Just cut some dollars out of other budgets and you can do it man!