Austarion

The car seems to love running a little hot, i recently flushed the cooling system and did the thermostat at the same time. Alas she still likes to run warm. the only thing that i could think of was the turbo heat shield has come away, could that extra heat be the cause of the problem? got me stumped, maybe it's time for that intercooler and maybe a bigger radiator with a larger thermo, or is that too extreme? i guess that you can't be to cautious when it comes to cooling.

how hot is it, the gauge I found sometimes can be a little bit inaccurate, are the fans (fan) on most of the time?

Even though you flushed you may have blocked tubes.
Where does the gauge sit while you're driving. Mine sits not far above cold but goes up when sitting in traffic. My thermofan comes on when the gauge gets to half.
Checked your ignition timing? Too advanced will heat things up too.

The car's going off the mechanics shortly to get a dyno tune and a service and other necessary roadworthy items.
All of the hoses feel fine and aren't hard or brittle to touch. the thermo seems to run alot if not all the time. It's been this way since i purchased it. sometimes i have to run with the bonnet up a little.
I'm making the front bonnet vent wider as well as the side ones. also opening up underneath them so the air can flow around.
The temp guage sits about middle of normal but if you get stuck in traffic look out! starts to kreep up to hot rapidly. Almost seems like the little thermo can't cope.

thats definatly not right, i'd say have your radiator looked at... One of my old starions was like that, toop the tank off the radiator, and only 3 tubes were un-blocked.

I wired the A/C fan to turn on as well, that may help, have you got A/C? if your not using it, the condenser may be blocking precious air flow... remove it

Your water pump might be shagged and is causing cavitation. ie. it won't flow as much water as a good pump as it's stirring it up rather than pumping it around.

to test radiator, get engine warm, open bonnet, rev the piss out of the engine whil holding the bottom radiator hose. if that hose squishes down and tries to go flat your radiator is cactus. but if it does this the up side is u'r water pump works fine :D

My temp guage sits middle all the time, i know something is shagged. most likely the radiator. might rip it out next week give it a good flushing, hope to god its not farked

If you do all of that and it seems you are at an end just get a few washers and you might need longer bolts to jack the back of your bonnet up about an inch or so. It keeps the ambient temps down by sucking air out the back, also works well to defrost and demist the front windscreen too :)

I am going to do this to my staz in the next few days, just cause i know it helped my sr20det sss and with the bonnet scoops it really pushes in cool air and sucks out the hot.

Ofcourse this only works while you are moving :)

not that it matters, but by jacking the bonnet up you cause large amounts of compressed air to be forced into the back and pulled out the bottom of the car as well as out of the little scoop on the bonnet. but it still cools things down i supose.

well it looks like i've got a few things to try out. :D
Hopefully one of them will give me an idea.
I'm going to get a price on my radiator being recoed as well as a replacement. Maybe i could go a larger size? :x more $$$ only if it's f'd!
i do have A/C and it's been d/c for a little more power, i'm unsure of how to wire up the extra thermo any idea's?

My ex-partner had this issue.

Turned out the perfectly looking radiator, had rusted itself shut on the inside, so cooling system worked, but there wasn't enough distribution for traffic use.

Also my Staz doesn't have thermo-fans, I like thermo fans, I guess I'll have to get some.

Let us know how you go with prices for both, i may need the same thing and interested to see how much its gonna cost me.

i took the stazz out for a fuel run tonight so i can take it back to work and get started on the body. everything seemed fine to start with...temp normal. Then as soon as we hit traffic again she started to climb, anywho's i got impatient and decided to go for a squirt through traffic on the way home with a nice belly of juice.. seeing the temp getting nearer the Hot i guess i wanted to rush home ( prob not a good idea ).
as i was doing some low flying the temp came down to a respectable level and all seemed good, parked the car let her to the "cool down" thing and switched off and not a hiss.
Hmnmm. I'm thinking of replacing the radiator and the water pump and a few other things for piece of mind ( well the roadworthy is getting done and i want to take her for a drive to N.s.w through the blue mountains.)
The price for a reco and a new radiator is waiting for me at work on monday shall keep you posted..