Cooling question

[TrickyPete]

I'm just wondering what is a normal amount of time it would take for the thermostat to open up and fans to kick on running at idle speed. It seems since I got all the air out of my system its taking a very long time for mine to get up to tempature. I'm talking like 15, 20 minutes maybe more... By that time it gets insanely hot and frankly is scary. I know there are a lot of piping that the coolant needs to travel through but it just doesn't seem right to me? Anyone have any feedback?

[Bob_n_Cincy]

I'm just wondering what is a normal amount of time it would take for the thermostat to open up and fans to kick on running at idle speed. It seems since I got all the air out of my system its taking a very long time for mine to get up to tempature. I'm talking like 15, 20 minutes maybe more... By that time it gets insanely hot and frankly is scary. I know there are a lot of piping that the coolant needs to travel through but it just doesn't seem right to me? Anyone have any feedback?

Pete
Take a look at this post I made.
http://thefactoryfiveforum.com/showthread.php?12534-MRG-MotorSports-818S-Build&p=170417&viewfull=1#post170417
Bob

[TrickyPete]

Thanks for the fast response. It did take over a 1/2 hour for the fans to kick on the first time I tried it. Haven't ran it for over a minute in over 3 weeks and wanted to make sure the coolant system was still good after sitting for an extended period of time. Guess I just chickened out too early :-P

[mikeb75]

Pete,

I've run the engine for over 10 minutes idling while watching the temperature readout from AccessPort. For me the car seems to level out at 175, which is just beginning to open the (normal) thermostat. The only time I've been able to get it over that was when I was having power issues and the engine seemed to be running lean and idling like crap. It got to 195 before I got spooked with it and shut it down. Oil temps were about 10 degrees below that (again in my experience).

The radiator fans should start at 203 degrees. The return line from the radiator to the water pump should begin to get warm around 175-180.

[Junty]

Hey all. my 818S is still at the compliance engineers, so has only driven 30miles. But I also have experienced these very long periods of time before thermostat opens and even longer before fans come on...
I guess some of this issue is in relation to the much larger volume of coolant we now have - mine even more as I replaced the side aluminium tubes with same diameter as radiator hoses - avoiding the need for the rubber spacer/packer. Still not installed yet, but this week I purchased a supplementary Oil Temp sender and gauge, along with a dual electronic inlet temp gauge (one sender at air filter - the second after the intercooler).
In addition to these I also purchased a new Mishimoto thermostat, this is designed to open at 60 degree C - quite a lot lower than the standard Subaru one. I trust and hope that this will enable the thermostat to open and stay open for a lot longer and hopefully reduce the engine temperatures by a few degrees? I'll first install the gauges - post some results, then swap the thermostat and post the changes...

[TouchStone]

Pete
Take a look at this post I made.
http://thefactoryfiveforum.com/showthread.php?12534-MRG-MotorSports-818S-Build&p=170417&viewfull=1#post170417
Bob

Your post needs to be on the 818 cooling wiki or dedicated thread. I've referred to it several times and unless you know where it is its hard to find.

[RM1SepEx]

Don't forget that all that aluminum piping is an effective radiator too!

[Harley818]

Hi guys,
What you are describing is normal. I too had the same reluctance and shut her down early. Andrew and Tamra told me fans turn on about 206 degrees. So I hooked up my accessport like mikeb said above. The system seems to stabilize at about 180 until the heat travels to the rad, through the rad, and to the back, then it slowly increases until the fans turn on around 205/206. Then the fans come on and it drops really quickly to about 170/180 again.
FYI - 205/206 is about halfway on the subaru temp gauge.

[TouchStone]

FYI - 205/206 is about halfway on the subaru temp gauge.

Thanks that is info I needed, was waiting to get my IR temp sensor back to figure this out.