Overheating....

[Rookie#1]

Hey guys, I picked up a FFR Challenge Car from a body shop my father's buddy owns this past Tuesday and it keeps overheating while idling. The body shop techs built the car for my dad and I as part of a trade for an old stingray the owner of the shop wanted out of our collection.

I drove the car around the airport where we are storing it for the time being and realized it was overheating fairly quickly, I checked the fluids and had the electric fan turned on the entire time it was running. The water temp kept pushing over 250 F and the oil temp wasn't showing a reading.

The car has a Ford Racing 5.0L engine with a TKO 500 transmission. As far as I know the engine has little to no hours on it.

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[tirod]

Pump rotation. Check to see that it's actually forcing coolant out the water neck, and not out the upper radiator hose.

[skullandbones]

You may have checked this already but you should start with the thermostat. Did it open? Is the hose downstream hot? Also, if there is a tiny leak e.g. I had one in a intake plug that was seeping pressure but didn't show until it overheated and you could see a little steam and water pooling on the bell housing. Hope it isn't your water pump pumping backwards as suggested above. That would be a PITA. Good luck, WEK.

[johngeorge]

Also what kind of radiator do you have? Is it a big aluminum job?

At 250deg you might have a blown headgasket too. How long did you run it like that? Aluminum heads?

[johngeorge]

And are you sure all of the air is out of the system? Did they 'burp' it when they filled with water? What I have done in the past is take out the temp sender at the top of the intake, let water come out of that port, then put the sender back so to let all the air out.

[mhoward1]

So it is overheating at both idle and while moving?

[riptide motorsport]

Probably need to get it completely filled like John George said.

[Rookie#1]

Here is the break down of what happened with the engine.

I picked up the car on tuesday with the understanding that it ran and drove...
Did not start the car...
Placed car on car trailer...
Drove the trailer and car 450 miles to the new little town in South Texas that I moved to during the process of the car being built.
Filled the tank up with standard 93 octane fuel from the gas station across the street and idled the car for 2 minutes before acting like a kid again and driving it to the end of the runway and back, running below 2000rpm the entire time...

After getting hold of one of the techs from the shop I learned that they had not filled the radiator with radiator fluid but tap water for test starts...the water was put in 4 years ago (the car sat at the shop for 5-6 years before being picked up)

Tomorrow I plan to drain the radiator of the existing water that is left in the radiator and filling it with radiator fluid and then running it for a few minutes to see if it happens again. Everything on the car is "new" never run and the odometer reads 2 miles at this point in time. Hopefully there was no serious damage done to the heads or the block itself otherwise I will be doing a rebuild before I ever get to get it out of 2nd gear.

I will keep everyone posted and will post pictures soon.

Thanks you all for posting I will do a double check of every nut and bolt on the car because of it.

[Norm B]

Flush the system really well. Chlorinated tap water sitting for four years can't be good for anything. Good luck!

[tirod]

Hopefully all you need to do is fill it with working coolant, fully, and it will be solved. Let us know how it turns out.

I still have this little red flag waving from the words, "body shop." Maybe it's just me.

[Rookie#1]

The coolant problem is fixed for the time being...I dropped the car off at a buddy of mine's shop; spent a half day discussing it with him and his crew then spent the entire day today going through the car, every nut every bolt; currently as the car sits now it has some build problems and some slight engine issues. The thermostat was sticking and not working properly so I made the executive desicion to remove it for the time being. Justin, my buddy who owns the shop, ordered two more as a primary and back up just in case; the car won't idle at all and the electrical system shorts out after the main battery kill switch is on for more than 10 minutes. The electrical issue was temporarily fixed by bypassing the solenoid and using the starter soleniod as the primary.

My dad came by early in the evening and dropped off the assembly manual and a dvd he recieved from FFR when he purchased the kit originally.

In the bottom of the oil pan we found oil, fuel, radiator fluid, and water...most of which was raw unused fuel. Tomorrow the car will be going onto the lift again and new oil and all new fluids will be going into it, the radiator fluid we put in today will be coming out and if there isn't any residue from oil or fuel will be going back in. There is one positive side tho...

I was able to drive the car around town for 45 minutes this evening and amazingly with no plates and a "Speed Racer" windshield; I didn't get pulled over by the local PD and managed to get waves from random passers by and the officers on patrol.

Everybody helping me at the shop has been very helpful and we have all kinda decided that we might have to order another couple of them just because...apparently in South Texas, old muscle cars and thier kit cousins are cooler than high end supercars...

If anyone has any ideas about the current situation and what to watch out for please feel free to post. The current goal is to have the car ready to autocross in two weeks for the South Texas Border Region SCCA solo being held Sept. 1st and 2nd.

Again thank you guys for all your imput, it has been a huge help so far, please keep it up...

[SStrong]

Rookie,
Hey neighbor! I am on Lake Corpus Christi, and in the middle of building a MkIV. Glad you're finding these problems and getting them fixed now. Love those Port Aransas ferries and dolphins. Good luck.
Steve

[skullandbones]

Hi Rookie,

After seeing all the water, fuel, etc in the oil, it would be prudent of you to do a compression check of all eight cylinders which should read within about 10% of each other. If it were me, I would do that to give me a little peice of mind. If everything is OK, you must be one of the luckyiest guys on earth! And that must be one really tough little engine. I think going over the whole project with a "fine tooth comb" was very wise after your initial trouble. If I was releasing a car to someone after it had sat around a long time, warning about the coolant not being up to standard would be a minimal expectation. So like someone else mentioned, their credibility would go way down for me. Hope they did the basic build well so you will be safe out there on the track. WEK.