Waiting at the Airport, time to write about Oppo Meet from Friday

"Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)" (rduncan5678)
07/14/2019 at 22:27 • Filed to: None

I’m at the LAX Cell phone waiting lot so that I can pick up my girlfriend who went on a 48 hour adventure to London on a whim. I can’t even imagine how tiring that must have been! But anyways, check out the temperature difference between home and here at the airport. 29F is a pretty large gap I’d say, especially considering the elevation difference is less than 1000 feet and it was only about a 25 mile drive. This isn’t that abnormal here but it surprises me every time, being from the East Coast.

I n other news while I’m sitting here, I might as write about my meetup with Future Heap Owner on Friday. Thanks to his choice on Turo, it was a proper Miata meet with an aggressive canyon carving day. Unfortunately though, my Miata right at this point where we stopped demonstrated a bit of an issue. The coolant reservoir was at a steady boil when I stopped and when I plugged in my OBD scanner, coolant temp was reading 230F. This seemed high, although not high enough to boil at proper pressure. I made the decision at that point to just drive the car home and swap out for the backup car, my STi. Fans appeared to work and it ran normal Temps on the way down the hill and made it back fine.

Thankfully it was a rather short detour to go pick up the other car and Future Heap Owner got to enjoy seeing Street signs such as “Ventura Blvd” and “Mullholand Highway” that he had only heard about in tv/movies/Internet. The temperature outside also got quite warm so it was a nice change of pace to have some AC to chill in for the rest of the day. We still went hard, enjoying many more roads the rest of the day. We had one “scare” with the police driving at some point, I believe we passed a cop doing very extra legal speeds but thankfully luck was on our side and he didn’t come after us.

I didn’t actually take any photos on the hike but i have countless other photos from other times up there. Was a bit foggier that day!

Our day included a hike up to Mugu peak as well as lunch at Establos Meat Market in Camarillo. The day ended with some more driving and eventually Future Heap Owner took a mad dash for the airport, making it just in time for the flight. I on the other hand, chilled out and spent some time at the beach with my boogie board and chilled out for a while.

Later that night, I went over to The_Stig’s house and tried troubleshooting my cooling woes. I bought a radiator cap, more water wetter, and brake light bulbs since Future Heap Owner told me of my dysfunctional lights. New cap and thoroughly cleaned out cooling system, I went home and finally went to bed. Finally today on Sunday, I went and tested it out with a solid stress test. I used the same road it was overheating the first time and saw better results. This time I saw 215F at the same spot and then ran it a second time for extra stress and saw 220F. I have to figure out if that is normal, some random forum reading seems to suggest it might be. But I'm concerned since it seems high. Obviously the needle never moved, even when it was at 230. So it might always be that way normally.

DISCUSSION (14)

Jordan and the Slowrunner, Boomer Intensifies > Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)
07/14/2019 at 23:11

Is the radiator browning?

Forrest > Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)
07/14/2019 at 23:21

Those temperature gradients are always fun. Around here, if you go between San Francisco and Central Valley, it can easily be a 40-50F difference. It really depends whether you have hills between you and the ocean.

Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) > Jordan and the Slowrunner, Boomer Intensifies
07/14/2019 at 23:23

The common issue for sure! But it's a replacement radiator and is completely black. Could still be at fault though, or at least worth upgrading. Will be seeing 100+ degree Temps in any track days through the rest of summer.

Highlander-Datsuns are Forever > Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)
07/15/2019 at 00:26

I overheated my Subaru driving from San Bernardino to Phoenix and back. It warped and cracked both heads in my XT. It was like 112 in Blyth tho.

Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) > Highlander-Datsuns are Forever
07/15/2019 at 00:33

Well yeah actual overheating would cook my engine in short order. Generally not dangerous even in the 230 range. But it's hotter than I'd like the car to be, especially since power continues to drop as you push past 200 anyways. Should not break things until 250+ though.

SPAMBot - Horse Doctor > Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)
07/15/2019 at 00:36

You need to get that piece of sheet metal that goes from the bumper to the radiator to actually force air thru

Svend > Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)
07/15/2019 at 01:40

What? 48 hour adventure to London from the U.S.?

About half of her time would of been traveling, most of it in the air, then having to negotiate trains and the underground, of bus transfer, or taxi (granted these days it’ll be Lyft and Uber (never used them myself, I use taxis)). Then check into the hotel.

I tell you what, she’s keen if she’s willing to go through all that for a day in London.

I hope she enjoyed her flying/fleeting visit.

Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) > Svend
07/15/2019 at 11:59

Yeah haha it was a little wild. She managed to get a last minute ticket to Wimbledon finals and her favorite player was in it so that was the reason to go. The reason to not stay longer was that she already has another trip departing on Friday to Amsterdam for work and wanted to be home in between trips. And yes the majority of time was spent traveling and very little sleeping.

But I love her and am here to support her just like she does for me when I do silly things like build a race car and then intentionally break it over and over. This is why we are glad to be young and not have responsibilities aside from paying rent and showing up to work.

Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) > SPAMBot - Horse Doctor
07/15/2019 at 12:01

ducting! I am moreso curious if something is broken though. All of the cooling mods are pointless if a basic functionality is off. But yeah I am leaning towards mods required since I cannot repeat the problem with just normal street driving.

SPAMBot - Horse Doctor > Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)
07/15/2019 at 13:22

When my radiator went, it was only leaking a bit. Only once did I hear it hiss after driving, but you could smell the coolant after a drive and there was an occasional drip. 230 seems high, but not crazy if it normally runs 200-210

Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) > SPAMBot - Horse Doctor
07/15/2019 at 16:00

230 was with the bad rad cap (diagnosed due to the boiling, water with water wetter under pressure does not boil until like 260 something). With replacement cap, I was running 215-220. Considering that was two runs of the same road where I saw 230, it should be arguably harsher conditions (ambient air temps and driving style were the same). But my concern is more about that 220 number and whether that is concerning. Normal operating (observed) at idle is 195-206 (fan operating window), Downhill cruising is 185 (observed) , and normal street driving seems to vary between 190-200 (observed) depending on speed/hill grade, this has just been observed during ~70- 80F ambient temps. I could pick one of these hot 95F+ days and go sit in traffic with the AC blasting and see where my coolant temps are at, that is probably another good test of anything being actually broken.

mXxxxXm24 /O/ /O/ > Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)
07/15/2019 at 17:51

What obdII scanner do you use? I have no experience with them, but am interested if they give you generally useful information like engine temp. I feel like my Miata runs kinda hot, but the needle on them had been dumbed down ( on NA8’s and beyond right?) like the oil pressure, so you never know unless it’s a serious concern lol.

Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) > mXxxxXm24 /O/ /O/
07/15/2019 at 20:29

Oh yeah the temp gauge is entirely useless after the 1.6 went away. It will tell you when the car is cold or when you have already warped the head. At 230F my gauge was right in the center. I was only alerted by the rolling boil going on in my overflow tank. I believe I use the ELM327 bluetooth scanner, it was cheap but seems to work (going on 7 or 8 years that I have used that one actually) . Refresh rate is pretty slow (like 1hz) so its not very useful for realtime data any faster than that. But its been trusty for coolant temp monitoring and checking/clearing OBDII codes. Also neat for collecting data to overlay on HPDE videos. Note that the bluetooth version WILL NOT work with an Iphone because Apple has BT on lockdown. There is a wifi version that should work fine though.

mXxxxXm24 /O/ /O/ > Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)
07/15/2019 at 21:43

My gauge alerted me when a heater hose ruptured at least, well actually I can’t remember if it was that or the smoke from the coolant spraying on the back of the engine that alerted me. That was a fun Christmas night . Anyways that sounds like a good tool to have around, may have to invest. I do have an iPhone. Damn bluetooth issues almost make me want to drop iPhone.