bjay

I had my car thoroughly checked out before I got it and it came back with a clean bill of health. It's been pretty much sitting in my garage for a couple of months because it wasn't registered or insured.



But anyway, today was the first day that I really put some miles on it. When I got home, I pulled into the garage, parked, walked inside. About 35-40 minutes later I walk into my garage and just feel the heat radiating off of my car. I opened the hood and when I went to prop it up with that rod thingy, I couldn't hold onto it long enough without burning myself to get it into place.



The temp gauge never went past that normal spot where it just sticks... but this kind of has me worried. I managed to get the hood open and came back a little while later and it heated up my whole somewhat large sized 2 car garage a good deal. I know these cars and turbo cars in general can run quite hot, but I mean god damn, it's an almost stock FD. Can't say I like feeling the heat coming inside the car through the center console either. :-\



Anyway, please tell me this is normal. :-\

Veritas

Hmmm, dunno about "stock" cars but yes, they do run QUITE warm.



First thing im going to pick up is a vented hood to help out with that heat issue.



T.c.

rotaryinspired

First thing is to get a down pipe. The stock one retains heat in the engine bay due to the precat that sits right behind the secondary turbo. YOu will see faster spooling turbos as well.



How many miles are on the car?



When I first got mine I couldn't touch the passenger side fender after extended driving. Got rid of the stock downpipe and everything is good.

bjay

A downpipe is on my list of things to buy (after a boost and temp gauge), but my car has 43k miles on it and I doubt the precat is allready clogged. I do have an aluminum ast and a mazdaspeed radiator though.



I did quite a bit of driving today and temps were MUCH cooler when I got home this time as I really took the time to drive slowly and let the car cool down before I got back to my house. I gave it a bit of a cooldown period yesterday as well, but for a lot less time. I didn't realize what a big difference a couple extra minutes of cooldown could make.



Also do you guys get heat coming up through your center console? it annoys the crap out of me and makes me want to take off the console to put some insulation down.

rotaryinspired

YOu would be surpised how fast that precat goes bad.

rx7girltk

It doesn't necessarily mean that the pre-cat is bad already, it just retains alot of heat that can be reduced by installing a downpipe.

Signal 2

High underhood temps are normal. The stock twins are like two big furnaces under there and due to heat soak, the temps can actually increase somewhat AFTER shutdown.

Regardless of how many miles, I'd remove the pre-cat, especially if you don't have emissions. Install a quality downpipe in it's place. They're not that expensive, and I'd even spend a bit more and have it heat coated and/or wrapped. Again, not that expensive. There is also "the fan mod" which is simple, free and runs your fans for 10 minutes after shut down to keep air moving a bit.

Vented hoods are nice, but quality of fit and finish varies alot and none are particularly cheap.

Removing underhood heat will prolong the life of virtually everything under the hood, especially plastics, wiring and your vacuum hoses. IMHO, adding a Downpipe is one of the best 'bang for the buck" mods you can do, as it's both a performance and reliability mod.



http://fd3s.net/fan_mod.html

^Fan Mod

Signal 2

Sorry, I missed this earlier. The source of the heat is from your exhaust, especially from your cat which IIRC, is located just about between the seats. Wrapping the downpipe and the exhaust piping, including the cat inlet with header wrap will reduce the radiant heating of your console quite a bit. As well as the casing of your transmission. A role of DEI header wrap at the autoparts store is ~ $40. Another ~$8 for a can of high-temp spray-paint sealant that is suppose to make it last longer.

CantGoStraight

The stock precat doesn't have to clog to create allot of heat in the engine compartment. That is the main reason for ditching the precat (gets really hot, retains heat, cooks all things in the enginecompartment) the side effect is a slight power increase from less restriction, some wahat cooler engine compartment temperatures. Most of us have learned to pop the hood within a couple mile of the house, keep the rpms below 3k , and use the fan mod to circulate air after it's shut down.

jrock byatch

im having the same problem with my car. its a 1990 gxl non-turbo. engine is always really hot and after a while of driving the center consol heats up the car until im sweating. i was thinking of installing a cold air intake. would that help the problem at all? i just figure if it isnt sucking in the hot air it would help to increase the engine life, at least long enough for me to do a swap. its already got 163,000 miles on it. any thoughts?