Thermostat coincidentally gone bad?
I'm about to change out my thermostat but the timing of it going bad, if it has, is strange. Looking for other ideas on what might be going on with the car not getting cooled properly if at all.
My car has run on the cool side including needing tape on the screens even with ambient temps in the high 70's, low 80's. It takes 15 min to warm up from cold to 170 with a thermostat which has always worked fine (predictably).
But I had to replace the right side radiator after getting hit in the sidepod last race. With it buttoned up and ready to test, I added my coolant as I have in the past, just filled up the swirl pot and added more coolant as it burped. However this time when starting it up, the temps went from cold (60F) to 190 in about 8 minutes. I put a fan in front of the sidepod and it kept climbing til I shut if off at 210. So, I'm thinking the thermostat is stuck closed/plugged. Does that seem logical; that I have no or almost no circulation? God forbid the water pump quit instead.
Other thoughts observations: 1) I have a 3 psi water pressure sensor and the light didn't go off until 190F when it usually goes out at 150. 2) The lines off the top of the radiators provide a way for air to escape back to the swirl pot, right? 3) And even if I had a problem with the replaced radiator, the left side one should still be working and keeping the temps reasonable just sitting in the garage idling.
Your thoughts please.
While y'all are collecting your thoughts and insights, I'll go replace the thermostat now and hope something strange happened with it.
Edit; took the thermostat out; no change.
The thermostat has been out
sflaten, the thermostat had the hole in the flange and I took the thing out first thing to make sure it was not the culprit. I won't put it back in til I run at least one session.
Mikey, my concern is that the car is/was warming up much quicker now without the thermostat than before with the thermostat. Much of the time the temps on track were barely above 160F and maybe got up to 180 with a lot of tape on the screeens. I realized I had a problem when I saw temps jump up to 190 in less than 10 minutes just idling at 1800 RPM in the garage.
Anyway, in summary, I'm sure I had an air blockage at first and then had a marginal rad on there. I think I might be OK now with the rad I have on there since it looks near new but not brand new. I got it from my team mate and he's not real sure where it came from and what the condition is, but my last idle test and driving around the cul-de-sac suggested I might be OK. We'll see.
Roland, the gage looks to be accurate; it reads ambient air temp when stone cold and "feels" accurate when it gets hot; it's just how fast it gets hot is my concern.