Cooling?

[preston27]

This weekend my car ran 210 water temp in 80 ambient tempatures. Front wings were flat and sidepods were fully baffled. Water Wetter and distilled water 24lb cap. Any ideas?
Thanks

[kea]

Very old radiators?
Internal blockages or bent fins?
How was oil temp?

[preston27]

New Radiators 4 races total.
About 225 oil temp.

[glenn cooper]

How did the car actually run (other than "Hot")?

Clogged or restricted rad air bleed lines?
-Take off line(s) at rad(s) and blow through to swirl pot / header tank. Both rads.

Timing is way off
-Set correctly

Carburetion is wacky/too lean, causing engine to run hot
-Clean carb, jets, emulsion tubes, etc. Set float height.

Crap fuel?
Drain and refill with known good.

How old is the muffler? Crazy, but I have seen old FM muff's cause some strange things. They will usually blow/split the body seam out before any issues come about.

[kea]

I'm guessing here because I don't know much about the rotary motor, but if oil is #225 I guess #210 on the water is expected. If you want to drop water temp you need to look into why the oil temp is that high.
Normally on the iron block motors I've run, water temp is close to oil temps most of the time, or water temp has been slightly higher.

[RobLav]

Sounds like the rotary is similar to m/c engines in that they need more oil cooling.

[Albatross]

Head gasket problems are often overlooked when searching for the cause(s) of over heating. I'm not familiar with rotary engine set ups. But, leaky head gaskets are often over looked and most difficult to observe. If you find that small losses of coolant are occurring and you're running higher temps, than a minor blown head gasket may be your your problem. Sometimes bubbles can be observed if you can open the radiator cap and observe the coolant for a period of time without the engine over heating. My oil temperature is always higher than my water temp as I do not run an oil cooler. However my operating temps are considered in the normal range.

[kea]

Rob,
I've heard that too.

[Dave Cutchins]

Head gasket problems are often overlooked when searching for the cause(s) of over heating. I'm not familiar with rotary engine set ups. But, leaky head gaskets are often over looked and most difficult to observe................

No head gasket on a rotary, but if you are losing coolant it may be an "O" ring seeping.

Rotaries do not like high temps for too long.

I found that my Motec was set to the wrong parameters as far as coolant temperature readout.

I used a high quality meat thermometer and monitored the temperature from the swirl pot as the engine came up to temperature and compared it to the reading on my display. The display was reading 21 degress hotter than the themometer.

Check it out - you may be chasing something that isn't there.

[HayesCages]

I've had more than one NIB guages not work properly.