03 Cobra is overheating....HELP!!!

[ssblubyyou]

I was driving my 03 cobra out and I noticed it felt a little weird to me..like it had a miss or something..felt it a couple of times slightly while accelerating normally. I looked down to check my guages and holy crap...it was laying on HOT!!!! I immediately turned on my heater only to find it blowing cold air as I was looking for a place to stop. I pulled into a gas station only to open the hood for inspection and found everything looked normal. So I let the car sit 15 minutes or so and let it get back to middle of the guage and attemp to drive again to get home...heater on wide open blowing cold air or barely warm until the guage started to climb....and as expected it overheated again. So I go through the same routine 3-4 more times to get it home in the garadge. My mods are as follows: 2.93 upper, 4# lower, 4 piece idler kit, LFP's radiator tank and resevoir tank (replaced both factory plastic pieces), after market intercooler..can't remember the brand,CAI, LT's, ORX, Magnaflow CB, C&L inlet after the mass air meter. The car only has 40k on it. All the pullies and cooling mods were done by the previous owner and I'ver put 6k on it since I bought it and have owned it over a year without a single problem like this. Please help me diagnose this problem.....thermostat, water pump?:fm:

 

[venom one]

I was driving my 03 cobra out and I noticed it felt a little weird to me..like it had a miss or something..felt it a couple of times slightly while accelerating normally. I looked down to check my guages and holy crap...it was laying on HOT!!!! I immediately turned on my heater only to find it blowing cold air as I was looking for a place to stop. I pulled into a gas station only to open the hood for inspection and found everything looked normal. So I let the car sit 15 minutes or so and let it get back to middle of the guage and attemp to drive again to get home...heater on wide open blowing cold air or barely warm until the guage started to climb....and as expected it overheated again. So I go through the same routine 3-4 more times to get it home in the garadge. My mods are as follows: 2.93 upper, 4# lower, 4 piece idler kit, LFP's radiator tank and resevoir tank (replaced both factory plastic pieces), after market intercooler..can't remember the brand,CAI, LT's, ORX, Magnaflow CB, C&L inlet after the mass air meter. The car only has 40k on it. All the pullies and cooling mods were done by the previous owner and I'ver put 6k on it since I bought it and have owned it over a year without a single problem like this. Please help me diagnose this problem.....thermostat, water pump?:fm:

By intercooler, did you mean to say heat exchanger? Sounds like the thermostat is stuck....not allowing coolant to flow thus causing the fluid to not reach the heater core......thus the cold air.....someone correct me if I'm wrong...

 

[ssblubyyou]

yeah I meant H/E

 

[ssblubyyou]

went out and checked the fluid level....h/e resevoir is full....radiator resevoir is 3/4 of the way empty?!?! Where did it go? Could it have lost it during the overheating mess? I didn't see any fluid spilling out or any dripping from the overflow tube? This has me puzzled!!!! Any help is greatly appreciated!!!!

 

[torqued]

You need to check to see if the radiator is geting hot coolent to it. you can just feel the top of the radiator- if it gets hot then the t stat is opening. If not hot its the t stat. If it is check to see if the fans come on. My 03 had 20k on it and the fan sezed.

 

[BoostFiend]

Sounds like Thermostat to me. Do the troubleshooting that torqued suggested.

 

[351stang]

It's probably a blown head gasket. After everything is cool, refill the system and run the car with the cap off:

Indications of a blown headgasket
a.) There are bubbles indicating that gas is entering the cooling system
b.) The level sucks down, indicating water is entering the combustion chamber (although I've only seen this once when there was a pin-hole in the cylinder head).

Quit driving your car. Next time something like that happens a tow is a lot cheaper than a new engine.

went out and checked the fluid level....h/e resevoir is full....radiator resevoir is 3/4 of the way empty?!?! Where did it go? Could it have lost it during the overheating mess? I didn't see any fluid spilling out or any dripping from the overflow tube? This has me puzzled!!!! Any help is greatly appreciated!!!!

 

[1Quik46]

Heater Core is bad

 

[black99lightnin]

Another thread with similar overtones to all the others that are blowing out coolant. We need a sticky.

BTW, my problem still exists. Car runs perfect, no miss, no overheat, no oil/water mixture. Drive it 45 miles each way to work the last two days. Scanning with Predator never gets above 194 at 80 mph, 225x rpms.

 

[jm@ReischePerf]

I'm leaning towards thermostat on this one but head gasket is always a possibility. However any cooling system will start seeing bubbles when the cap is off due to no pressure in the system, the coolant will start boiling off of the passages in the heads.

To OP: Any recent work done that would open the coolant system, when was the last time you checked coolant level? You may just have an air bubble in the system or a bad radiator cap/reservoir, look for coolant loss under the car when it's parked.

 

[jrd699]

head gasket would still produce heat to the heater, and a simple check of oil, car smokin will also indicate head gasket. DEFINTLY t-stat, try easy stuff first and mak sure u burp the coolant should remidy prob.

 

[WHiTE03MACh]

Man if the heater is blowing cold, there is NO COOLANT getting to the heater core. Meaning the t-stat is probably stuck! If your engine is HOT and the heater is cold, that tells you right there that there isn't coolant running out the back of the head into the heater core. Drain coolant, change the thermostat (make sure you install it the same as the other one)

4valves are a PAIN about getting air in the coolant system. When you fill her up, crack the vent plug on the tube going into the head. Once you've filled the radiator, take one tube off of the heater core at the firewall. Use a funnel and fill the motor through the cap in the coolant tube until coolant comes out the tube going to the heater core. Then reconnect and seal up. Run her and make sure everything operates well.

PM me if you have any problems.

 

[jm@ReischePerf]

FYI - The heater can blow cold anytime there isn't enough coolant in the system. A head gasket leak can force air into the system which forces coolant out also causes an air pocket.

Regardless I say change the thermo first, Stant 170* works real well in these cars.

 

[hotcobra03]

take your pick..all the above....i had my heater core go.bypassed hoses..have a new core but eveyone knows how easy it is lol...you can remove the thermostat and pressure test the system if your car ran hot i would change oil also,,just safey

 

[whiteboyz79]

Man it's been a year and I'm still dealing with this sh!t. Granted I park my car for 5 months out of the year due to the weather and salt but hell......it's been almost a year since I actually drove her last. Got some distilled water and going to attempt to burp this thing a couple more times before I pressure test it and move on from there.

 

[WOMACK03]

My car did the same thing about a month ago. Coolant started misting my window on the driver side only. My first thought was: BLOWN head gasket.

The thermostat was stuck shut!

I felt the thermostat housing, and it was fire on one side and ice on the other. Changed the thermostat, and it was good to go.

 

[ssblubyyou]

well here is a little update on the overheating situation....I still have it!!! I had a tech at my dealership install a 195* t-stat because I couldn't locate a 180*, replaced it and burped the car. Well it was sitting at 3/4 guage on the temp. I wasn't happy at all so I drove it home and replace the radiator cap with a new one, same exact kind.
A few days later antifreeze was still being puked out and resevoir is low and it starts to get hot again. So I top it off again to keep it cool. Next I take it to a Ford dealership down the road from mine and have them check it. They take out the 195* t-stat and install the 180* t-stat and also drill a couple of holes in it too, swearing they fixed it. Check the coolant level a couple days later and it's a little low again. Take it back to Ford today and they pressure check it....said it held pressure with no leaks. Said they burped the system again, let it idle for two hours along with a 15 mile test drive. I get it back to work and again it looked just a little low but I leave it alone. Drive it home, 5 minute drive, and it's dripping antifreeze from the overflow tube... never got hot but im sure it will as soon as it gets a little lower on coolant. Ford swears they cant find anything wrong and it's not a head gasket. I'm about $300 deep in this and I'm back to were I started. Ive got a new radiator cap, new 180* t-stat, and a car that is puking antifreeze!!! I just want to get it fixed....any help would be appreciated so I can actually drive it without fear of it overheating and get my tune from amazon for my new NX wet kit that I just installed but haven't used since I'm afraid to make the 6 hour ride only to destroy my car. Also ford said the fans are working properly too....the tech said I might need a bigger radiator...but I asked him why it was fine until the last 100 miles when all this happed and the car has been modded for the last 10,000 miles....just didn't make sense to me. Do I need to burp it myself again, water pump, fans,.....whatelse besides a blown head gasket!!!???? By the way I changed oil after the first overheating and no water was in it or milky look at all???? This has me puzzled....please help me out, thanks

 

[venom one]

Maybe I missed it but........have you checked your coolant for any oil presence? I had oil in my cooling system and a compression test came out ok. Only a leakdown test tested positive.

 

[ssblubyyou]

what is the proper way to check for oil in the coolant? Visually or is there a certain test to do?

 

[venom one]

what is the proper way to check for oil in the coolant? Visually or is there a certain test to do?

Visually inspect your resevoir, put a flashlight against the side of it.....has it changed color? Mine ended up looking like chocolate milk in the end. Made a mess of things....