Ok so yesterday my catless downpipe was put on my Solstice GXP and it was getting dyno tuned. On the dyno, the coolant was hitting 205-207 degrees. On the street I usually saw 201-205 degrees so I never thought anything of it. The tuner thought the thermostat might be bad so we pulled it and found out that it wasn't. In an effort to bring the coolant temps down, my tuner put two 1/8" holes in it. On the dyno it brought the coolant down to 190ish. Seems great, at first. Last night and this morning I was driving it around and I noticed the car now struggles to hit 170-180 degrees. Hmm... So now I'm wondering if I need to put a new thermostat in. I was reading that too cold of coolant temps can lead to an incomplete burn as well as accelerated cylinder wear. Anyone have any suggestions, or been in this situation before?

 

I'd replace it, temps on a dyno are completely different than real world temps. Unless the shop has some amazing fans, driving will always move more air over the radiator than what is moved by fans on a dyno.

 

the car will take time to warm up.

mine will maybe we at 175* by the time i get home some days in 70-75* weather. But then again im only in the car for 15-20 min

 

His should be warmed up fairly quickly, the GXPs have the LNF in them (iirc), in 70-75F weather my car hits 185F in 5-10mins of light driving

 

I understand that, but the car used to get to 200 degrees in just the short 10 minute trip through the city to work. Now it only reaches 160. 20 minutes seems like an absurdly long time for a car to warm up.

I think I'm going to try to swap it back to an unmodified one this weekend and see how she runs. I'll just have to watch my dashhawk to make sure no knock shows up because of the increased coolant temps.

 

yeah good idea, if you have the other one that wasnt drilled then swap it back. good luck

 

Yep you are correct, the GXP has the LNF in it. The cat warm up cycle is even still there, so by the time it idles for 30 seconds before I get it out of the garage it's already at 120 degrees and then takes an additional 10 minutes to warm up another 40 degrees.

 

Jesus, turn the damn cat warmup off

Even temps of 200 aren't horrible, shouldn't cause any knock.

 

Well I was fine with leaving it on so that everything warms up faster. That way I don't feel bad about making 5-10 minute trips all the time, and I get to romp on it a little faster. I blew the head gasket in my old grand am by not letting it warm up enough before stepping on it.

Ok, I don't know how much coolant temps play into knock so I was being cautious. We did discover that the reason we couldn't run much timing was because the stock intercooler just can't cool down the air enough so the iat2s were coming in quite high. I'll be putting on a phenolic IM spacer here soon and the intercooler is going to have to wait til spring.

 

Back to back pulls on a dyno is tough on any IC, you should dial it in close and then go to a track (or mexico cough any open road cough) and then get the WOT timing set.

 

That's what we ended up doing. It only took 10 degrees on the dyno, but we were able to give it 14 degrees once we got out "in Mexico".

 

Your tuner is scaring me.

 

Yea...find a new tuner These cars run hot. 235+ then worry.

 

The temps were normal to begin with. I don't see why you modified it at
all.

 

The tuner was ZZP, so that's why I didn't question it. It wasn't until later when I noticed the car doesn't really reach it's running temperature anymore.

 

uh, you let someone drill holes into a perfectly working thermostat? dyno airflow =/= real world.

 

Dont know why they didnt just turn the fan on on hp tuners and waited for a cool down

 

This. Your tuner did you no favors. There is nothing wrong with seeing 205 to 207. He shouldn't have screwed with the thermostat and DEFIANTLY should never have drilled holes in it. You're tuner is 30 years out of date in his principles and methods.

You need to go elsewhere, ASAP. Get an OEM thermostat put in and get you tune reviewed.

 

You're telling us that zzp drilled two holes in your thermostat when they saw 205 degrees?

really?

 

Lol. In for more about this thermostat drilling and wtf is going on.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S4 using CobaltSS

 

I wanna know about this phenolic spacer going on an lnf
Or is that a kappa thing???

 

People really need to stop worrying about temps. Ecotecs run hot.

Now go buy a new thermostat.

My stock 2.2 did 248* around the track and did just fine. (was slow as **** because S/C IAT was HOT)

 

and this is why I dont buy ZZP parts or let them work on my stuff ladies and gentlemen!

 

Something doesn't add up here.

 

I see why they did it, but why noy just let the car cool down then do a run?