First, I can't tell you enough how much of a difference an air dam made. Mine kept falling off (the previous owner apparently didn't use washers, I didn't think to because the bolts were there already, until I lost my second one). An air dam + freshly flushed cooling system dropped my temp from flirting with the red to halfway between the 220 and the line before it. A 180 stat dropped me to the centerline b/w 100 and 220, plus or minus a needle's width.

It overheats without the a/c or the heater on when idling/driving slow (<15 or so). I read here that it could be the fans (relays more likely than not), and I know that with with my new tstat I need to put a new fan switch in anyways, so I'm going to do Willie's Total Fan Control (tm) system later on this month. The fan relay is the 4 wire black connector by the firewall high on the passenger side, or is that something else?

Lastly, coolant leaks suck. I thought I had everything running good, let it run for about 30 minutes at idle, sometimes hitting the throttle to about 3k, no leaks. Let my bro use it for his prom, get it back this morning and the entire intake is a pool of coolant? Looks like it came from the t-stat housing or the upper radiator hose (or both) so I'm going to replace the gasket and change the clamp from the plier squeeze type to the screw-tight type. I used black rtv gasket sealer I believe. Is that okay, or should I use something else? How long does it need to sit before I can fire it up and look for leaks? After I cleaned up the big puddle, the coolant is still leaking out somewhere (refilled the bottle to full cold several times, about a gallon's worth of coolant since this morning), but it's not pooling on the intake. Is it possible that it's leaking, and then the engine vibration/heat is sending it elsewhere?

That was my first t-stat/rad flush operation- a big leak is to be expected, I guess

Also, when I went to show someone how bad the old rad cap was I left the engine running (rad uncapped), and when I came back to the car the coolant was arching out of the radiator onto the grass next to my car Water pump seems to be okay at least :sillylol:

 

i'd go after thermostat housing and the black RTV,i use the blue RTV

 

Ditch those ****ty factory clamps as soon as possible and get some new ones. Also i had trouble with two thermoststs leaking that i put sealant on and when i put them on dry i haven't had any leaks. Good luck -John