I am stumped so far and have not found anything similar on the search feature .

My problem is my car will run at 190 * most of the time , but sometimes it will climb up to 230* or more real quickly . Then a few minutes later it will fall back to 190 just as quickly . Happens mainly when run for the first 5 minutes or so . If it starts to climb and I accelerate hard it rises much quicker . Now when it is acting right I can run the heck out of it and it will stay at 190 . Also when I run it at the track it is at 220 or more at the end of the 1/4 mile starting at any temp.That is not running the fans till the end which cools it down fairly well after it sits .

Now the important info.

stock l98
fans wired to toggle switch (does it w/fans on or off)
new proform electric water pump
new 190 stat (replaced after problem started -no help)
new mechanical temp gauge (thought stocker was bad -nope)
new antifreeze

Any help or ideas will be appreciated as I am out of ideas.

thanks ahead Mike

Also my maf is unhooked . Dont know if the A/F ratio may be off as a result , but car runs great and why would it be OK most of the time ?

 

do you have an air dam?

 

Yes a brand new one . I forgot to add it in my post

Thanks for the reply though , keep it coming

 

ive also heard that(may not be true) that them electric water pumps are no good. that could be it. ive read it somewhere else. not sure where though.

 

No more ideas ?

Guess I'll remove the t-stat & see if that helps . Maybe got a bad one , just seems strange it acts exactly like the old one

 

Sounds to me like things are working the way they are supposed to. When you hit 230 it sounds like the fan comes on and brings the temp down to 190, same temp as your thermostat. Can`t help you on the maf, don`t know.

 

I was experiencing the same problem last week. Plenty of new items in my cooling system like the water pump, heater core, hoses, thermo stat. But the car still was running to hot for my likes, always at 220-240 with my fan always coming on. I had some cheapo anti-freeze 50-50 blend in the radiator. So a few days ago I drained the rad., flushed it real good and put some Prestone full strength antifreeze in and diluted it to 60-40. viola! Car ran at 180 the last two days (which were 90 degrees plus) in lot's of Chicago stop and go traffic with no problems.

Maybe a simple $10 flush and refill will solve your problem too. At least try it before you go and spend money swapping parts.

 

I agree, that`s the best and cheapest fix if it works. If your parts are stock or OEM it sounds like your cooling system is working the way it was made to work. I have good luck with a mix of 30% anti-freeeze, 70% distilled water and 1 bottle of water wetter. The water wetter also acts as a water pump lube and anti-corrosive for the system. The stock thermostat is a 195 and the stock fan switch comes on about 222 on the primary fan and 234 on the secondary fan depending on whether your air is on or not. You are not going to get your temps down much below 200 during summer when the air temp is over 100, depending where you live.