I have been driving a 1991 RS for the past 7 months, so hold on while I try to get through being a noob.

I bought the car from a kid who said he replaced the thermostat, a few censors, and redid the suspension. Little did I know that the kid put his grimy fingers all up in everything in the car.

My engine has always idled higher, and seems to get stuck instead of normalizing at around 1300. It continues to stay in a position that seems to sound like a cylinder is stuck, or it's unable to fully make the transition to its normal resting rpm. I HAD turned it down because it seemed like the cooling systems were all taking a huge beating from being up at a higher RPM - the fans would also intermittently go out at a higher RPM. We had attempted to keep it around 850RPM sot hat it would still get enough to start, but it wouldn't run the engine so high.

Today was the first time I'd been driving it due to the bolts holding the passenger side front balljoint in becoming stripped. (As I said, this kid really did some interesting 'work' to the car.) It had been sitting on a slant for a good two weeks before I started driving it. it wouldn't start when we got the balljoint reattached, so we adjusted the RPMs again. We put it up to around 1300. (It sounds higher to me, but my tachometer doesn't quite work, at all).

The main issue started today when I noticed that my gauge (which I never know if it's telling the truth, or playing with my mind) was reading at 280. I decided I should pull over and let it cool off, and try to fiddle with whatever might be wrong.

The coolant was boiling.

When I pulled over, I got out and took a look. ALL of the coolant was back in the overflow tank, my oil pressure was reading zero, and the therm gauge said I was all the way up to 280 (but was boiling - so obviously higher). The cold-air intake was still attached to the engine, but it was not attached to the air filter, which was also subsequently detached from where it was supposed to be sitting. (It's plastic, rather than chrome - and seems to sit awkwardly in there, and I feel like it doesn't go with the car)

I took it into the shop, and they replaced the ball bearings in the fan, and straightened out the rod that the fan sits on for me. They said that's all they could see wrong with it as to why it was overheating.

Continuing on with this at a later date, I am having a serious difficulty locating the source of my now-occurring disappearing coolant. All of the hoses have lost pressure, and due to the boiling of the coolant there are airpockets in the radiator. I have flushed that and replaced the coolant: still no pressure in the lines.

I have checked the connections on everything multiple times, and still have come up with nothing.
I would really like aid to know where to go from here.
I can't seem to figure out where it's disappearing. Overflow tank doesn't have cracks, hoses are very soft I need to replace them (but am not sure how as I just started this car fixing business that I've been up to with this ... thing), but I'm also not seeing anything wrong with the radiator.
Due to the accident described above, I had the fan on the radiator replaced. They told me that was the only thing that was wrong, and that my timing belt would need to be replaced. I'd known that for a while, but I didn't figure it could cause the hoses to practically lose all pressure. LIke I said, I checked the whole darn thing and I can't seem to figure out where it's magically poofing to.
I don't have any ideas on how to attack this without causing more problems or spending more than I have allotted for the car.

Any ideas on what else to check?

 

Is this the V8 or the V6?

 

It's a v6, automatic. I forgot to add that to my last message.