hello everybody
i just got my first camaro, its a 91 rs with modded lt1 and t56 swapped in. it seems to run pretty good but has a few issues. first it runs hot and starts to overheat if stopped at a light or going slow. i think the car has the stock v6 cooling system, the radiator seems fairly good sized but its a single fan unit and not an aluminum radiator. i changed the thermostat with a duralast 180 and no improvement actually i think the one it had in it was the same one. however when i took it out i noticed it was covered in kind of a film and the coolant looked really watery and like it had some sort of flakes floating in it, rust maybe? it didnt look at all like the dex cool in my truck. also the car has an electric water pump think the brand is like csi or something. any ways im wanting to know if draining the radiator and refilling with new dexcool and water might help? or i looked at the so you want a 3 core radiator thread and found a 2 row aluminum with 2 12inch fans for 220 shipped from the same guy should i just wait and get that? also it has comp 1.6 rockers on it and the pins on the end of the rockers had started to work their way out a little but i got them back in, they dont seem to have started coming out again, also the rockers have some side to side play is this normal? a few of them seem to be making a little noise but havent run the enigne with the valve covers off so not sure which ones, how do i tighten them. i hear alot about adjusting lash but not exactly sure how its done if anyone might know a good link or anything. last but not least the car was tuned somewhat by a previous owner with tunercad i think and he included a computer with the software loaded on it. it has a fairly hot cam in it and once it warmes up and goes into closed loop(i think) it idles really low and badly. i think it could really use some tuning i live upstate sc (seneca) and cant find anywhere around here that does stuff like that. have talked to pcm for less and they can give me a mail order tune but im not sure if it would be ideal for the car becasue i dont have flow numbers on the heads or anything and not sure exactly everything done to it. could i possibly tune it myself? i have no tuning efi experience at all should i just leave at alon and get someone who knows what they are doing to tune it? how much might something like a dyno tune actually cost me? and what kind of benefits could i see over a mail order tune?
sorry this is so long i tried to read as much as i could but i just have alot of questions about the car. let me know if there is anything else i should know about these cars. what kind of maintenance does the t56 need? ive heard its strong but thats about all i know. thanks alot

 

anybody got any ideas on the overheating, its the stock gauge that says its running hot. over 220 degrees sometimes. i got an aftermarket gauge but to install i need to drain some coolant so i wanted to know if it was worth doing with the stock radiator and fans?

 

worth draining and refilling the coolant i meant

 

You may want to make sure that there isn't any air in the system, on the thermostat housing, there is a bleed screw, put a towel on the waterpump and open the screw to see if coolant comes out. Check to make sure that the steam lines from the heads are hooked up as well to the radiator. The radiator in my GTA is an LT1 radiator, but is smaller than the V6 radiator that came out of the car, but does have the double fans. You also may want to make sure the fan is coming on (if it is setup to be controlled by the PCM). It should come on around 210, if it's hooked up to the second fan controller, that one isn't set to come on until like 220 or 225. hth

 

thanks ill check the bleed screw so just open the screw with the car running or hot? i saw the screw when i changed the t stat but where are the steam lines located?

 

Steam lines come out of the back of the heads, go down the passenger side of the intake and then into the TB, another line out of the TB that goes to the radiator. I bypassed mine and ran it straight to the radiator as one of the "free mods" to keep hot water from flowing around the TB, sort of like the oil cooler theory but with the coolant cooling the air going into the TB.

As for the bleed screw, open it up, start the car, when the t-stat opens up it starts pushing air out of it until coolant comes out.

 

ok i found the steam lines they do seem to be hooked up and already bypassed the throttle body so that seems good. i took the car for a drive and waited it it hit 220 or so then used the bleed screw. looks like a little bit of air came out but not much. the coolant is like a light brown color, almost looks like pond water after a storm. also i noticed that although the engine was getting pretty hot while i was bleeding it. (past 220) the single fan did not come on. i followed the wiring and the ground meets up with the water pump ground and is grounded on the body and the positive wire runs to a connector on the far drivers side firewall. maybe the fan switch is broken? how is the fan controlled? i saw a few threads mention a switch on the block but dont see anything like that? sorry ive got so many questions but all this stuff is kinda rigged and i didnt do it myself so its hard to figure what goes where and how things should be done

 

on a side note i got a sunpro temperature gauge and was going to install that this afternoon, on the radiator there are 2 plugged openings on the passenger side that look like they maybe had atf lines at one point or something, could i put the sensor for the temp gauge in one of these becasue they are threaded and the gauge came with adapters for different size plugs

 

The threaded ports in the rad are for the trans cooler. They do not go into coolant and will not provide accurate coolant temp. You need to go to the engine. Each cyl. head has a tapped port for coolant temp sender, just above and between the spark plug holes. If one is unused, remove the pipe plug and use that port. The coolant fan, if it is connected OEM style, is switched on by a relay which is controlled by the ECM. The ECM activates the relay at 226F. Connect a scan tool and watch coolant temp. Scan data will also show fan on/off. When fan is commanded on, it must turn on or there is a problem with the fan, relay or wiring. Flush your coolant. The swamp water look is green coolant contaminated with rust.

 

The sensor that is in the waterpump is for the fans, and been known to go out. From there, it grounds the fan relay to send power to the fans to turn on, I would start looking there to see if you're getting power to the fans.

 

if hes not running lt1 radiator and resovoir its not a pressurized system so the bleed screw will have little effect...im runnin dual fans..you can find used ones here cheap or pull apart...im also using the fully adjustable fan relay ..autozone..on the tow isle $29.99..can adjust for fans to come on at any temp simple screw..i have mine at 160 as well as thermostat....

 

ok i think im going to flush the coolant and see if that helps and check the fan, if this dosent cool it off i think im gonna get the dual fan and 2 core aluminum radiator combo i saw on ebay for the 3rd gens it was like 220 shipped from reliable radiator. my girlfriend said she would get if for my birthday in like 2 weeks is this a good setup.

 

what are you gonna do for fan control

 

http://shop.advanceautoparts.com/web...7CGRP2061A____


these..they even make one to work with ac

 

I'm not running a 4th gen resevoir and my bleed screw works like it should, the fan control is an easy fix to do so the LT1 PCM controls it.

 

which radiator are you using?..and should be an easy fix if if was done right...but to avoid all that he could go universal...and his fan may be straight wired...we all know how common this is.

 

ok so i flushed out the radiator, it was just full of rust and the inside seems to have a bunch of depsoits in it as well. hopefully the rust isnt from the block? anyways i filled it back up with water and drove it around some and it pretty much got just as hot as usual so im just gonna get the radiator and dual fan setup and use a universal fan switch so it comes on at a preset temperature, seems the simplest way to do it, i have no ac and dont plan on adding it so thats not a problem. also i noticed a whining while making turns, could this be the powersteering pump, its only on fairly tight turns like into the driveway?

 

it didnt even seem like there was any antifreeze in there just rusty water but i could be wrong

 

Does the car have the air dam on the front? If it's heating up while moving, then I would check that as well.

 

what does the oil on the dipstick look like? ? ? I hate to go there but it could be a posibility. System is probably all rusted out from running straight water in the radiator over time.

 

if its the stock v6 radiator from a 92 that shouldnt be the problem. i have a 355 in my car and i was gona put a v6 radiator from a 92 firebird in it till i got a good one but it works great and i still use it

 

lets see i have the stock v6 radiator and single fan, however when looking down into the radiator it seems like its full of deposits and when i flushed it out there were some pieces that almost looked like calcium deposits in the bottom of the bucket. so i think the rad might be big enough just that this particular one is junk. so gonna get one off ebay.

 

the first thing i did when i got home was change the oil and fix the problem with the rocker pins. the oil looked dirty but not milky or anything and there was nothing on the oil cap.also when i pulled the thermostat there didnt seem to be corrosion there. in general it dosent seem to be leaking anything, and the fresh oil looks clean.
and yes the car has the airdam

 

going to pull plugs in it and possibly replace them tommorow, anybody have a particular plug they would reccomend?

 

i was told to go with NGK spark plugs. they seem to be well liked.

 

ok i will look into ngk's i have also heard the rapidfire acdelco plugs are good. i pulled a few plugs today they are a pain to get a ratchet on. they looked fairly clean however i measured the gap at .055 and it seems like there is a little bit of a deposit on both sides trying to bridge the gap, so im gonna get new ones and try a smaller gap. .045 maybe? i wonder how much this could affect the performance?

 

NGK TR55 plugs, only ones to run in an LT1, the are pregapped at .050 and are the right heat range.

 

Looks like youre getting some good info. One thing I will reiterate is that any of us who work on these computer controlled vehicles should own a scan tool. I start every diag with a code scan then a data scan of the offending system. A code and data scan tells me many things and is a clear view into the controllers mind so to speak. Snap on bricks are cheap and plentiful. There are still Tech 1s floating around also cheap. One of these is a must have.

 

the guy i got the car from gave me an old laptop with tunercat loaded on it and a cable, does this program have diagnostic software? how hard is this programs to use and what can it do exactly

 

The LT1 i got the headgasket was bad between 2 of the cylinders but it was slow enough for the coolant to just burn off into the exhaust so there wasnt any coolant in the oil,The LT motors are notorious for head gaskets.Im not saying thats what it is but it is a possiblilty.

 

ok hopefully i will have time to test the compression tommorow

 

I'm doing an LT1 swap and have a question about the cooling system:

On a fourth gen, why is there a smaller coolant line running from the driver's side of the water pump to the radiator on the driver's side? I figure the other two smaller nipples on the passenger's side are for the heater core circulation, but I can't figure out why that single smaller coolant line runs directly to the radiator.

 

i am not sure. i found a new 93-97 radiator and the lt1 dual fans on craigslist for less than half of what i was looking at for just a new aluminum rad of ebay so im gonna run this, i will let you know what i find out about the coolant line tommorow when i install the radiator. should i run dex cool or green in this setup. since its now going to be an lt1 with an lt1 radiator will it now be a pressurized system so i can run dex-cool? what makes the 4th gen setup a pressurized system but not a 3rd gen?

 

I am not sure how the 4th gen system is pressurized, as opposed to not pressurized. Thinking about it, maybe that smaller driver's side nipple on the water pump is what sends pressure into the radiator and cooling system--just a guess.

I would use the dex coolant--when I took the radiator off my 97 donor, dex coolant was coming out.

The deal is that you can use dexcool in systems that use the green coolant, but NOT vice versa.

 

Other way around because dexcool is significantly more corrosive than green

 

so i can run dexcool? people have been telling me to run it and then other people have been telling me air will leak into the system and gunk up the dexcool. should i just run some green stuff?

 

System needs to be flushed before running dexcool in it since the pink stuff does not like any foreign contaminants

Use either

 

 

ok so i got my radiator and fans, i noticed that some green coolant was in the radiator so can i just flush this out with the hose before i refill it?

 

My LS1/LT1 guru told me to run the Dex-cool in mine, we had done a cam swap in a LS1 car and the guy who owned the car brought us some good ole Advance Auto green and I looked at it and looked at the guru and he said "I know, don't know why he's running that" so *shrug*

I figured GM put it in for a reason, so I kept it in the car.

 

ok been working on it all afternoon decided to go with an adjustable fan switch from advance auto, almost got everything ready to go just trying to find the best place to get an ignition signal from. excited that hopefully tonight the car will be running cool

 

got everything hooked up just waiting for some epoxy to dry on the unused radiator ports. cant wait to fire it up tommorow. will be filling it up with some prestone dex cool i already had. if all goes well maybe test compression in the afternoon, how do you disconnect the ignition while your testing the compression?

 

unused radiator ports? Not for sure which ones you plugged up but I used all the ports on mine. Unless you're talking about the low coolant sensor port but I left the sensor in mine to block it off.

 

one on the bottom of the driver side and the bottom of the 2 under the rad cap, im using the stock overflow tank

 

Dexcool is nasty, I've taken apart lots of engines that ran it and there is all kinds of crusty buildup in the water jackets. I only run the green stuff.


http://www.consumeraffairs.com/autom...m_dexcool.html

 

well its full of dexcool and water, it seems to run cooler at a stop than while driving. according to my stock temperatrue gauge it runs just under 220 idling at a stop (like in my driveway) crusing down the road it seems to run a little over the 220 mark, although i wasnt going any faster than 40 mph, im going to go to the dmv and get tags for it and i will drive it some more and see how does. btw wheres the best spot in the radiator to mount the temperature sensor?

 

The two ports under the radiator cap, one goes to the puke tank, the other goes to the steam line from the back of the heads the one on the driver side goes to the bottom connector on the driver side of the water pump. Look at the picture below, you'll see two lines under the rad cap, ones goes to the puke tank and the other goes to the left of the TB which is the steam line from the heads.



Again, does the car have the airdam on it, even at 40 mph it should be at around 180-190* if it doesn't, that is why the car is heating up while driving it.

 

the car does have an airdam, the steam lines are connected to the piece that branches off the driver side raditaor hose, the car has an electric waterpump and nothing was hooked up to the radiator from it when i got it, all of the coolant routing is essentially the same as when i got it. ill take some pictures and put up a pic of what i got going on. i got tags today and drove it around some runs slightly hotter than 220 going down the road. it dosent get any hotter in traffic though. this is on the stock temp gauge where 220 is strait up and the only other numerical markings are 100 and 260

 

It may be worth putting a manual temp gauge on the car and see if it makes a difference, you can remove the temp sensor from the head and put it there to start with. Having the steam line routed into the radiator hose isn't a good idea, the purpose for it is to open into the radiator to allow the steam and air to exit the heads, if it's putting it back into the radiator hose, that is keeping that in the cooling system.

 

ok i will rerout that to the factory location, on drivers side radiator hose what does the smaller hose that branches off usually go to?