Engine Temps

[nozza]

Hi guys,

Driving to work today, I stopped at the petrol station quickly came back out and started my car and the temp read 104 degrees, the fan came on and the temp preceded to slowly go back down to normal.

The time between stopping the car and re-starting was prob only about 2mins.

I have been reading various forums to try and determine what the problem is and a lot of them seem to be pointing at HGF, this has got me rather concerned so I have posted here

Any of you guys had a similar problem? should I be worried?

Thanks in advance

[S Works]

Nope, that's normal. The fan's doing what it should do and bringing everything back in line. Congrats, your Elise works

[S Works]

P.S. the fan should kick in at 102deg

[nozza]

Ok cool just never expected to see the temps go that high I guess, it normally sits around 89 degrees

[Phil-CH]

If you leave the car idle with the engine running, temperature will climb slowly as there's no air going through the vents to cool it. I presume that when you switched off the car, the heat in the engine-bay heated the water to above 102° at which you found it after switching it back on a few minutes later..

[Stu Hill]

I was worried about the same thing, watching the temp go up whilst in traffic. I read somewhere (I'll try to find the link) that the water pump is driven from the crankshaft, and thus does get the flow rate at tickover to keep the temp the same. Tried reving it a bit whilst stuck on the motorway, and the temp dropped.
Also read that the there are normally bad connection with the temp sensor and the stack, so if you turn the headlights on the temp drops, magic. I wish that the rest of life was so easy!!
Have a look at www.elises.co.uk you should find everything that can go wrong with you pride and joy there.

[kevin ritson]

There's a school of thought that argues that you should leave the engine running until the fan brings the temp down to the minimum level in it's cycle to avoid heatsoak issues but I wouldn't worry about the odd two-minute fill-up. The digital readout is there to increase the paranoia!

[Phil-CH]

Stu Hill said:

I was worried about the same thing, watching the temp go up whilst in traffic. I read somewhere (I'll try to find the link) that the water pump is driven from the crankshaft, and thus does get the flow rate at tickover to keep the temp the same. Tried reving it a bit whilst stuck on the motorway, and the temp dropped. Also read that the there are normally bad connection with the temp sensor and the stack, so if you turn the headlights on the temp drops, magic. I wish that the rest of life was so easy!! Have a look at www.elises.co.uk you should find everything that can go wrong with you pride and joy there.

That's very interesting, but I can somewhat confirm this from experience. I was driving on the motorway in 6th gear and around 3000 - 3500 rpm and noticed the temperature was around 87°. I then switched down into 4th gear, reving it much higher but keeping the speed at the same space and noticed that the temperature dropped rather quickly to below 80°! I didn't quite know how to explain this behaviour but reading the above, it would make perfect sense!

[kevin ritson]

Phil-CH said:

Stu Hill said: I was worried about the same thing, watching the temp go up whilst in traffic. I read somewhere (I'll try to find the link) that the water pump is driven from the crankshaft, and thus does get the flow rate at tickover to keep the temp the same. Tried reving it a bit whilst stuck on the motorway, and the temp dropped. Also read that the there are normally bad connection with the temp sensor and the stack, so if you turn the headlights on the temp drops, magic. I wish that the rest of life was so easy!! Have a look at www.elises.co.uk you should find everything that can go wrong with you pride and joy there. That's very interesting, but I can somewhat confirm this from experience. I was driving on the motorway in 6th gear and around 3000 - 3500 rpm and noticed the temperature was around 87°. I then switched down into 4th gear, reving it much higher but keeping the speed at the same space and noticed that the temperature dropped rather quickly to below 80°! I didn't quite know how to explain this behaviour but reading the above, it would make perfect sense!

That's quite a large fluctuation - might be worth changing sensors and seeing what it does then - should only get a couple of degrees movement from normal running temp.

[Phil-CH]

Perhaps I should do that, but it really seems to be working fine. I suppose the fact that it wasn't much over 10°C outside probably helped the temperature to drop that quickly... (and perhaps increasing the speed slightly also played a role).

[Mr_C]

10ºC seems ok. mine was changing by about 20ºC when Mike at Horizon plugged his diagnostic box into it and found out the Blue sensor needed changing. now it only fluctuated 4 or 5 degrees.