16v overheating - solved

[treed2@u.washington.edu (T. Reed)]

Well.. everyone was right. It was an air bubble -- one of gargantuan
size!

After goosing the throttle repeatedly with the reservoir cap off (and
watching the bubbles fly up through the bottom hose and out the cap hole),
stopping-cooling-restarting the engine, and filling the reservoir up to the
tippity top with the motor off, I managed to expel enough air to get the
thermostat to open. After that it was pretty easy to get the last burp to
come out and the temps to drop drastically. I had to add about .75 liters
of coolant after the bubble made it out!

Driving around like a bat out of hell my temperature stayed a good 3/8 on
the gauge (the LED being 1/2..) even after 25 minutes. I couldn't believe
it - I've never had the car run this cold before!

It finally heated up to the LED point while I was going about 15 mph
behind a minivan. But, as soon as I "got moving" again it promptly dropped
back to 3/8 and didn't climb up again.

Not sure how much I like this (I like my heat -hot- and -fast- in the
winter) but it sure beats overheating cuz I can drive my car!

The 2 liter kicks ass! Definitely a good combination with the lightened
flywheel - I keep chirping tires when I just want to go slow! Now I need
to set the timing, mixture and idle screw. The idle was been bouncing
around a bit when it was stone cold this morning but I attribute that to a
lack of tuning.

I took my friend who drives a 93 Corrado SLC for a spirited ride in my car
and he just about shat his pants.. "don't kill me.. don't kill me.. don't
kill me.." Hehehehe :) He rode in it before with the 1.8 and was
"unimpressed" to say the least. But then again my cam timing was so off
that my valves were probably part-way open during combustion..

I love all that low end power! Woohoo!!

Thanks to all that replied..

-Toby