You guys are the experts, and I am just learning, so I am all ears. However, my instinct is that there is still some problem here. I have corrected most issues, but leaving a little bug lurking about can destroy all my hard work prematurely. I want to be very careful that I do not leave things in such a situation as to cause undue wear and tear on the engine, and thusly premature head gasket and engine failure. I have observed that the engine runs quite EXCELLENT until it gets really, really warmed up, and then things seem to degrade.
Let me explain where I am going with this. You see, I have a new engine and it is presently sealed nicely with the felpro MLS gasket. It was a tremendous effort for me, a non-mechanic, to learn enough to be able to properly apply the larning and seal this engine up and reinstall everything so as to make that engine perform so perfectly. I mean for the first 10-15 mins of driving, it runs like I am sure that it did when driven off the new car lot back in the Bush administration.
I saw a video, I think it was a Scotty Kilmer one, about a quick test to determine the effectiveness of catalyst. He pointed out that infared thermometers are cheap (I have a $10 Harbor Freight one) and can be used to do a quick catalyst test. He said that when catalyst is properly working, the pipe before the catalyst will get to about 200 F. And the pipe after the catalyst will get much hotter. However, when you have a catalyst that is really more half-assed, the pipe prior to catalyst will get hot, and may cause overheating issues. Now we have observed previously that perhaps one of my catalysts was not performing as well as the other. The 1 bank catalyst has significantly more rich to lean swing after catalyst than bank 2.
I would like to take more data on this car to prove/disprove my theory. The cat runs as I would expect until it gets really, really warmed up. Then, once warm, the engine is crammed in a tight fit engine bay, and sealed in with protective shielding all around. If something is getting hot in there, on a cool day like yesterday, I noticed the fans were not coming on. There is minimal airflow through that cavity, and so everything heats together. When this happens, the engine quits sounding as perfect, idles a bit rougher, and I notice the temp starting to peak. The thermostat is uspposed to kick on at 180 F.
So let me ask this one, with a 180 F thermostat, what temperature ranges of coolant temp sensor, which is placed at coolant line right as it exits the engine headed for radiator, so what temp ranges are expected for a setup like this? I plan to ensure that my system is cooling properly and all systems are functioning as expected here, as insurance to protect my time and energy investment in that engine.
This is not just something where I plan to drop $350 for new catalysts and then say to myself ‘much better’. I want to catch my bug with data, fix it, then show the improvement in the data. As I understand things, passing emissions is not really the gold standard explaining that everything is working well. It just means that nothing is out of sorts to the point that an obvious emissions problem exists. You can have a problem that will degrade further in the near future and still pass emissions.
This car and its parts have been donated to my little company I am trying to build, 3E8Tech.com, and so I hope to be using it shuttle engineers around, especially this engineer, for hopefully years to come. It would be quite embarrassing for the little engineer shuttle to be so poorly engineered as to break down in front of all the folks wondering, “so are these engineers for this company any good?” And that answer cannot be, “Well I think the engineer has a busted head gasket. Just look at all that white smoke! He should have engineered his car a little bit better, then our engineer would have been here on time! (insert evil mocking laughter here, signifying the end of all hope for the anticipated happily ever after denouement)”
