As you know I got my engine in (34,000 mile 1998 Infiniti I30 Engine). Everything is perfect except a small oil leak because of a loose oil pan screw (fixing on Monday). Anyways, maybe I'm freaking out because I don't want to ruin this engine, but for the oddest reason my engine warms up (water temp guage) ridiculously fast, and doesn't cool down very quickly either. My radiator is in perfect shape and full, and engine oil is full too.

At any rate, the water temp guage never raises above the dead middle, but it never rose before I melted the pistons. I wonder if the needle is even capable of going higher, maybe there's something defective with the needle/guage that doesn't allow it to go higher than the middle. Most people are amazed after seeing my pistons that the water temp didn't rise slightly. Right now due to the fact the engine is warming up so fast I am concerned that perhaps it is running lean again and maybe it's running hotter then spec, but the water temp guage isn't rising.

Any ideas?

Also, this is obviously a newer engine so it is going to warm up faster. I don't remember how fast my old engine warmed up with the SC, but it definately didn't warm up this fast without it.

 

PS - I always baby my car until it's warmed up. Like ~2000 RPM shifts until it's warmed up. I did raise the idle to around 900 because I was stalling out on the old engine after coming down from revs.

 

Hey Brian
my water temp rises pretty fast too. and it never goes above half way. i sometimes think mine is busted too. you should run a test on the water temp sensor and see if the resistance is within spec of the field service manual.


but i dunno if this helps at all or has anything to do with it. i put in Redline waterwetter in my radiator, and the temp thing doesnt go up as fast anymore..
???

--cheston

 

For some strange reason my 98 I30T heated up 3 times as fast as my 95 maxima and my 02. There was nothing wrong with my I30 or maxima so maybe the infiniti engine(or a sensor in it) is designed to heat the car up quicker? Maybe it's part of the luxory infiniti thing

 

Yeah I know BMW's have switches to totally shut off the radiator until fully warmed up. That's good to hear Emax.

Cheston I'll ask John to run that test

 

Dunno about Infiniti vs. Nissan warmup rates but...

SCC hooked up a Techtom (or similar Diagnostic Scanner) to a Sentra and found that it's coolant temp was either cool, normal or hot (not much inbetweens). I'm not sure if this would apply to the upper end cars like the Maxima.

Anyone on this board have an aftermarket engine temp gauge... they can compare it with the factory gauge.

 

My 99 will get to 1/2 on the temp gauge and never go past (which is normal) in about 12-20 blocks at no more than 3k revs until I reach that point...

 

I remember that. They said the factory guage will show normal temp over a wide range of actual temps. So I'd check it with a real guage. OEM, like Chenger said, only has three setting cold, middle and hot....

 

Mine is like that too. It must be standard for us.

 

ghetto.

 

I don't think our guages just have the three settings. Mine seems to stay just under the dead middle on cold nights if I keep driving it soft, and finally when I give it a little more gas it'll creep up to the middle, but if I drive for 15 minutes like grandma it will never rise.

 

I have an autometer water temp gauge. It takes about 10-15mins for the water temp to reach 180F while driving around town when it's about 50F ambient temp. After that, the themostate opens up. At that point, the temp depends on how good the rest of your cooling system.

 

Have you ever tried red line water weter or royal purple, purple ice? It would be interesting to know just how well these products work. I think I may have heard you say something about the water weter before but it's been a while . I am putting some purple ice into my max tomarrow

 

1 bottle of redline water wetter into the radiator. woo! fun stuff.