Thread: Overheated last night - doesn't want start today

UPDATE:

Canadian Tire doesn't sell compression testers. I'm going see if I can get one at Part Source or Princess Auto or a friend.

Also started up the car and drove it into the garage last night. I'll try to change the thermostat and get the compression tested sometime this week.

Yuadman

Good idea to check the MAF ground.
Another guy locally had bad idling issues and his MAF ground measured 14 ohms resistance! Ran fine after he fixed the ground.

yeah i definitly think checking the maf is a good idea, you can get alot of issues with air fuel mixtures if you have bad connections to the maf, i run a map sensor on my ser personally however my gfs volvo's maf gets really finicky when it doesnt have proper grounding. this can effect the idle,gas milage and obviously the air fuel mixtures

i had at bought a 1.6 ga rad i my nx...(bought the wrong one) and my old nx went to 230-240 degrees and never overheated or blew the rad cap....i would just turn the heat on and it would drop to 210 in a matter of seconds....

then i got a 2row aftermarket brass rad and never went [pased 180*

Update:

Purchased a compression tester from Princess Auto. The problem is a can't get the car to idled to warm it up. Can I get any useful information if I do the test with the engine not warmed up?

Here's more useful info I should of mention earlier but slip my mind. The car has 360,000 km on it and it has overheated before. Back at 90,000 km the water pumped failed and I didn't catch it in time. I knew something was wrong when the heater stopped working and the stock temperature reading was high. I had the water pumped replace on warranty and the car seemed find. Years later while changing the spark plugs I notice that there was oil on the spark plugs. The head must of gotten warped when it overheated way back then.

This engines has been through a lot and has been well maintained to best of my abilities. I've used Mobil 1 synthetic since I purchased it at 67,000 km and change the oil at 4,000 - 5,000 km. Over revved it twice while drag racing at Cayuga and had to have the head rebuilt. I've done 3 all day track days and 30+ solo 2 event (autoX). Most of this with the warped head. Its never idled smoothly after having the head re-built and s3 cams. Passed all 4 emission tests legitimately. And it almost passed the emission test the day it overhead.

Yuadman

Here's a photo of the plugs when I took them out last night.

PICT0011 | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

That's oil on the first plug's threads.

Yuadman

Plugs look really old but otherwise okay. If they aren't old, then you're running a little rich, and/or have plugs that are too cold.

Yes you can get useful information by doing a "cold" compression test. Don't worry about warming the engine up. Just crank it over with no spark plugs in and the tester in each cylinder respectively and let us know the results. Somewhere around 150 psi cold is gunna be good. Anything real low, or one cylinder being a lot lower than another is the real problem you're looking out for.

also make sure to do WOT when compression testing

Oil on the threads could just mean the little O-ring gaskets around the spark plug holes need to be replaced, the ones you see with the valve cover off.

Yah, I meant to mention that as well. Like Isfahan said, the oil is usually a sign of poor valve gasket seal, not anything major.