Rover Turbo 5exi overheating

[Gowles]

Hi Everybody!

Having joined the forum a while back I think that it's about time to overcome my shyness and introduce myself...... AND admit that I would really appreciate some assistance from the enormous pool of 5exi knowledge and experience!

I bought my 3-year-old 5exi earlier this year from a guy who had bought it from the builder, who has apparently left the UK for France....

It's a fairly tidy example in grey gel coat, fitted with the 2 litre Turbo Rover engine, controlled by an Autronic ECU, with the intercooler in front of the rad and an annoyingly vented-to-atmosphere dump valve!

I've got the handling to an acceptable level (for reasonably fast road use anyway!), by tightening the loose tie-rods, replicating Elise track & camber front & rear and balancing the corner weights.

The bodywork finish is coming along nicely now and just needs a few days of elbow grease to get it looking as good as gel coat ever will.

My one outstanding problem is that of COOLING, or rather the lack of cooling!
The car runs an electric water pump, which is now on full speed constantly since I removed the variable control which had become totally unreliable.
The thermostat has also been removed and I have fitted the biggest fan that I can find to the rad, controlling this with one of those old-fashioned variable thermostats with a capilliary dangling in the "top hose" to the rad. The pressure cap has also been replaced

The current situation is that, when idling or being driven gently, everything behaves properly, with the fan cutting-in periodically for about 20 seconds to bring the temperature back down.

Sadly, anything more than about a minute of "spirited" driving causes a steep rise in temperature that seems to be beyond the capacity of the cooling system to cope with and clouds of steam ensue!

My current thinking is that the cooling system as it is simply isn't up to the job, so I'm planning to find the biggest rad that can be made to fit and to cool this with two fans. I'm also inclined to increase the diameter of the front/rear pipework and am wondering whether to squeeze a second rad with fan into the space behind the engine......

So, before I embark on a spending spree with the car breakers of Kent, I was wondering if anybody out there has a tried and tested solution to my problem?


Many thanks in advance,

Simon