Help R500 Overheating (no fan)

[Ben Fung]

thank you all for your help, a trip to halfords and £20 later i have a temp switch up and running keeping it well the 80's even in traffic. Will fix the issue when I am home next week.

 

Thank you all for your help and kind offers, what an incredible community to now be a part of :-)

 

Thanks to Ben too for his log on

[Guest]

I've too have an R500 Duratec, and like others have mentioned it can easily run into 105c (ish) before the fan kicks in.

 

I too switched mine off when I first saw it go into the 100's (first day I had it on the road) but as I've now found this is normal and the fan (should) come on around 105c.

 

Where are the pics???

[Slipper man]

Is there a sender for the fan on the Duratec? On my K500, the fan is switched directly from the engine ECU. The temperature sensor that is fitted to the radiator is simply there to plug the hole! On my K500 the fan is set to come on at 77 deg, so I am surprised they let the Duratec run so much hotter.

[7 wonders of the world]

105 is not excesive, however most people tuning the Duratec replace the stat with the 82 degree version (available from Burton and others) AFAIK CC use the OE 98 degree version the the R500D.

 

you could also wire in an override switch to make the fan run constantly for prolong hot traffic.

 

Edited by - 7 wonders of the world on 25 Aug 2014 00:05:14

[Guest]

Quoting 7 wonders of the world: 

105 is not excesive, however most people tuning the Duratec replace the stat with the 82 degree version (available from Burton and others)

can you supply a link please?

[7 wonders of the world]

82 degree stat

 

[zetec]

Quoting Slipper man: 

Is there a sender for the fan on the Duratec? On my K500, the fan is switched directly from the engine ECU. The temperature sensor that is fitted to the radiator is simply there to plug the hole! On my K500 the fan is set to come on at 77 deg, so I am surprised they let the Duratec run so much hotter.

 

 

 

Is it set so cold as not to blow head gaskets??

[Guest]

This just sounds like normal behaviour to me. Mine sits above 100 degrees even with the fan on. It appears to be the normal temp that the Duratecs run at.

 

I quizzed Caterham about this recently and they said it was quite normal.

 

Tom

[Slipper man]

The difference in temperature readings may be something to do with where the measurement is taken - Minister told me that at 84 deg, the engine starts to retard the ignition to protect the engine.

 

The head gaskets were never particular weak point on the R500,s (he says, having just had to replace a HG...)

 

The problem with the first cars was that the cooling was marginal on what was for its time a very highly tuned engine. It wasn't helped by the fact that the standard radiator was initially the single pass item and there was no oil cooler. All this was fine for road use, but of course, many R500's spent a lot of time on circuits where the marginal cooling led to oil overheating and failure of the (OE Rover) big ends causing the blow ups that were infamous. Caterham (to their credit) retro fitted - free of charge - the early cars with the upgraded bearings, a triple pass radiator and wired the fan to the ECU. Some (like me) also fitted an oil cooler to be 100% safe. Following the mods, which became standard on later cars, their reliability has been excellent.