coolin promblem ?... something to look at

As I have posted before I had been having a cooling issue on my BB512i for a while now. While the manual states that the car isn't technically "overheating" until the water temp reaches 115c, my car would run 100c to 105c in traffic which was 5c to 10c hotter than I liked. After checking the fans, sensors, thermastat and what I thought was everything else I was at a loss as to why my car was running so hot. Well, finally I had the radiator removed for a recoring. As it turned out, what was causing the problem was a baffle in the left radiator tank that had came lose and was allowing some hot water from the engine to pass straight through the left tank without passing through the core first. Since most of the water was passing through the core the car wasn't overheating, but enough hot water was bypassing the core and going straight back to the engine that the car was running hotter than it should. After the fix, my car now runs 90c even in town and 95c at the most even in heavy stop and go traffic for miles. The BB512i as well as many other Ferraris have what's called a "cross-flow double pass" radiator. How it is designed to work is the hot water from the engine enters the left radiator tank at the top and passes across the top portion of the core to the right tank and then back across the bottom portion of the core to the bottom of the left tank and out the outlet to the engine. There is a baffle in the center of the left tank between the top inlet and the bottom outlet that prevents hot water from flowing straight down the left tank and out the outlet without passing through the core. That was what was happening in my car due to the lose baffle plate. So, if your Ferrari has a cross-flow double pass radiator the baffle is a potential culpert if your car is running a little hotter than you like. It is my understanding that the baffle is a very common problem in older Lotus and Panterias. The easiest way to check the baffle if you suspect a problem is after disconnecting the inlet and outlet hoses, shine a light in the outlet and use a mirror to look into the inlet to see the baffle. The baffle should be soldered on all four sides with a small pinhole in the middle for air to escape. If you can see a gap between the edges of the baffle and the tank or core, it needs to be resoldered.

 

The Boxer has a temp gauge that is fairly accurate as I have compared it with an infrared digital temp gun and it was dead on.