Cooling Down - Radiator/Hoses/Thermostat

November 2011 - I have had my Miata for 18 months and have only logged a little over 1,000 miles - not nearly what I had envisioned when I purchased the car. It finally occurs to me that I had better get moving with upgrading my car for the track and to enjoy more on the street as I need some motiviation to get behind the wheel of my Miata instead of my all-expenses-paid company car on the weekends.
Before I could start the project(s), I was due for a smog check -and- my car started to run hot again. It would overheat mainly at high speeds but not at idle. The radiator looked ok and I was told the water pump had been replaced during a timing belt change just before I purchased the car. I figured it was an old radiator hose that was collapsing at high RPM. I decided to replace the easy stuff: upper and both lower radiator hoses, thermostat, radiator cap, coolant - and I checked the mixture beforehand to make sure that wasn't the issue(it was off, but acceptable).

I felt good and took the car for a spin. Bummer, it still got dangerously hot. When I returned home I remebered my brother Brian gave me an infrared digital thermometer for Christmas last year. It is one of those things you know you want and aside from measuring all of the surfaces in my condo and various parts of my body for teperature differentialsI had never used for a practical reason. I pulled it out of the box and measured the temperature across the radiator - I was getting around 200 degrees at the ends and under 100 in the middle. Aha! A clogged radiator!

I decided that if I was going to replace it, why not upgrade it! I ordered a Koyo 37mm aluminum radiator and cap from 949 Racing and installed it - really nice product.

I found some Royal Purple coolant additive that I had purchased some years ago for a project and never used, so I put that in as well.

My cooling problems were solved and I passed my smog check without a problem :)