Last night while driving the S I noticed that the temperature gauge was only showing 2 bars. It was around 50deg outside and I have an AEM CAI. When I would up shift the gauge would show the normal 3 bars and then go back down to 2. BTW, I was not pushing the car at all during this time and the car seemed to be running perfectly.


Is this normal?

 

yes..

 

So you're saying that after it went back down to 2 bars, it stayed there? Do you have cooling mods (like a lower temp thermistat or fan switch)? If you don't, then this is a bit odd unless you caught it just when it was at the threshold of going to 3 bars and the slight change in airflow going through the rad (from your upshift), to make it go back to 2 bars.
I drive my car in sub-freezing temps much of the year and even when the outside temp is down to -30*C, I can always get to 3 bars.

 

Several people have reported this and I wonder if there is quite a variance in the temperature sensor and/or gauge. I have a full set of cooling mods and monitor my coolant temp with a Carchip. In cold weather it is 175-180F with three bars and even on the track in 100F it runs 185-200F still showing three bars. I am guessing production standards are allowing a variance in readings and yours is on the cool end.

 

The car stayed at 2 bars for about 7miles. Then it went up to 3 bars for a few minutes and then back down to 2.


I even Vteced it after I knew that it had warmed up (still at 2 bars though) and everything was fine.


Odd.

 

Normally, it takes my car about 4-5 miles before it shows 3 bars. This is at 80deg and above though.

 

I had a problem that was causing my temp to actually drop to 1 bar on the highway. It was so bad that I couldn't ever VTEC on the highway. I thought it was a defective thermostat or temp sensor, but it wound up being a loose connection on the temp sensor (on the IM near the firewall). I have no idea how a loose connection would manifest itself in that way, but it hasn't done it at all since I jiggled the connector.

 

Could you please post a picture of what you jiggled?

 

Come on, Gernby. I brought in the "MAP whack". You can give us the "Connector Jiggle".

 

I couldn't post a picture without taking something apart. The coolant temp sensor is at the extreme rear of the intake manifold neat the bottom. It was difficult to even get to the connector due to the tight squeeze between the IM and firewall. The "jiggling" that I did on the connector was my futile attempt to unplug it.