OK I forgot to plug my EWP back in. The "Check Gauges" light came on and the temp gauge was just about to touch the red but didn't quite. I immediately shut down and coasted to a stop where I then plugged the EWP back in. Temps immediately dropped to norms.

I would have to say I reached 240 F in the heads. Could I have caused damage? I was not running hard and afterwards it has ran fine getting home.

Thank you all,
Ben

 

Check your oil . If it looks milky (only after driving or running the engine)
then you blew a headgasket . If you check the oil after its been sitting
for a while look for coolant signs on the dipstick (this also indicates
a blown headgasket) . Open your oil fill cap and look for signs of coolant
puddles , drops , or steam that smells like coolant (also sign of blown
headgasket . Or change your oil and look for coolant in the oil when
it is coming out of the pan (once again a sign of a blown headgasket) .
Keep us posted on what you find Good luck BTW

 

if you look under your oil cap and there is a white residue you will have antifreze in the oil chances are you didnt because you only overheated for a secon so you might be all right

 

Oil cap dry as a bone. BTW, I have pure water as coolant since I planned on changing it in just a few days from the rebuild startup.

Check your oil . If it looks milky (only after driving or running the engine)
then you blew a headgasket . If you check the oil after its been sitting
for a while look for coolant signs on the dipstick (this also indicates
a blown headgasket) . Open your oil fill cap and look for signs of coolant
puddles , drops , or steam that smells like coolant (also sign of blown
headgasket . Or change your oil and look for coolant in the oil when
it is coming out of the pan (once again a sign of a blown headgasket) .
Keep us posted on what you find Good luck BTW

The oil is 4 miles old with only driving it back home for 1 mile. It is nice and clear like new oil still. Triple checked with the dipstick. I assume that milky would already be appearing after 1 mile of running.

Anything else to check?

 

you should be fine, happened to me for a few seconds, then stopped it, ws fine

 

Keep checking it for the next couple times you drive it. It took mine 3 weeks after overheating to finally blow the headgasket.

 

How much did you overheat by? Were you in the red?

I just did some research online and found that stock 2nd fan is designed to come on at 235 F. WTF???? I drive at like 180-185 all day long since I have programmed my fans to come on at 185.

 

240F should be no problem at all.

 

I did almost exactly the same thing. A bunch of rain and frost from the previous night's cold weather caused my crappy POS fuse holder to short out. I welded up my own 3" CAI and had not painted it yet, the wire was touching the metal, some water got on the wire, and bam, car is in the red. I was very lucky to notice it climbing while I was driving, like honestly, it takes seconds to go up, and how often do you check your temp guage during daily driving? So anyway, I pulled over, wired the water pump directly, let the pump run for a bit, and drove it home. At the next oil change, metal filings in the oil

 

These motors can take a beating, the wife has put ours into the red three different times, first was the restrictor valve breaking, second was a popped radiator, and the third was the smog pump killing the fan fuse and letting the motor over heat...last time was 6 months ago and our CO in the coolant detector thing still shows that everything is fine

I have told her that the temp gauge doesn't start flashing or beeping when it's too hot....

 

Thanks all.

This brings up another point, is there any way to ajust the "check gauge" light so that it comes on at a lower temperature, higher oil pressure, etc?

 

That might be nice, but I have never seen any parameters in the programming to do that.

 

Seeing that you caught it right away and shut down the car, you should be okay. On a sidenote, have you considered installing one of those audible warning devices that activates if the ewp or its circuitry fails?

 

Are you flippin serious???????????? That was a bad move. I would check on your oil regularly. Water boils at 212 degrees, and you got it up to 240 degrees..... which means that the water was actually boiling in your engine. Doesnt matter if you shut it down immediately, until you got fresh WATER thru the heads (which could also be a bad thing......take a piece of glass, heat it up, then pour cold water on it and see what happens as an example) water was adding extra pressure on your head gaskets. It might not happen today, or tomorrow, but there is a chance that the extra pressure weakened the gaskets.

 

Water boils at 212F at standard atmospheric conditions- the coolant system is at a higher pressure than atmospheric (+15psi), thus the boiling point is raised (to 265-270F).
And LT1 heads are aluminum, not glass.