[736973]

my 456 is running perfectly right now during winter, but in the summer months when ever I am stuck in stop and go traffic, my car's water temperature would get close to 110-115 Celsius , which is around 230 F TO 240 F. that only happens during stop and go traffic. once the car gets going again, it will drop back down to around 90 C, around 195 F. I've flushed out the system and my mechanic checked out everything and changed everything that has to be change. we know the car is fine in every aspect except when it is not moving for mins or stuck in traffic. just wondering if I upgrade the radiator fans and perhaps the oil cooler fan with some racing electric fans which gives you a quite a bit higher CMF, could that solve the problem or be able to lower the temperature by around 5 to 10 degrees C ???? At least that is what my mechanic suggest for me to try. Also a friend that has a corvette C5 that is having exactly the same problem, he upgraded to the more powerful fans all around the cars, transmission fan, radiator pulling fans, the main fan, oil cooler fan. He says it is making a big big difference. The only downside is that it is drawing more power from the battery and alternator. whenever the HID lights and air con are on at night , the voltage will drop to around 10V when it is idling, it quite hard on the alternator. may need to upgrade that too. So with a ferrari 456, should I do the same, any suggestions? anyone here have tried upgrading the fans?? really want to get this problem solve during the winter months. Here where I live only goes down to around 10 C, which is around 50 F. So no need to worry about heat, but in the summer months goes up to 35 C or 95 F..........also any know what is the size , diameter of the oil cooler fan? thanks

[Brian]

456's have no reputation for overheating in any environment. Something is wrong with the car and modifying the car just should not be required.
I live and work on these cars in an area where 100+ degrees in summer is very common. We do not have problems with those cars overheating when the cooling system is working as designed.

Next. There is no way that car should be getting down to 10 volts at an idle. I don't care if you turned everything on, wont happen. You have a fault in the electrical system and it is very possibly causing your fans to run slow allowing the car to overheat or the instruments to read incorrectly.


Sorry but I have to question the ability of your mechanic if he did not put that together already.


Someone needs to do some basic diagnosis that the car has not yet recieved. On a late model Ferrari with their hand grenade alternators you should start there. We test them every service and prior to every diagnosis because we see so many bad ones and they cause so many problems with so many systems. Fix that and then move on to the cooling system.