A couple years ago we rented RenoFernley for our last Miata track school. I trailered our Spec Miata and Peggy drove the track rat behind me. We went over 89 and just before the Silver Springs junction the track rat suddenly blew the coolant out. The radiator had failed. I feared a blown head gasket too. We swapped cars on the trailer and continued. The SM overheated immediately. Weird start to a busy weekend, but that's how track days are. We added coolant and it ran fine to the track. I called my buddy whose daughter was planning on driving the track rat in the school. He brought a new radiator. We have crewed for each other for years and he too was game to do the break and fix thing. The next morning I took the SM out in the first session while he replaced the radiator in the rat and daughter was in Peggy's class. The SM overheated again. I tried burping it jacked up on the trailer and it still would overheat in about 10 minutes on the track. Meanwhile the radiator swap went in OK but it still was overheating even in the pits. Can't drive both cars home on the trailer, this is getting serious. We pulled the thermostat mostly for giggles and found a noodle of RTV wrapped around it like a tapeworm. A new thermostat made it happy. I had parked the SM on the trailer by now, but on a whim we decided to change it's thermostat too since that was about the only part we could get in Fernley anyway and we were pn a roll here. This time the thing looked fine, but it worked and we ran the car all weekend with no more trouble. So, neither car really showed classic thermostat failure symptoms but both were happy with new ones and they are about the easiest, cheapest thing to replace. Try it before you replace the engine.
Dennis Hale
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