weird problem tonight re coolant

ok i don't even know where to start.
Here's how part of my night went. I drive to this girls house, we go to dinner. No problem. We come back and i park it in front of her house while we are talking in my car for awhile and i leave the engine running. After about 15-20 minutes i see smoke/steam/vapor coming out of my hood on the passenger side. Common sense told me it was the coolant. Now this being about 9:00 at night i can't really see anything in my engine bay but i know the source of the problem. I pop the coolant reservoir cap that has some coolant on it and the coolant that is in the reservoir is at the max line and is steaming and sort of boiling. My first reaction was that i was low on coolant and i might have just been because i haven't checked it in awhile, but that would cause overheating right? not coolant pouring out of the bottom of the engine bay and into the gutter right? I thought a hose had come loose or something and since the engine was still hot as well with the hoses, i didn't get to look or poke around to see specifically where the problem was. I could however hear that liquid was still boiling or something ten minutes after i turned it off. Out of somewhere i thought thermostat. Again, i have yet to see if it is just a hose or lack of coolant or a hole or something. So i leave my car out on the street for a couple hours while i go inside and waste time and leave at 1:15 praying that my car would start. It did and i got home 10 miles away no problem. Still a little cautious i never got it above 3k rpm or 50mph. I pull in my driveway and there's no smell of coolant or any of it on the ground. I reached up under my bumper/lip on the passenger side and i feel liquid but it's kind of cold but it is coolant. It might have collected from earlier in the night there, but now there's no problem. I'll see in the morning about taking my car to school and i'll probably take my mom's sable :banghead: Really curious to see what the problem is tomorrow after class, anyone got any early predictions?

Most ironic part of the night:
I quote myself here as said while in the car sitting outside with motor running; "Hey, i hit the 80 thousand mile mark, eh, that's probably gonna require some sort of serious service." No more than 2 minutes later my car starts smoking. :rofl:

Possible items to check, Your thermostat, if it sticks closed that will happen. Your cooling fans, did it go on? You do have a temp gauge, start it up and watch it. Your water pump may be blown, I doubt it but possible. Clapsed hose, clogged radiator,bad radiator cap. Happy hunting! :2cents:

start by not leaving it run for 15-20 minutes next time. if you know you are going to be that long, shut the car off. Just my :2cents:

cars should be able to stay cool no matter how long they are left at idle... esp since it is becoming cooler.

I thought that when you were getting air bubbling out into your overflow tank it had to do with compression being leaked into the cooling jackets ie blown head gasket?

I thought that when you were getting air bubbling out into your overflow tank it had to do with compression being leaked into the cooling jackets ie blown head gasket?
shut up shut up shut up!

Here's an update. I get back from class today and see where i left my car at home and there's a little coolant underneath, but it appeared to be dry as if it was from last night when i parked it there on the street. I pull my car into my driveway to attempt to diagnose the problem and/or fix it. I check my reservoir and it's empty, bone dry. And since i can see traces of dried coolant down by my bumper my first thought was to get some coolant and put it in and then start up my engine and see where/if it's leaking. I do that, at first i get some of that steam i saw a lot of last night, but it wasn't as much and didn't last more than 10 seconds. I figure i'm good to go. As my engine's is running i hear something rattling in it, like two pieces of metal. It end up being my intake (AEM CAI) hitting the metal by the battery, the frame. So i was like, wtf why is it loose? I look up even further and see my intake is not connected where its supposed to be. So again, wtf?! It's just as if someone unscrewed those O clamps just enough to slide the tube out. So it's sitting like two inches away from the intake manifold or throttle body, i think i got my terms mixed up there. So being stressed for time to get to work, i pop it back in as best as i can and screw down those two clamps that hold it around the rubber. I think the bottom isn't all the way in but i'll deal with that when i get home tonight. What would no intake tubing or filter do to an engine? I don't know when it came undone specifically at what time last night but i did end up driving it at least 10 miles assuming it came off when my car was idling before i shut it off. Please tell me this is the source of my problem, and if it is, how did that affect the coolant to boil? did it throw the thermostat off while the air intake was off?

Having your intake off doesn't do much harm, except maybe let a few dirt inside your throttle body. But that isn't going to cause any of the problem that you mentioned. You have to look at your radiator first. It might already be due for cleaning or even overhaul. Worst case is if you need to get a new radiator. Best that you take it to a mechanic to see what's really causing it--as posted above, there are many causes for it happening. Of course, the best is to take it to a Honda service center.

ok this is just the weirdest thing. The coolant problem has stopped and i didn't do anything but put the intake back on. Though now i'm having problems with my A/C. It just ain't working. I noticed it on the way to work right now and haven't had a chance to check things out obviously. I'm hoping its a fuse or something stupid, but any chance this could be related to my above problem?

Well, I had leaking coolent last year. It leaked out under the car when parked. I put kiity litter under the car to see where it was coming from. I traced it uses the drip spot in the wet kitty litter to the drain cock vavle. I tried to get the machanic to replace it. No no, he says, it's something else. So I drop off, he does something else, repalces the resiovor cap and raidaotr cap (he put too low a PSI cap on too, 13psi, stock should be 16psi 1.1kg/cm2). I am like, WTF?? I go back, and tell him...it's still leaking....it's the drain cock vavle, check it!! He hooks it up with 14-16lbs pressure in the system, no leak...hmm..bone dry. I tell him, look, maybe it doesn't leak when there's pressure in the system (i.e. driving), but look, the damn drain cock valve leaks, I have felt the damn thing leaking parked in my driveway, as well as seem the coolent puddle underneath. So he relucktently replaces it...and viola....no more leaking coolent. I was right all along, it was the drain cock vavle. I just thought I'd tell this story, since I was correct in my assessment of what was wrong, and if I had listened to the mechanic, I'd have spend a fortune on shit I didn't need to replace. I've never had a problem since I replaced that drain cock vavle. I've run into this a bunch, mechanics completly wrong in the problem. On a side not, I replaced the crappy 13psi (.8kg/cm2) cap he put on (too low psi) with a 1.3kg/cm2 (18.5psi) blitz high pressure cap.

by any chance you got a pic?

by any chance you got a pic?

of the drain cock valve or the high pressure blitz radiator cap?

of the drain cock valve or the high pressure blitz radiator cap?

either :iceslolan