temp guage up..but not overheating?

well..i found a N/A supra for sale..an 87..for a grand. i think its a great deal..Konig wheels...but the one problem is the temp guage goes into the red after only about 4-5 minutes of running..but it doesnt seem like its overheating. im lost..and i dont want to pas this car up...someone help me with some ideas :dunno:

Could be air in the cooling system pooling up by the sensor, but be very cautious of that, the air got in there somehow, either because the owner filled the system on level ground and not on a hill or because the car has BHG. That is a really good price if it doesn't have BHG about average if it does though :p You can buy the test kits from autozone and such for a blown head gasket, there pretty cheap if i remember right.
http://www.supraforums.com/forum/showthread.php?threadid=85914&highlight=BHG+FAQ
Read that and see if it has those symptoms, waterfall in the dash, some white smoke out the tail pipe, that kinda thing.

if it is the headgasket..thats something i would be willing to repair..because for now i have a honda accord to get me around..and will sell it after i have a decent working car...i dont plan on doing a ton of mods to the supra...mabye some bolt ons so i figure a stock HG will do just fine...im gonna do more cosmetic then anything...im gonna try to see if it is the HG...the only probelm is the white smoke test at this point wont work...its cold out..so theres gonna be smoke no matter what..and whats the "waterfall in the dash?" i probably know but am jsut being dumb right now :screwy: thanks for the help

Waterfall in the dash means theres air in the heater lines, sometimes it takes a while to burp it all out and it's just normal, but it's usually caused by BHG. Personally i wouldn't waste money on bolt-on's for a N/A, you really don't see the gains for the money you'd dump into it. If it is BHG I'd go ahead and get it if the body's in real nice shape, and do a turbo swap (7M-GTE if you didn't know), if theres a turbo supra in a junk yard close by you should be able to get all the parts for cheap (ECU, wiring harness, driveshaft and R-154 trans, and the turbo differential if it's cheap enough) then you could get a JDM 7mgte for around $600-700, retourqe the head, or just rebuild the top end with a MHG. By the way a MHG is only something like $60 more than a redesigned Toyota stocker, theres really no reason not to put one in unless you just don't want to pay for the machine work or unless you do plan on staying N/A.

well..im gonna check the thing out again today and try to figure out if it needs a HG or not....if it does my next choice is either a decent cheap supra..a VW corrado, or a sentra se-r...