So, for anyone who comes across this discussion board down the road and have tried the things I tried to no avail and are 99% confidant (through testing, not prayer) that your head gasket isn't in shambles, I FINALLY found the solution to this nightmare, partially on my own and partially through research. Part one, there is a ground wire near the passenger side lights. The ground contacts on my car looked like crap so I thoroughly cleaned them up including the contact points, screw, and I sanded the paint around where the washer would meet with the frame for better grouding. This gave the fan more "roar" if you will, then what it had before. Did it solve the temp going up still? No, not really, as it would still go up to 3/4 then come back down, albeit faster then before. The second part solution was ditching the lame fan switch and going with a Mishimoto 80C fan switch. The car now drives like every car I've had before, the temp holds at right below the coolant "logo" if you will, to the right and doesn't move from there no matter what, and I tried my hardest tonight to get it to budge including full blast AC at idle with no movement, where before this would have made the temp guage go up up up before the fan ever kicked on. Further, the fan isn't on all that much and does cycle off at idle and once you get moving, it just seems to do a better job of catching things before it gets out of hand and leaves it where it should be, without ever budging. The thermostat opens at 170 so no interference there. I don't know why the "OEM" rated fan switches (all three of them) didn't work out, and frankly, I don't care. All I know is that it is working the way it is supposed to now and that's all I care about so I figured I'd share my solution with you. Since the car first started doing this, the only thing before going with the Mishimoto fan switch that made a big difference was going to a new radiator. However, if I had it to do over again, I would have gone with the double radiators that you can find anywhere on the net, Mishimoto makes a good one with a better than OEM fan system.
The only things I can think of that may have effected the other fan switches were that I have a Duralast thermostat in there which advertises "50%" more flow through at open then OEM. Maybe the coolant had to get hotter to make contact due to more flow through the thermostat which hadn't been considered by Honda when the car was made. Maybe the fan switch somehow grounds, through the threads, to the thermostat housing and since the housing is as old as the car, the contacts aren't as great which throws off the temps and makes the Mishimoto more effective. Like I said, I don't know, and as mentioned above, don't care anymore since it is now doing what I want it to do. So, all you can do is try it out, but ONLY if you know your HG isn't bad because otherwise, you mask the symptoms and are waiting for a worse problem down the road. How do I know my HG isn't bad? Leakdown test, pressure test, carbon test of the fluid. All three negative. Two you can do for free, one for $50.
