I have one of these cars, and I run the living dogcrap out of it at the autocross w/o issues, so it's not inherent in the vehicle. Try checking to make sure the fans come on, if you wire around them, it's no good, the fans will just wear out faster and the car will not warm up in the winter. (well florida winters it will warm up). Start the car, get a cheapo mechanical temp gauge, or a cooking gauge, stick it in the radiator and see what happens. If the car gets hot and the fans don't come on try looking at the sending unit for the fan switch. If it goes up immediately then look at the thermostat. Worse comes to worse, the car could have a bad head gasket. Are any of the plugs rusty, is the compression close across all cylinders? When was the last time the coolant system was serviced?