The Road Test
- Late afternoon was clear and dry so no better time for a road test.
- Started it up and allowed to warm up on the drive before taking to the road.
- (note to self, refurbished re-brakes not yet tested !)
- Following just a list of notes in time order, using the IPAQ data logger(absolutely bloody
- marvelous piece of kit !!) to monitor the ecu engine temperature.
- Engine start and left to idle, with occasional throttle blips.
- Reaches 92.7deg, at which time the viscous starts to lock and drags air through the rad.
- (I reckon at this point the thermostat is opening too.)
- Held engine at 1500 rpm, temp drops to 89.7degC at which point the viscous un-locks.
- Temp rises to 91.2 and holds steady.
- Check and find no leaks, go for a drive.
- Whilst driving, temp fluctuates between 90.5degC/89.7degC.......mainly at 90.5degC
- (I remember that 91.2degC used to be the average with old rad whilst driving......in summer heat)
- After some 20minutes driving return to house.
- Sit on drive with engine running and temp holds rock steady at 91.2degC.........for 6 minutes !!
- (ambient temp around 12degC)
- Hold throttle at 1500rpm for 2 min, during this time temp goes:-
- 89.7degC
- 90.5degC
- 89.7degC
- 90.5degC
- Allow to natural idle for further 2 minutes, temp:-
- 91.2 after 30 secs
- 92.0 after 30 secs
- 91.2 after 30 secs, steady therafter.
- Drive into garage, switch off (normally would switch ignition on and run the heater fan on full
- for a short period to pull some heat out of the heater matrix, but not for this test)
- Temp rises to 93.5degC at which time the aux pump runs.
- Temp continues to rise to 94.2degC
- After 1 minute, temp drops to 92.7degC
- After 1.5minutes temp drops to 90.5degC and pump switches off.
- After 1minute temp rises to 91.2degC
- After 1 minute temp rises to 92.0degC
- After 1 minute temp steady at 92.0degC
- After 1 minute temp drops to 91.2degC
- Start engine for 30sec, temp drops quickly to 89.0degC, switch off
- After 1 minute temp rises to 91.2degC........there on drops slowly.
- Ok, normally after a drive out and allowing engine to idle for so long on the drive, the main fan would
- have come on for a short period, when switched off the aux pump would run, and sometimes it would
- cycle on/off more than once. This did not happen so I'm reasonably pleased so far. The temp has to
- reach 98degC before the main fan cuts in and it never got anywhere near.
btw, brakes were good too !
- In the end I decided against modifying the original fan cowling, I'm not too bothered about originality,
- but I did'nt want to potentially destroy an original part. I made another from aluminium.
Update 28/05/07
Rained all bank holiday weekend, bored to death, found something to do........
OK, so this is what's required to make the OE fan shroud fit, simply cut a lump off each end, screw it on.... :-)
Actually not much after all............
