Quote:
Originally Posted by Mista Bone
Don't remove the coolant thermostat. Coolant could be circulating all the time and engine would take forever to reach operating temp, esp in cooler temps.
Also the coolant would be circulating much faster than normal and not allow proper heat transfer from the engine to the coolant, the restriction of the fully open thermostat is needed for this.
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Please re-read my post.
The idea is to remove the thermostat and block off the airflow to the radiator until such times as you need to vent that heat.
So I simply set the arduino to open up a vent at a specific temperature, until that temperature is reached the radiator remains blocked off, once the temp is reached the gap opens up.
In effect replacing the water thermostat with an air thermostat using vanes controlled by solenoids.
This would actually create a very quick rise in temperature as there is no airflow being forced through the radiator when the vanes are closed. So you can, with this system, drive off and very quickly get a warm engine, then once its reached operating temp the air inlet vane opens up a bit to keep things under control.
Then when things get out of control at lights, the vanes open up completely and the fans kick in, as expected.
The only problem with this is that there needs to be clearance with the road, or at least rollers on the vane at 4 points so it doesn't get damaged going up slight inclines or into driveways.