First mods for 96 Prizm

[justjohn]

Alright, so some of you may remember my thread asking what car to get. I ended up with an automatic 96 prizm. I'm pretty satisfied considering I only had about a one week time frame. Automatic sucks, but I got it from an old guy who moved like molasses, so I doubt it was driven too hard.

Anyway, I got 29-30 on the first 3 tanks, bitter cold and lots of snow.


Working on the nut behind the wheel

Just got the tires pumped up

Thinking about instrumentation (see other thread)

Would like to do wheel covers cause mine are rusty and look bad anyway. Best way to do this?

Want to put in a grill block. The car heats up really fast and engine temp gets really close to the middle line even in the bitter cold, so I don't know how much I can block and have it safe for summer. My grill looks like this

Would you recommend blocking the top, bottom or both? Which would make the most difference?

Other suggestions always welcome. Thanks!

[justjohn]

Should I take the lack of responses to mean that I'm doing everything exactly right and don't need any help...

Or more that I should keep it to one question at a time?

[luvit]

well... since it stays so warm... is your fan fuse working?
by your mpg.. looks like you got an epic score for winter time.

get a vacuum gauge. it's easy to install and remove.

[justjohn]

Ok, how do I check if my fan fuse is working?

[luvit]

when i bought my old used car, i checked all the fuses, and investigated any empty fuse slots.
one fuse i found missing was the fan fuse. it was under the hood with a bunch of other fuses.
i saw a fan relay too, but once i replaced the fuse all seems fine.
you'll hear a fan kick on when your temp gauge reads about 2/3rds

btw, i also found a bad relay for blinkers on the backside of my driver-dash fuse box... who put relays on the back where i could figure out how to release it?

[justjohn]

Well there might be some miscommunication. My temp gauge is only hitting 49% right now.

I spose I should dig around just for kicks anyway though.

[Domman56]

I'd block the top grille

[cfg83]

justjohn -

I agree with Domman56. You can block the top grille, and maybe even the top half of the lower grille. If you use carboard for testing, you can just rip it out if it gets too hot.

I may be wrong, but form the pictures, it *looks* like you can stuff pipe-insulation tubing into the front of the lower grill. Some people do that because :

- It's cheap
- It's dark, so at a glance you don't "see" the mod in slots that are supposed to be dark
- It's easy to yank out if you are running hot

You may have vertical slats in the lower grille, so it may not be as straight-forward as I am describing. I am thinking you can cut a length of tube and stuff it in horizontally ... googling ... Ok, you do have vertical slats that are pretty close to the opening of the grille, so tubing may not work as well as I thought :



CarloSW2

[alohaspirit]

ive also seen people stuff those long pool floaters in there as well

but yeah, block the top, watch the temp, then repeat with the bottom

[Daox]

Do you have a scangauge?