Ford Ranger front grill aero mod

[mthornton]

Aero modification to the frontal area of a 2010 ford Ranger. Photo attached.
Materials used : white coro-plast + white duct-tape
Materials cost : $12.00
Installation Time : 1 Hour

Note the big gaps around lamps & between bumper & grill are all taped.

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> Today was the 1st opportunity for a test, of 180 km. I will have fuel consumption numbers tomorrow (fill-up #2 with mods).
> I monitored the engine water and intake manifold temps carefully during the trip, and I suspect I was a bit overzealous in the degree of grill-block. With an average ambient OA-trip temperature of 0 DegC, the engine water stayed cool enough, but the IA temp rose to +30 DegC, which is a bit warm. When I ran the interior heater, the IA temp would drop ~5DegC

For tomorrow's trip, I'll cut 2 ea 1" x 6" slots in the centre of the grill for additional cooling, and when it gets cold (ie -20 DegC), I can just tape over the slots.

[BamZipPow]

Looks good...

Are you running any kind of ODBII reader/gauge like the Ultra-Gauge or Scangauge II? It would give you more information to base yer mods on.

Not sure about cutting the slots that big fer now. You can always cut it small and test. Cut a little bit more and test.

[mcrews]

Nice look!

[darcane]

Looks great and welcome to EM.

I wouldn't worry about the intake temp so much. As long as coolant and tranny temp are OK, the leave your grill block as is.

Is yours an auto or a manual? If auto, can you monitor the tranny temp with the Scangauge II?

Add vehicle data and fuel logs in the EM Garage and it cuts down on a lot of the questions about your vehicle.

Mike

[aerohead]

I like what you've done so please take the following as constructive criticism.
Walter Korff,the father of grille blocking,had specific recommendations for cooling system inlets.
If he were to view your project I believe he would suggest that you close off the entire upper grille portion,lower your license plate,then open a single,full-width slot,the width of the radiator where the top of the license plate is now.
The stagnation pressure is highest there and your opening needs to be at least as wide as the radiator unless you extend the nose forward more than a foot to allow for an airtight divergent inlet duct.
As temps warm in the spring additional slot area can be opened if necessary.

[mthornton]

Thanks for the good replies.

Based on today's fuel pump & odometer measurements, fuel-economy improved from 12.5LHK to 10.45LHK ( from 18.8 to 22.4 mpg (usg)), thanks to the grill aero-mod. All highway.

The truck as a manual transmission, engine is 4.0L V6... We have the big engine because we need to carry a pop-up camper, & live in mountains. I'm not concerned about transmission temp at this point.

I added a 1" x 6" air-slot between the front license-plate & the Ford logo, and engine compartment temps, as reflected by AI, were 15 DegC lower, with similar ambient. Lowering the plate is an option, but involves abandoning the stock plate-holder & making something out of sheet metal.

We have a scanguage II, but I find it very frustrating to not be able to store multiple vehicle set-ups. So when I transfer the SC from the car to the truck, I have to go through the painful calibration procedure. This seems an unnecessary limitation.
I'll buy a second scan-gauge (or similar) only after it includes logging & wireless connectivity to a graphic display device.
Garmin is getting real close with the new ecoRoute device.

[sid]

Your work looks good!

It is also the mirror image of what I did to my truck. I blocked the two side openings and left both the upper and lower center openings open. I also stuffed pipe insulation between the grill and bumper to fill that gap. I also covered the openings for the lower fog lamps, since I don't have fog lamps. But my temp rises to 212 degrees pretty fast most of the year and the electric fan kicks on more than I'd like.

But, then again, I live in Florida and it is obviously a bit warmer here.

The radiator doesn't even appear behind the two side openings. It is just body sheet metal behind these openings, at least on my truck, a 2.3 L. I don't see that these openings help cool things much and feel they are probably just there for looks.

[t vago]

Just got done installing an upper grille block on my Dakota. Two pieces of Lexan, cut to the approximate shape of the grille, and held down with zipties. I'll see something tomorrow, I'm sure.

[BamZipPow]

I just revamped my grill block as well. The pipe insulation did a good job of verifying my grill block temps so I went ahead and made one out of some scrap black coroplast...

Before...


Now...

[2010Sport]

Hello everyone, I'm new to this website and I've just gotten a new 2010 ford ranger Sport with 6700 miles on it and a hard bed cover and I recorded a 22mpg trip (40miles highway@55mph, 10 city) with 20 of the highway miles with 600lbs of dirt in the back. How can this be? It's much higher than the EPA estimates.