Ever since the Paseo got its
full grill block, I've been waiting for it to overheat the engine. Thankfully, it never has and I don't believe it ever will. However, the fan does come on more than I'd like it too, especially as speed increases.
Over this weekend's trip I mostly drove on 55 mph roads. Pulse and gliding from 60 to 50 made the fan come on once every 10-15 minutes @ ~70F outside. However, once I had to make my jump to the freeway (65 mph zone), I P&Ged from 65 to 55, and the fan was coming on every 3-5 minutes. I can definitely live with 10-15 minutes, and even 3-5 minutes isn't really THAT horrible. I'll explain why.
The fan on the Paseo runs at about 7 amps. 7 amps is roughly 84 watts. The headlights on my car alone are 55 watts each, so 110W total. So, the fan running every 3-5 minutes for 15 seconds or so really isn't even remotely close to sucking as much power as just having your headlights on constantly.
That being said, it is still going to get warmer this summer, and I would like to avoid additional fan usage. So, I am thinking about adding some additional cooling for the Paseo. Since it doesn't have a bellypan on it yet, I was thinking of incorporating the cooling into the bellypan in the form of copper tubing brazed to aluminum sheeting. My concern here would be with heating up the oil and tranny. So, the other idea would be to do the same thing, but line the wheel well since it is an area of high turbulence.
Doing this would allow me to retain the full grill block and all its benefits.
So, whatcha guys think? Too much work for too little gain?