This weekend I finished my grille block. Wasn't as easy as just slapping something on as I had the following boundry conditions:
- Translucent, since my LED DRL's are mounted inside the grille,
- 2 openings, one for the radiator and one for the intercooler,
- Each opening operable by pushing a button.
I took Ollie's
advice and used a central lock motor for each opening mechanism.
In the above picture you can see the ic on the left of the motors and the radiator fan on the right. Since the motors allow a back-forth movement of only 1cm, I decided to make 1cm wide slits that block or open when slid behind each other.
The total area of the openings seems small compared to the whole grille, but: (a) the grilles in the last few Peugeot models are grossly oversized, (b) I've never had a problem with my diesel even getting close to overheating, (c) I left enough room on the radiator side to double the slit area, (d) just over the front bumper are two openings which I didn't block.
I plan to open the ic side when temperatures rise, hopefully increasing the engine's efficiency, and use the radiator side only when that doesn't help. There is no wall behind the grille separating the intercooler from the radiator, so when the ic half is open some air will spill onto the rad.
The setup works, ie the slits open and close, but I haven't wired everything inside the cabin yet. Each mechanism will have a mom-off-mom rocker switch. Once everything is set up I'll see how opening/closing will effect temperatures. Saturday evening we drove around 100km with the grille block in closed position and the engine temp never got higher than 80*C. The outdoor temp was around 1-2*C.
While the front of car was in pieces, I got a wire into the radiator fan cable. That will light up a red blinking LED in the cabin when the fan goes on. Unfortunately, I'll hardly ever see it, since my driving style doesn't get the engine too warm... I'd also like to have indicator LED's to show whether the slits are physically open or closed, but I'm not too sure about putting microswitches down there in the wet and grime.
Now all I need is a fancy name, like "Semi-automatic bi-electromechanical dual temperature regulating something-or-other". I guess
Electromechanical grille block gizmo is good enough
