[thatguitarguy]

Yesterday I had to drive from the Denver area up to Leadville and back. This includes going from 5280 ft to 11,013 at the Eisenhower Tunnel, back down to 8780 at Silverthorne, back up to 11,300 at Fremont pass, and finally down to 10,200 in Leadville. A few long steep climbs, and from Denver to the tunnel is pretty much straight uphill.

I put together exterior grill blocks for the upper and lower grill openings in the Town & Country van, hoping that I would get enough air in the small middle openings. This was OK around Denver, though I did hear the fan more often. The ambient temp was in the mid 60s.

As I started the climb out of Denver the temp kept climbing to the point that I pulled over to rip out the bottom block, because I didn't want to have it overheat. It came down a notch as I pulled back out on the highway, and stayed there till the road leveled out for a bit and the temp came back into the normal range, and for the rest of the climb stayed just a tick above where it usually is, so I didn't have to mess with the top block.

These are just temporary cardboard blocks to see what would happen, and give me a better idea of what will work. I think the first setup would work fine around town, but when I get into the serious climbs, it becomes apparent that those holes in the front are there for a reason. I did have a load, but it wasn't up to the limit. When I came back down it was dark and the temp had come down into the 20s in the mountains, and into the 40s in Denver, and the engine temp was back down where it normally stays, and I had plenty of nice cabin heat.

I think what I'll do is build a block that I can Velcro into place, so I can remove it easily when I have a heavy load and a long climb. So the idea of a more permanent air dam/block is probably not in the works for this vehicle. It does have 188,000 miles on it, and I have to keep it alive.