Quote:
Originally Posted by yarisbaby
Is your radiator fan running more often when you sit in traffic? Do you keep this set up whole year long?
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The pic is of the lower grille. It is on year round.
The upper grille gets blocked only for the winter. The block is set a few cm in front of the upper grille opening, so that it diverts direct airflow, but still allows air to be sucked in should the fan turn on.
I used the lower grille block permanently, and the upper block seasonally, for 8-9 years. A few times I took both down for maintenance, so I had an idea of what the "baseline" is. Compared to this baseline, closing the lower grille block improves warm up time, blocking the upper grille improves further. Opening the lower block noticeably lowers the coolant temperature. Knowing how my engine behaves, ie how load and air temp effect coolant temp, allowed me to open and close the grille block early enough to avoid overheating. Yes in traffic the fan would turn on, but I doubt that this happened very often.
On the other hand, I drove so efficiently that with both grilles unblocked the engine would be a bit cooler than it should.