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I have an update. It definitely does cool better with those gaps sealed, at least at idle. Yesterday I got stuck in traffic and idled for about 15 minutes with the AC running on a 90 degree day and the coolant only heated up to 193 degrees even though the radiator only has 1 fan on it with no shroud and the temp came down pretty quickly once I got moving. Last summer I was seeing coolant temps of around 195 at idle under the same conditions with both of my Spal fans on the radiator with no shroud. The only difference is that the bumper cover is off for now and it was on last summer. I can't see that making this much difference by itself though, I will test that. I know from experience that having 2 fans more than doubles the cooling capacity of the radiator compared to 1 fan, the difference is more like 3-4X. The reason for this is because with 1 fan, only half the radiator gets cooled off and coolant still flows through the side that isn't getting airflow, bypassing the side that is getting cooled off.
Right now I have the radiator out and I am almost done making an aluminium shroud for my Spal fans so they can cool off the entire radiator, that should help a lot too. I am also going to drill holes in the shroud on the surfaces that aren't covered by the fans and cover the holes with rubber flaps. The flaps will get sucked closed with the fans running at idle, but when driving down the road at higher speeds or without the fans on the flaps will open from the pressure in the shroud, allowing air to flow through a little easier since the air will have another path to escape the shroud instead of all of it being forced through the fans.
I doubt that the flaps will make a lot of difference since there isn't a whole lot of my radiator that's covered by the shroud, flaps are mostly used on shrouds that cover a lot of the radiator. Most of my radiator is covered by the fans, so I don't expect flaps to help a whole lot. Why not though, it would surely help at least a little and isn't going to hurt.
Hopefully this all made sense, it's almost 3 AM here and I'm exhausted lol
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