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Sealing those gaps seems to have made a big difference. Several weeks ago I
blocked the upper as well as most of the lower grill for winter and even
with all airflow blocked except that small rectangle at the bottom, the
coolant temp has not increased at all. It still runs at 182-186 degrees
while cruising like it always does even though we have been in the low 70's
the last couple days. Fans haven't come on once either although I don't sit
in much traffic. If I remember correctly, a similar grill block setup with
those large gaps present resulted in 210+ degree coolant temps at times
under similar conditions.
However, I can not definitively say that these mods are 100% responsible
for the improved cooling efficiency I'm seeing since I had an automatic
transmission with a cooler in front of the radiator last time I tried
blocking the grill so much for winter and I have since swapped to a 5 speed
so the different gearing and lack of a cooler could certainly affect temps
too.
I'm still experimenting to see how much I can block the grill while still
maintaining a decent safety margin and I need to come up with a better
grill block than cardboard and Gorilla tape too, but so far so good.
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