Dodge Ram Grille Block: Upper & Lower
 

My grille block is complete. I'd been running with some cardboard behind my upper grille and my radiator completely blocked off for a while now, but I finally got around to finishing my grille block this morning.

On my truck there's 2 "grilles" in the front--the upper grill (attached to the hood), and the lower "grille" (in the bumper).

For the material I used some leftover Thermo-Ply I had laying around. It's basically 1/4-inch plywood. It's used for sheeting on the outside of houses. I primed both sides with some interior/exterior primer/sealer I had left over, and then spray-painted the side that shows with some black Rust-oleum I had left over.

The upper grille is pretty easy, you just pop out 1/2 the grille, trace around it, drill a couple holes here and there, and use some black zip-ties to attach it. Here's a close-up of the outside:
http://ecomodder.com/forum/member-di...ck-outside.jpg
and the back side:
http://ecomodder.com/forum/member-di...rill-block.jpg
Sorry, but I didn't have my camera out before I put it on to get a "before" picture and I really didn't feel like taking it off and putting it back on again just for a picture.

So, now on to the lower "grille" block. This one is trickier to attach because there's not actually a grille. Here's the "before" picture:
http://ecomodder.com/forum/member-di...fore-block.jpg
Here's the cut-out Thermo-ply:
http://ecomodder.com/forum/member-di...-made-some.jpg
I thought about removing the tow hooks but I decided to leave them on for two reasons. First, they're pretty hard to take off because the back side of the bolts is really tough to get to. Secondly, I'd like to keep them on especially in the winter in case I'm out on the road and me or someone else is stuck in the ditch--it makes it so easy to hook on without having worry about tearing up the bumper. So I decided to cut slots in my cover instead.

Okay, so the catch is I wanted to attach my cover to the bumper without damaging the bumper. I'll most likely take off this cover when it warms back up so I wanted to make it so I could take in on and off without affecting the bumper at all. This is what I came up with:
http://ecomodder.com/forum/member-di...ock-bu-ber.jpg
I took a fender washer and bent it 90 degrees. That way the forward-facing lip on the washer catches on the backward-facing lip of the bumper. I also used to 2 liscence pkate holder holes that were there.

And the finished product:
http://ecomodder.com/forum/member-di...0-finished.jpg
Not bad for under $10 if I do say so myself (nuts, bolts, and washers were the only thing I bought.

Next, I want to block those fog lamp holes and the gap under the lower grille. If I get some more time I want to start my belly pan too.

...VERY CLEAN and NEAT looking!

Good job! Very clean. Don't you worry about the big engine temp? it must be pretty hot down there. Be sure to verify frequently your engine temp, also, if you plan to make a Belly pan, the temp will get even hotter, so watch out, you don't want to make start your fan too often.

If you ever decide to go with a different look, you could try this 'stealth' grille block http://images.auctionworks.com/hi/66...-05_e_copy.jpg

Not too much. This thing's pretty cold-blooded. I ran with my upper cardboard grille block in the middle of the summer with temps in the high 90's and never had my fan kick on. When it got colder I blocked off the whole radiator (sheet of thermo-ply between the intercooler and the radiator). Then one day it the temps went back up in the 70's and I had to go make a trip out on the interstate at 65 mph. After 20-30 minutes or so I could hear my fan cycling on occasionally. I actually didn't know what it was at first because I'd never heard it before!

This truck was made with a cooling system capable of hauling a muti-ton payload in 100+ deg heat. When it's just hauling my fat butt around, it runs pretty cool.

Update, I swung by the hardware store yesterday and picked up a piece of black foam pipe insulation and stuffed it in that gap between the bumper and the upper grille. Worked like a charm. The only catch is, it does make it a little more tricky to reach my hand under to catch the hood release lever. Still doable, but just a little more inconvienient.

Hope the opportunity comes up that the truck is maxed on GVWR or durned close to it at some point that we can "see" what the ambient temp / truck work "slope" appears to be. Same for EGT's. Where the blocks need to be altered or removed.

As an old RV side note, one of the reasons Chrysler added a power steering cooler to the Trailering Package and Police Pursuit TNT-440's (plus Marine & Industrial 440-3 engines) in or by the early 1970's was that horsing a trailer around to back into a tight spot in sub-freezing would cook the PSF without airflow, but even a bit of rad fan operation would bring it back down.

When it gets warm enough that I start hearing the fan kick on, I'll start taking things off.

looks great, I worry a bit about under hood temps on components, perhaps you could put an under hood air temp gauge in somehow, you dont want to cook your electrics, I had an idea to put a very fine screen in front of my Ranger, at a certain ( unknown speed ) the air would back up and go around the screen , but at low city traffic hot day driving the air would go right through the screen to the radiator and under the hood. I am also going to put a former under the screen or maybe use a base of a thicker mesh that will hold a shape to round out the nose of the truck from the present flat configuration , your dodge has an ideal front end shape for a truck with the projected front grill tapering back to the sides, a bullet is about the most streamlined shape you need

I've been monitoring my under hood temps with an open grill, partial blocked grill, and fully blocked grill fer the past year. My under hood temps didn't rise at all. Of course...I have a truck, mechanical (clutch based) fan, and enough gaps in between the grill/hood/fenders/bumper to probably offset it.

I did see that the under hood temps rise peak after driving...about 175°F during the summer months.

Here's my current setup...left digital gauge is ambient, right digital gauge is under hood after sitting fer awhile (engine off). ;)
http://i677.photobucket.com/albums/v...s/IMG_9140.jpghttp://i677.photobucket.com/albums/v...s/IMG_9141.jpghttp://i677.photobucket.com/albums/v...s/IMG_9142.jpg

One could easily use a cheap digital meat thermometer to monitor the under hood temps vs the expensive setups I have on mine... ;)

underhood temps,
 

seems like your doing your homework, I'll bet you would be fine if you had some sort of auxilary fan like a 12 v boat bilge blower with a duct from a cool place to blow air by the exhaust manifold area, and maybe put it on a timer to run 5 minutes or so after a hot shut down .

wow Dave looks real nice ,Im not ready to make permanent yet, I just used clear packing tape on the outside of the grill temp is 172*/176* not enough records for as yet aprox 1.75 mpg in my rig with 4:10s&CTD

looks pretty comprehensive, I'm not sure if my last reply got through so a repeat, i'm new member, but how about a boat blower fan setup to cool down under hood after shutdown or during intense slow traffic situations, also diesels that i am familiar with are so much more efficient that they run cooler , much , that gas engines.

Looking very nice Dave. I did the cardboard block on mine the other day, I covered about 90% of my radiator. It got about 5° above normal at the worst case, climbing a 4500' mountain pass.

I have a cheap remote thermometer I have used elsewhere, it will go underhood to check things out. I'll place it over and behind the heater (Turbo :) ).
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002B0KVFQ/ref=sc_pgp__m_A2OXMMY6UKNCC_1?ie=UTF8&m=A2OXMMY6UK NCC&n=&s=&v=glance

Update, I've found that Dodge makes a "bumper filler panel" for the 3rd Gens that came stock on some of the 1/2 ton trucks.
http://i1255.photobucket.com/albums/...ood_801030.jpg
The part number is 55077896AC. I'm in the process of seeing if I can find one at a junk yard. It should look more "professional" than the one I made.

I did the bumper fill panel the other day, wrecking yard $20. New at the yard they were $35. Now that I see what you did for the main grille, I will give that a shot as well.

I went ahead and ordered a set of pre-made ABS grille inserts yesterday from CRE.

Lack of a garage, and time, made it a not-too-expensive purchase at $80 shipped.

Once ambient drops to 50F the CTD takes a truly noticeable longer time to come to op-temp. I also ordered the MOPAR winter front, but don't expect to use it much here in South Texas . . and might not have ordered it at all but for being able to more closely track temps with ULTRAGAUGE.

.

Yes, my truck has one of those on it. I am curious, did you find any FE increase with the entire grill blocked? I tried some ABA tests last week w/25% blocked and about 80% blocked and I didn't get any improvement...:confused:

I never got the chance to do A-B-A testing and quantify it. I doubt the effect is that large, quite honestly. That being said, it's hard to see how it would hurt.

I did a 75% block in an effort to get a hotter IAT, managed 20*f over ambient. With the grille block in place & hotter intake air I still ran a 20.2 mpg with ambient air temps about the same for both runs (no aba). My truck is real consistent at 20.2 mpg for some reason. I can say though that around town throttle response is noticeably better with the grille bock in place & warmer IATs.

I just got to adding a grille block (upper - lower already had the factory piece in it) on my 3rd gen ram. I'm not posting pictures because it doesn't look like anything special, and there's tonnes of grille block pics on here.

Did you feel you need to do anything about the veritable chasm between the bumper and the bottom of the hood? it's pretty big gap and goes all the way around under the head lights too for some reason.

I used coroplast and zip ties for mine... although, I use the zip ties I had, and they are pretty thin, so I think I'll go out and get some thicker ones to shore it up.

But that other chasm? also, anyone have any good ideas about the gap between the cabin and the bed cap?

Just got back from a 800-mile roundtrip to Fort Worth, with some observations. Temps on the way up dropped from around 60F here in South Texas to just below freezing at my destination. Engine temp never dropped below 187F with grille block in place and mpg was 23 despite fighting a 20-mph 3/4-headwind (with gusts past forty) the first 150-miles. Trip was run at 58-mph or 1,725-rpm.

Temps came up quickly. Never more than seven miles to op temp the following days. The return trip was on an alternate route (non-Interstate, and hilly compared to northbound leg) and overhead stayed consistently at 26-mpg (corrects out to just under 25). Haven't refilled, but will be northbound again in a couple of days (buying new travel trailer) on Interstate.

24-mpg is the now old baseline. But it was not ever run in consistently freezing or near-freezing weather. So anything close is a win in my book. So far, so good.

were you towing and getting that mpg . what model trailer are you looking at the wife and I are looking at the view finder alum frame and v nose . Ill be watching to see what your going with.

I used a piece of pipe insulation to block the gap between the grille and the bumper. By pipe insulation, I mean this stuff:
http://www.examiner.com/images/blog/...Insulation.jpg

Sorry, no towing in the above. The new TT will be in tow on the return leg this Friday or Saturday (after tires, bearing re-pack, new shocks, trailer axle alignment, etc). The TT is a 1990 model 35' Silver Streak, one of the upmarket cousins to Airstream. I've come across more than a dozen reports of those using CTD's to pull aero all aluminum TT's averaging from 14-16 mpg over many thousands of miles.

I averaged 13-15 with the last one, so expect to fall in that ballpark even with lower towing speed these days (58 vs. 63-mph). TT is expected to weigh around 7k empty (full propane & fresh water). I'll be getting a scale ticket or two to help set baseline. There is maintenance, repairs and tweaks for the future (both vehicles) and this is just a git'er home trip. Both TT & TV will be lighter by several thousand pounds overall than the plan calls for. The outside high weight will be 18k for the combination, but I expect to be around 14k at this time.

The main thing will be in watching temps to see if [2] of the [4] grille blocks need to be removed given expected temps of from 60F to nearly 80F (A/C will be in use at some point in the day). A long slightly downhill run from North Texas to South Texas.

Yes, when you're concerned with temps, just keep an eye on the coolant temp. When starting up, the temp should continuously rise until the thermostat opens (typically 180-200 deg F), and then fluctualte slightly within a range of +/-10 deg F or so. If the temp starts to rise above that level that means you have too much grille blocke--because the engine can't stay cool enough with the stat full open. If that happens, start taking grille block off.

should be a nice upgrade ,Im going to add some gauges to my CTD. trans temp,pyro temp, and a fuel pressure gauge.and a new scangauge mine is first gen. what length is your old TT and do you expect to loose or gain mpg

I was watching for that temp fluctuation today on the way home from work. Sure enough, there was a change in the rate of increase just above 180F (till that point "rise" was nearly 2-degrees every few seconds once I was on the highway).

As I understand, our thermostats don't fully open until 207F. I'll use that as my cutoff this time (as temps will be mild, the load isn't onerous, Interstates are built for lower HP demand, and unless I hit stop'n'go traffic I'll see how things do).

As the block is most easily removed (bolt + wingnut) I'm looking forward to first removing the lower area, then watching for temp rise with A/C cut-in at some point.

I'm using ULTRAGUAGE as regular mech gauges are expensive. I may add one or two of those once I have a better idea of what I want to read.

The old TT was a 34'. Of a slightly different construction and aero design than the newest one. The new one is also wider and possibly taller though I haven't measured that yet. I would expect -- all other things the same -- that the older would be slightly better in handling off-centerline crosswinds thus possibly better in overall long-term mpg. This one is rather square in comparison (12-deg radius walls versus 22-deg).

I believe it rather easy to hit that 14/16-mpg with an Airstream type TT when using a CTD. The dedicated ecomodder will do slightly better. I look at it as mainly being able to predict long term costs . . and fuel is a good "instant" gauge of how I am doing in that regard.

Let's look at it another way. My northbound leg the other day, solo, was at 16-cpm. If I can see 14-mpg with the TT in tow southbound,
then 27-cpm is a decent baseline for future comparisons. My roundtrip expense would be 22-cpm to get the trailer home (had I only to have made [1] trip). At an est. 940-miles this would be just over $200 in fuel.

The grille block definitely shortened warm-up time/distance, and helped me maintain a higher engine temp once at highway speeds.

AFAICT, the effect drops off once ambient is around 60F. Becomes really marginal.

.

my grill block (Full upper) using clear packing tape has raised my temp by 11* to191* max on scangauge harder to see on stock gauge . this is still below the 200*-210* that I believe is optimum. my resent trip back home at 60mph netted my best mileage to date of 22.12mpg if I can tow at 16 mpg I'll be a happy man.

"Hard to read" I finally know the "range" of the stock coolant gauge on the Dodge, that the lower operating limit is 160F due to the Ultragauge.

The grille block makes temp rise rapid and sustained. Hitting the highway on a cold morning used to stop temp rise in it's tracks.

I could read the darn thing , if I could see it,Its just past my vision so its a blur, the scan gauge is closer so I don.t have to wear the cheaters while I drive

I did some searching tonight, and it seems the prime benefit of the grille block is the faster warm up time and higher operating temps...which means the engine is more thermodynamically efficient?
Interesting on the throttle response, and the fact your IAT went up.

The grille block should not affect the final operating temp--that should be determined by the thermostat. If the grille block is increasing the final operating temp, then it's too much.

There's basically 3 "stages" the engine potentially goes through:

Stage 1: Thermostat closed.
When the coolant temperature is below the "crack open temp" the termostat is closed and the coolant is not sent to the radiator at all. Usually the "crack open temp" is the temp a thermostat is know as--a "190 deg stat" starts to open at 190 deg F. In some cases, the thermostat is designed to let just a trickle through the thermostat to prevent air build up, but it's basically closed for all practical purposes. The coolant bypasses the radiator and goes right back to the block. In this stage, the coolant is getting warmed up by the engine and the only cooling that happens is due to the air passing through the engine compartent around the engine. This is how the grill block helps the engine warm up faster--less air through the engine compartment means less heat loss, so it warms up faster. The radiator doesn't really matter at this point because there's basically no coolant flowing through it.

Stage 2: Thermostat partially open. Once the temp gets to the crack open temp, the thermostat starts to open and some coolant gets sent to the radiator to be cooled. And some still gets recirulated to the block. The coolant that gets sent out to the radiator comes back to the block and (eventually) lowers the temp up by the termostat. This thus gives closed-loop feedback control--if the coolant temp goes up the thermostat opens more, which lowers the coolant temp, which cause the thermostat to closes more, which causes the coolant temp to rise again, etc. During this time, the coolant temp usually stays a ~10 deg F or so above the crack open temp. There will be some fluctuatin, but it should stay fairly steady. As long as your grille block hasn't over-deminished the cooling capability of the radiator, you should stay in stage 2 after the engine has warmed up. The temperature range should remain the same as it did without the grill block.

Stage 3: Thermostat completely open. This is the situation you want to avoid. If the coolant temp gets very hot, the thermostat has opened all the way, sending the max amount out the radiator--however, the coolant temp keeps going up. If the radiator doesn't have enough cooling capacity to cool the coolant, there's nothing to stop the coolant temp from continuing to rise. Many control modules are set to turn the fan on at this point--the purpose being to pull more air through the radiator and cool the coolant more. Either way, this is not good. If you see the collant temp continuing to rise above the normal range you've got too much grille block.


So, the benefit of the grille block is 1) slightly faster warm up times and 2) Less aerodynamic drag from less air flow through the engine compartment. The final operating temp of the engine should not be changed.

Well done in clarification, thanks.

I see everyone checking coolant temps but (unless I missed it) didn't see anything a IAT.
Intercooler (charge air cooler) requires airflow to drop IAT.
No matter how you cut it IAT almost has to go up.
my 0.02

It will, but it is dependent on boost pressures. At cruise speeds and low loads, my engine will barely break 4 PSI. Under full honk it was 22 PSI, before mods. I have enough cooling air flow for the worst condition, all the time.
What I propose to do is tie the louver control to coolant temp, and have a boost pressure override system that will open things up with a boost pressure servo, as needed. I will monitor pre- and post cooler temps.

IATs are well within limits. I have been monitoring them as part of all the testing I have done. In fact, with ambient air temps in the 40's I'm lucky to get them up to the mid-upper 60's. I mentioned this elsewhere that my motor runs noticeably stronger the warmer the IATs are. Been looking for an 80~85*f IAT temp to do the test run with but cant get much above 70.

Correct if I'm wrong but from my past experience is not the greatest power/effiency achieved when there is the greatest differential between IAT and EGT temps?
ie. The bigger the difference the better.
Understood the IAT is within the "limits" but shouldn't lower temps be better.
Doesn't compute what you are seeing with higher IAT, running stronger.

Not sure about the IAT & EGT temps... as we all know colder is better for a gasser, for diesels I could not find anything that pointed me 1 way or another so I figured I'd raise it as much as I could and see how it runs. I figured with higher temps the burn would be more complete resulting in a stronger feel to it. I was presuming that the fuel economy would go up with it like that but havent proved it to myself yet.

If you have a scan tool of some sort you could experiment with it and see what I mean.