DPoV's Jeepin' Build Thread

[MetroMPG]

Nice work. Subscribed!

[DifferentPointofView]

Red, I have no Idea about the fan clutch (specify more please?) , but the radiator fan seems to run all the time.

anyhow it sounds like you dont have a heat issue when its a little warmer out (70 ish) i travel alot though and often see upper 80s and mid 90s any idea how much the block affects that?

As far as that goes, no. Haven't had a grille block in the summer yet because I started when it got suddenly warm in the winter (around 50) and the warmest it's been is almost 70 (67, but low 70's if your in the sun). I did get stuck testing with the block on (saran wrap prototype).

Basically, if you wanna know how much I revved the engine, basically I got it to where the back tires were smoking white smoke, in frozen mud which thawed out from the heat of the tires, and the corn with ice chunk/blocks on it melted from the heat as well. The air was... rubbery... The good news is, the temp didn't rise above about 195, which is good because the temp is around 185-190 on the highway. I've never seen it get to about 3/5ths of the way at 210, which some people run on their geo's around here anyway. So I highly recommend trying one.

Remember, you don't have to block off the whole grille at first, just bits and pieces at a time and see what happens, but the radiators on these things seem to be large enough for extreme conditions, so I wouldn't worry too much about it. That's why I blocked off the bottom first, more for aero, and then experimented with the top next.

Red, I think that might be one of the things to why it never overheated, cause I've noticed the fan can INDEED probably blow a cat down the street.

No pics again, it's been raining for over 24 hours, and it just turned to snow.

[SVOboy]

Looks pretty good so far, keep up the good work,

[DifferentPointofView]

Looks pretty good so far, keep up the good work

oh, but you haven't seen the lower block yet you know that greenhouse looking kammback thing? well it's sorta like that in that it looks like glass or something cause it's rounded and reflect-y... but hopefully the rain won't take off the tape... I have a problem now with tape on the sides getting soggy, but the rest not...

[Red]

Originally Posted by DifferentPointofView

Red, I have no Idea about the fan clutch (specify more please?) , but the radiator fan seems to run all the time.

Red, I think that might be one of the things to why it never overheated, cause I've noticed the fan can INDEED probably blow a cat down the street.

np, standard cooling setup on ZJs with the 4.0 is a mechanical fan driven by a thermo-viscous clutch bolted to the water pump. Basically an engine driven fan with a clutch that can sorta turn the fan on and off depending how hot the air is that is flowing across it. A mechanical fan runs so long as the engine is spinning, the only thing that varies is how fast its spinning and how much torque is being applied to it, which is what the clutch does. A thermo-viscous clutch is a thing kinda works like a torque converter. You have two plates with a fluid between them. If its cold, the fluid thins out, letting the plates slip, allowing the fan to run slower, if its hot, the fluid thickens, forcing the two plates to match in speed. Now since the clutch is directly hooked up to the water pump, the more "locked up" the clutch get, the faster the fan must spin, the more power it takes to spool up the 15lbs of the fan and the mass of air it moves, to whatever your current RPM is.

So, using your grill block you are warming up the engine compartment, possibly heating up the fan clutch and making it prematurely lock up, which adds load on the engine, which drops your FE. You could be getting better numbers if it wasn't spooling up.

Far as I know your ZJ didn't come with a supplemental e-fan, the WJs did, which was what I was getting confused about. Else I was figuring you could just unbolt the fan and clutch assembly and just run around with the e-fan and see how well it can manage temps.

Other alternative is to do an e-fan swap using either the setup from a 5.9 ZJ or the usual Ford Taurus swap.

The fan is cool though. Makes a rather unique sound and one hell of a mess if you are driving over dry dirt. That and its hard to kill.

[MetroMPG]

Originally Posted by Red

Other alternative is to do an e-fan swap using either the setup from a 5.9 ZJ or the usual Ford Taurus swap.

That would be on my to-do list. Even with the fan slipping, it's probably eating a good amount of energy.

[ankit]

Very nice, I will be taking the roof rack off of my mom's van soon, might have to ask you a question or two since if I have trouble.

[DifferentPointofView]

got some new pics.

Bottom:




Top:

[SVOboy]

Any plans for anything permanent?

[johnpr]

looks good