Good news everyone! I made a grill block!
 

http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...1&d=1369616080http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...2&d=1369616080http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...5&d=1369616303

Edit: I barely drove two miles and was not yet on the freeway when my Ultragauge began warning me of overheating, so I removed this and decided to try again later. Unfortunately, I had already given up when I realized that the Ultragauge itself was overheating, not my car, although my engine must have been warm if I turned on the heater--the Ultragauge was right in front of a vent. Also, it seemed impossible to shrink the plastic without creating holes. Despite having most of the plastic left, I have never wanted to attempt this again because even Ecomodders were ridiculing me.

Original post:
This was an abject failure. It was It was 89°F and 81°F when I did my "A" drives on a 51.3-mile route, 46.1 miles on the freeway and 92°F when I finished the grill block and attempted the "B" drive, but my car started overheating before I got on the freeway. I tried again at sunrise, when it was 66°F, but my engine reached 219°F and I got 31 MPG compared to 31.4-31.5 for my "B" runs, with a cooler engine.

The idea was that the plastic would be less noticeable and I chose the aluminum tape because I thought that it would withstand my heat ray better, but it certainly is visible, especially with the pieces covering the random holes.

I do not know if it is possible to shrink the plastic tight without creating holes. I do not plan on using this material again.

I did my baseline run just after 1pm. I live 2.6 miles from the freeway entrance and I chose a loop that allowed me to stay on the freeway as long as possible.

A: 89°F
Precipitation: 0%
Humidity: 7%
Wind: 4 mph [according to Google, not everything can be deduced]

I put my Ultragauge on page four so that I could see my engine temperatures. They stayed between 192 and 199°F as I accelerated to seventy and coasted to fifty. Curiously, the engine cooled seven degrees as I accelerated and then warmed back up as I coasted. Note: Eighty-nine outside, no functioning air conditioning, so I was sweating. I probably should have used ear plugs and rolled down the windows, but I would not have gotten:

31.5 MPG (Not fully calibrated).

B: 92°F
Precipitation: 0%
Humidity: 6%
Wind: 2 mph

My Ultragauge started screaming before I got on the freeway, so I slowly drove home.

So much for the hope that my car would be so aerodynamic that it would run cooler.

Hopes are not always rational.

I had planned on installing a fan indicator. As we discussed elsewhere, run wires from the fan fuse through the firewall to an LED where I could see it. Would I need to do anything special? Someone wrote that you always wanted to put... something... (a fuse?) ...whenever you added wiring, and they talked about speaker systems.

I did not figure out the details beforehand, so I decided to do it later.

very clean!!!

Second attempt:

Tempe, AZ
Monday 7:00 AM
Mostly Cloudy
71°F
Precipitation: 0%
Humidity: 18%
Wind: 0 mph

Everything was warmer than my "A" run yesterday as I approached the freeway, cool enough for me to make the attempt, but warm enough that I turned on my heater, having forgotten two very basic details:

UG°F refers to the temperature of my Ultragauge device, and my vent blows directly on it!

I will probably try again later, once I purchase more foil tape. If I leave out the grill block, I should be able to drive when it is around the same temperature that it was yesterday, but if I actually drive at 5am tomorrow, I should be able to drive with the full block.

I hope that I did not damage the plastic too much.

As a bonus it also protects your car from chlamydia! :D

Allegedly, that is the name of a woman, and I would not even know where to begin explaining how overcome with concern I have always not been about my car getting Chlamydia.

Interesting experiment, also known as the car condom.

I love foil tape.

I sure would have saved myself some time had I known this would be the result.

When you walk up to your vehicle, do you mentally ask the question: "...do you know where your car has been and what it was doing?" (wink,wink)

So, do you guys think that the all-in-one upper- and lower-grill block, fog lamp cover, and gap seal will work? Do you think that my engine will be able to keep itself cool at sunrise, or will I need to remove that section? Do you have any suggestions? Have any of you tried blocking this much at once?

It's a unique (!) approach, but in summer temps, a 100% block is too much. You'll need to open it up some.

I was surprised how difficult it was to tape that back on, and then I realized that the air would go between the plastic and the headlights, so I taped over that area.

It is amazingly ugly...

We will see if I can wake up early enough to get a good run in.

Okay, I really do not feel that this is scientific, but I do not know how else to do this:

"B:" Tuesday 5:00 AM
69°F
Precipitation: 0%
Humidity: 28%
Wind: 0 mph

I only got 31.0 MPG. Google says that my route was 51.3 miles. Twenty degrees cooler should have made a difference, but my engine was warmer getting on the freeway than it was at any point of "A." Without installing the fan indicator, I do not have any idea what was going on under the hood, but the rise and fall of my temperature seemed to have little to do with my pulses and glides. I figure that I should do a "C" at 5am tomorrow, but I just do not expect my mileage to be significantly worse than what I got this morning.

What do you guys think? Are there any relevant formulae?

Well, without input from anyone that actually knows anything, I will just say that I guess that apparently 69°F is still too warm for a full grill block, and I think that my car needed to spend too much energy keeping itself cool. If I happen to be up at 5am soon, I may go for another drive, but I am ready to retire this thread.

Still not scientific, in fact, quite possibly a complete waste of time and fuel. I did the route again at sunrise, but it was far warmer, closer to my original run (89°) than my "B," but I was trying to do schoolwork and stuff.

81°F
Precipitation: 0%
Humidity: 18%
Wind: 0 mph

"31.4 MPG." It seems like people use quotation marks (apostrophes--most punctuation in fact" without any comprehension of what they are supposed to do with them, but before I left I replaced my velcro with failed adhesive with 3m tape and reattached my Ultragauge. However, instead of resetting my MPG in seconds, it took me the three blocks to my stop sign. Three-tenths of a mile may not mean much when I drove more than fifty miles after that, almost exclusively on the highway, but I wanted to account for it, so I drove home (31.5) and back (31.5), but when I returned home, it read 31.4. Since my engine was cold and therefore less efficient, I adjusted it down.

I do not think that any of that is scientific, but again, this was a fraction of one percent of the distance that I drove and since I originally got 31.5 MPG at 89°F, this will do. I am going to edit my original post and try to move on.

Put a ball in it
 

Try putting a beach ball or something like that to mimic the shape of the bow of a ocean freight liner that way you are directing the air instead of shoving ithttp://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hYzUr_H9PV...ow-image08.jpg

have any?
 

The only thing I'm aware of is the IVECO 'Glider' concept 18-wheeler tractor.It has a non-porous cooling system which doesn't rely on a radiator for cooling.
http://preview.turbosquid.com/Previe...e8Original.jpg
The current active radiator shutters are a way to reduce cooling system drag as a function of engine heat flux,operating automatically.It's smart.And it allows those who worship at the alter of design to continue their aesthetic permutations ad infinitum.

input
 

Hucho devotes an entire chapter to heat rejection.His books are invaluable to eco-modders.
My truck has a half-bulbous nose,as per Paul Jaray's 1922 design,as well as a permutation of his cooling system of the same year.It requires a 50-sq-inch opening to cool a 150-bhp engine at 75-mph in the Texas summer heat.
In the fall and winter it can be reduced to 25-sq-inches.
http://i1271.photobucket.com/albums/...ohead2/603.jpg

Aerohead, that is a recent picture? I remember driving the Forester and thinking I could raise the end of the hood a full foot without impairing my vision whatsoever (although the 5'00" girl I was dating when I bought the car would have only seen hood! :D), but I thought I read on here that it did not help--according to an expert who worked in a wind tunnel for a couple of decades, although I cannot find it now. I did read:

http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...tml#post288388

All that I remember from this failed attempt was realizing that I had the heater on and it blew directly on the Ultragauge, although I do not have any idea of how much heat the car's instrumentation showed, just the Ultragauge itself was overheating.

My car drives fine on level ground without air conditioning about half of the year. I pursued active grill shutters:
http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...1&d=1437457313

but I am not sure that it has ever been cold enough when I drove up a mountain that the hole I cut was adequate without the shutters partially blocking air flow! I realized during our "winter" that I could have temporarily closed the hole (I only cut the top and sides, folding the flap into the grill), but that will need to wait for next year. I will need to look into expanding it when I finally visit mom!

I had planned on laminating additional layers of ABS behind the first one and creating a box around the opening, so that air goes directly into the grill, but I prefer to spend extra money taking women to dinner! :)

recent/hood angle/grille opening
 

*the photo was taken after the 2012 USFRA World of Speed in AeroStealth's driveway in New Mexico.
*I didn't do A-B testing of the hood blister at Darko in 2014,so I have no idea if it makes a contribution or not.The smoke flow over it looked pretty good.The trailing edges will be widened for this year,to get the air all the way around the A-pillars.
*FIAT showed a benefit for it in a SAE Paper from 1987
http://i1271.photobucket.com/albums/...titled2_25.jpg
*As to the grille opening,if you have abrupt,sharp edges,it will cause what is called a 'vena contracta',which chokes off the flow.Bell-mouthing of each side of the entry will erase this chocking effect.
http://i1271.photobucket.com/albums/...Untitled32.jpg