Grille Blocks in the Summer

[99LeCouch]

Okay, I sawed my grille block in half, and am going to install the upper half that will hopefully direct flow over the hood shortly. So 3/4 of the upper grille will end up blocked.

Quick, we'll see what effect this partial block has. Thanks for the idea!

[QuickLTD]

Cool. I'm excited to see. I hope it works well. How did 3/4ths end up blocked?

[99LeCouch]

My grille block is in 3 pieces instead of 2 now. Referring back to the pictures of the block earlier in the thread, the drivers side block was cut in half horizontally.

Attached to the car right now are the passenger side block and the upper drivers side block. That's how 3/4 of the grille is blocked.

[hyperyaris]

It is 100 here in Louisiana too. Man, you have to have *some* way for air to touch the radiator.

[cfg83]

99LeCouch -

Originally Posted by 99LeCouch

It's thin, like 3mm/ 3/32nd inch or so. And it's not true Lexan, but generic polycarbonate (IIRC).

I got it at a hobby shop. Most of the dedicated hobby shops should have a display of the various kinds of polycarbonate sheets you can get. I got some 12"x6" sheets, I think. Shaping was done with a Dremel and a heavy-duty cutoff wheel.

Just want to say the execution was great. On first glance you get to keep your chrome grill. It's stealthy + a little bit "butch" from the fasteners (rivets make me think planes and steam-punky look).

CarloSW2

[Who]

I'd like more details on how you made the grille block. It looks amazing!

[99LeCouch]

Originally Posted by hyperyaris

It is 100 here in Louisiana too. Man, you have to have *some* way for air to touch the radiator.

There are 2 lower vents I haven't touched yet. And the part left open is where the top hose comes in. So airflow hits the hottest coolant first, then hits it again right before it flows out the bottom hose.

To make the block, all I did was buy 2 12"x6" sheets of polycarbonate and 12 spring-loaded fasteners, then made a template, taped it to the poly sheets, and started Dremeling. Then came test-fitting the grille and finally drilling holes for the fasteners in the grille block.

[Who]

Thanks... do you have a link to the spring loaded fasteners?

They attach by drilling the polycarbonate and then threading something on the back?

[basjoos]

I've added a second bay to my radiator air inlet to reduce the amount of time that the cooling fan kicks on in summer driving. The new opening is in-line with the original opening below the stagnation point and is on the passenger's side of the nose. It has a shutter ganged to the original shutter so I can adjust the opening as needed.

[QuickLTD]

The Civic has it relativley small sized radiator offset to right am I correct?