Cooler running
Discussion
My $0.02 on aluminium radiators where most of us are concerned (having had both normal and ali rads)...
1) They're an "upgrade" and man-maths says that upgrades are better.
2) They're more expensive and man-maths says that more expensive is better.
3) They're lighter and man-maths says that lighter is better.
4) They're shiny and man-maths says that shiny is better.
My $0.02 on where the reality actually is...
1) Once my Chim was actually moving then there was enough airflow through the engine bay to keep the block cool without even needing the radiator ... hence when I originally bought it I wasn't actually aware for a while that I had an almost completely blocked rad.
2) I've lost more weight in the last 10 days than is saved by swapping in an ali rad.
3) All those welded seams are additional future possible failure points.
I think that a number of factors conspired against these cars for cooling - the early cars didn't have anything close to an optimal setup and would over-cool at speed and under-cool when in slow traffic due to not having radiator cowls (so about a third of the radiator area wasn't getting air drawn through it) and due to having minimal spec SPAL fans ... the later cars had radiator cowls and better fans.
If the bits that wear out or fail over time (water pump, radiator, fans, thermostat, foam air seals) are maintained then there *SHOULD* be no cooling issues.
Of course that doesn't stop us tinkering to make things "better" ...
The TVR gauges have been a constant annoyance to me though - my personal opinion is that any gauge that has a numerical scale should be as accurate as possible (if it says "Cold/Hot", "Empty/Full" and has no defined limits or scales then that's different). The TVR temp sender is well known for being in a stupid location and gets overly affected by cooling airflow when moving and heat soak when stationary ... it would have been as useful just to stick it up the drivers arse.
Moving the sender feed to the Range Rover sender and using a variable resistor to "calibrate" it is an option but at absolute best that makes the gauge correct at only one specific temperature as the sender doesn't have the matching characteristics for the gauge (as Bobfather has also mentioned) but those pots aren't intended for frequent baking in an engine bay so IMO that's just replacing a flawed setup with another flawed setup with an extra point of failure introduced just to keep you on your toes one day when you've forgotten about it and it fails and scares the life out of you ... It *SHOULD* be possible to get the correct sender to replace the Range Rover one - I can't remember where mine came from but it came with an adapter and just fitted where the Range Rover one came out of.
I've done a bit of playing around with reading off-the-shelf resistive temperature senders (as would be installed in a typical engine) and comparing against what are generally regarded as "accurate" electronic one-wire senders (which have a typical manufacturer stated accuracy of +/- 0.5 deg C) and over the range of -22 deg C to +110 deg C it was very straightforward to pull temperatures from the resistive senders that were generally within 0.3 degrees of the one-wire sensors so they are pretty bloody accurate - there's absolutely no reason why anyone should have to put up with a random number generator on their dash...
Phil
1) They're an "upgrade" and man-maths says that upgrades are better.
2) They're more expensive and man-maths says that more expensive is better.
3) They're lighter and man-maths says that lighter is better.
4) They're shiny and man-maths says that shiny is better.
My $0.02 on where the reality actually is...
1) Once my Chim was actually moving then there was enough airflow through the engine bay to keep the block cool without even needing the radiator ... hence when I originally bought it I wasn't actually aware for a while that I had an almost completely blocked rad.
2) I've lost more weight in the last 10 days than is saved by swapping in an ali rad.
3) All those welded seams are additional future possible failure points.
I think that a number of factors conspired against these cars for cooling - the early cars didn't have anything close to an optimal setup and would over-cool at speed and under-cool when in slow traffic due to not having radiator cowls (so about a third of the radiator area wasn't getting air drawn through it) and due to having minimal spec SPAL fans ... the later cars had radiator cowls and better fans.
If the bits that wear out or fail over time (water pump, radiator, fans, thermostat, foam air seals) are maintained then there *SHOULD* be no cooling issues.
Of course that doesn't stop us tinkering to make things "better" ...
The TVR gauges have been a constant annoyance to me though - my personal opinion is that any gauge that has a numerical scale should be as accurate as possible (if it says "Cold/Hot", "Empty/Full" and has no defined limits or scales then that's different). The TVR temp sender is well known for being in a stupid location and gets overly affected by cooling airflow when moving and heat soak when stationary ... it would have been as useful just to stick it up the drivers arse.
Moving the sender feed to the Range Rover sender and using a variable resistor to "calibrate" it is an option but at absolute best that makes the gauge correct at only one specific temperature as the sender doesn't have the matching characteristics for the gauge (as Bobfather has also mentioned) but those pots aren't intended for frequent baking in an engine bay so IMO that's just replacing a flawed setup with another flawed setup with an extra point of failure introduced just to keep you on your toes one day when you've forgotten about it and it fails and scares the life out of you ... It *SHOULD* be possible to get the correct sender to replace the Range Rover one - I can't remember where mine came from but it came with an adapter and just fitted where the Range Rover one came out of.
I've done a bit of playing around with reading off-the-shelf resistive temperature senders (as would be installed in a typical engine) and comparing against what are generally regarded as "accurate" electronic one-wire senders (which have a typical manufacturer stated accuracy of +/- 0.5 deg C) and over the range of -22 deg C to +110 deg C it was very straightforward to pull temperatures from the resistive senders that were generally within 0.3 degrees of the one-wire sensors so they are pretty bloody accurate - there's absolutely no reason why anyone should have to put up with a random number generator on their dash...
Phil
Edited by Bassfiendnoideawhathp on Saturday 23 July 11:10
Wonder if we were all magpies in a former life?My early (94) car would overheat in very hot weather like last week's when in crawling traffic. It was fitted with the original black alloy grille with small holes. The fans would cut in but this wasn't enough to stop overheating - indicated 110c - although how much that really was I did not know.
After fitting the turbo and alloy rad, I was apprehensive about cooling: in fact very apprehensive and watched the gauge more than the road on the drive home. However, all was good although I did not like the constant irritation of the fans in town traffic. Simply removing the grille (early cars only) made a huge difference, and after checking found it to be 10c cooler with the thing removed, hence the Jaguar style one now fitted to protect the intercooler from stones. The gauge is the same one so no comparison issues but the MBE controlled fans with alloy rad are perfect for me.
After fitting the turbo and alloy rad, I was apprehensive about cooling: in fact very apprehensive and watched the gauge more than the road on the drive home. However, all was good although I did not like the constant irritation of the fans in town traffic. Simply removing the grille (early cars only) made a huge difference, and after checking found it to be 10c cooler with the thing removed, hence the Jaguar style one now fitted to protect the intercooler from stones. The gauge is the same one so no comparison issues but the MBE controlled fans with alloy rad are perfect for me.
Just to further confuse the subject of cooling; I moved the number plate from the middle of the grill to hang below the grill thinking this would improve airflow through the rad during this hot spell, but in similar weather conditions the operating temperature increased by 5-10 degrees!
Refitting the number plate to it's original position on the grill saw the temperature return to 'normal', so hanging it low was probably obstructing airflow to the engine bay beneath the front of the car, which seems to have more of a cooling effect than airflow through the rad.
If you're running hot in this weather and your number plate is fitted below the grill it may be worth experimenting by fitting it elsewhere.
Refitting the number plate to it's original position on the grill saw the temperature return to 'normal', so hanging it low was probably obstructing airflow to the engine bay beneath the front of the car, which seems to have more of a cooling effect than airflow through the rad.
If you're running hot in this weather and your number plate is fitted below the grill it may be worth experimenting by fitting it elsewhere.
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