Improved Cooling

[MillerScottLite]

Today I did a little fiddling in the garage and mocked up a piece of card board between the spoiler mount and the bottom of the radiator/mount essentially splitting the air that goes above the spoiler and through the radiator and what goes under the the spoiler and under the car. This seems to be the theory in most if not all modern cars.

Do you all think that this would improve cooling especially at highway speed vs. having nothing in there at all?

[jclay (RIP 2018)]

Actually that has been discussed several times and it does help.

Ghostbuster, Mildred's nephew, did a whole write-up on the construction and installation several years ago. Maybe she has a copy of what he posted.

jclay

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[Hasbeen]

I spent about 18 months chasing cooling problems in the 4.6L 8.

280 BHP, air con, & an auto which required cooling, all made it hard.

I fitted a similar ducting sheet to what you are planning. My
radiator is much larger than stock, & is further forward. I believe
this placement, further forward is also bad for cooling.

With the ducting, I also fitted blanking pieces beside the radiator,
to force all air through, rather than round, the radiator.

I think this accounted for almost half of my improvement in cooling.
I believe to get the thing cool, I would have had to throw out the
air conditioning, if I had not fitted it.

Hasbeen

[V8Wedgehead]

I have an original very early aluminum part that goes between the front airdam and the lower radaitor support which was fitted to an ACN series TR8 Coupe with AC. This was a January 1977 coupe. I owned another TR8 coupe built in August 1977 and this part was deleted in favor of the airdam mounted on the lower radiator support. The facotry changed and wanted to pull more air up from the road just infront of the radiator and not closing it off forsing air to go through the AC condensor. The cardboards on the left and right side of the radiator, blanking strips were on all of the TR8s so that worked and was kept in production. If you still have all the AC parts in place you might want to reconsider closing off the area between the bottom sode of the radiator to the front airdam.

Michael
1980 TR8 FHCs; Rally Conversion #0020 & Stock #0058

If it is broken then fix it....if it is not then make it faster!"

[Workshop Help]

Yes, this is an easy, inexpensive, and effective way to duct air to and thru the radiator, not to mention providing a measure of protection to the radiator from road debris. Once you have made a cardboard template and figured out where to drill holes for the sheet metal screws to hold it in place, transfer the shape to a suitable size piece of galvanized roof flashing material. This flashing comes in rolls from any lumber yard or roofing supply company. You may be lucky enough to find a large piece of scrap at a sheet metal shop left over from some fabrication.

When mounting it in place, try crimping over the rear edge to the lower radiator support with strong pliers. Also, make sure the two hardboard air deflectors on the sides of the radiator are in place and in good condition. If not, fabricate new ones. We used left over formica pieces from a kitchen counter project. It is easy to cut and trim to size and is drillable for mounting holes.

The point of this project is to duct oncoming air to and thru the radiator. Clearly, given the oversize radiator on a stock TR7, overheating should never occur if the cooling system is in good condition. By ducting the air flow, even a brutally hot summer will have no effect on the normal operating temperature. This has been borne out again this summer, at no time did the temperature gauge approach the 1/2 mark.

Mildred Hargis

[MillerScottLite]

Thanks everyone. I do have some galvanized sheet metal to make the shroud out of however after seeing how well the cardboard fit I was thinking of getting some of that corrugated plastic that they make yard signs out of and using that.

1. It does not rust or corrode.
2. No chance of rattling.
3. Easy to remove and re-install if necessary.


As a side note, I was in a minor accident in my truck last week ( a lady drove into me as she was pulling out of a side street). I changed my oil yesterday and found that they had not re attached the flexible plastic shroud that ducks air between the fan and the radiator.

You really got to watch these guys.

[FI Spyder]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Century Gothic, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by MillerScottLite</i>


You really got to watch these guys.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></font id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

You're preaching to the choir. Rather than galvanized metal (which will rust eventually especially being down by road salts), I would take the time to go to local scrape yard/recycler and find an appropriate piece of aluminum of right size and thickness. Easy to work with (cut, bend) hand will never rust. Probably cost more but better.

TR7 Spider - 1978 Spifire - 1976 Spitfire - 1988 Tercel 4X4 - Kali on Integra - 1991 Integra