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After some eventfull whoopsies at the volvo meet this weekend, the topic of proper cooling has come into play pretty big, and it's got me thinking.
Right now i've got some little electric fan on my radiator, that covers maybe 1/2 of the surface area on the thing. I've got a clutch fan and a shroud from another volvo that I could swap over to, which would give me directional air pulling from the entire radiator, instead of just the part where the fan is.
Any of you old farts that have ran into cooling issues ever have any epiphanies when it came to electronic fans vs. belt driven clutch fans?
My basic problems with cooling are as follows:
It does not cool down quickly while idling/sitting still - finish a romp through the test track and stop a stop light, and watch the temp gauge stay high.
It doesn't cool down while driving on the interstate at sustained speeds, but does driving around town with various speeds - so on the interstate, I can just watch it go up and up and up to a certain point (usually it stops) and it wont go back down. But when I get off the highway, it starts to drop back down to something slightly more reasonable yet still too high.
I've put in a lower temp thermostat (~175*) in hopes that it would help, but it hasn't. I'm getting coolant temps from the block and not the head (so cast iron vs. aluminum might throw it off a bit) and the position of the sensor is near the downpipe/under the exhaust manifold - so I'm somewhat curious if there is some heatsoak in the block and my coolant isn't actually getting hotter.
I got some exhaust wrap for the downpipe just in case this was actually causing issues.
At the last autocross the volvo was at, I got a rerun at the very end, and when I finished, my temp gauge was sitting at 220 and it was not cooling even with the fan blowing on max, with the heat on, etc. Typically, it will sit between around 195-200, and having blown headgaskets and have water pumps fail in the past, coolant temp scares me, so I really don't like to see it go past 210, or even 200.
Anyway, if you've got some experience with both situations, chime in. I think I'll go get that fan and shroud soon just to test it out, but I wanted to hear what others thought.
Also, the engine bay has a belly pan, and there's an air pickup that directs air from the bumper to the intercooler/radiator. And the radiator is a 3 row and it sits immediately behind the intercooler (that doesn't do a very good job of cooling anything).
Right now i've got some little electric fan on my radiator, that covers maybe 1/2 of the surface area on the thing. I've got a clutch fan and a shroud from another volvo that I could swap over to, which would give me directional air pulling from the entire radiator, instead of just the part where the fan is.
Any of you old farts that have ran into cooling issues ever have any epiphanies when it came to electronic fans vs. belt driven clutch fans?
My basic problems with cooling are as follows:
It does not cool down quickly while idling/sitting still - finish a romp through the test track and stop a stop light, and watch the temp gauge stay high.
It doesn't cool down while driving on the interstate at sustained speeds, but does driving around town with various speeds - so on the interstate, I can just watch it go up and up and up to a certain point (usually it stops) and it wont go back down. But when I get off the highway, it starts to drop back down to something slightly more reasonable yet still too high.
I've put in a lower temp thermostat (~175*) in hopes that it would help, but it hasn't. I'm getting coolant temps from the block and not the head (so cast iron vs. aluminum might throw it off a bit) and the position of the sensor is near the downpipe/under the exhaust manifold - so I'm somewhat curious if there is some heatsoak in the block and my coolant isn't actually getting hotter.
I got some exhaust wrap for the downpipe just in case this was actually causing issues.
At the last autocross the volvo was at, I got a rerun at the very end, and when I finished, my temp gauge was sitting at 220 and it was not cooling even with the fan blowing on max, with the heat on, etc. Typically, it will sit between around 195-200, and having blown headgaskets and have water pumps fail in the past, coolant temp scares me, so I really don't like to see it go past 210, or even 200.
Anyway, if you've got some experience with both situations, chime in. I think I'll go get that fan and shroud soon just to test it out, but I wanted to hear what others thought.
Also, the engine bay has a belly pan, and there's an air pickup that directs air from the bumper to the intercooler/radiator. And the radiator is a 3 row and it sits immediately behind the intercooler (that doesn't do a very good job of cooling anything).
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