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Well, the experimental fan setup passed a first, MODERATE test today.
The temperature was precisely 90 degrees here in Austin as I drove home from work today, and I provoked the fans plenty.
First, I did 2 miles of city traffic to get to the cross-town freeway, then 4 miles of slow and go, then 3 miles of 55 mph cruising, then a "spirited" departure from a highway traffic light (5 psi boost recorded on the new datalogging vacuum/boost guage), and then 5 more miles at 55 mph. The coolant gauage never budged.
Then, a stop sign from which you turn right onto a VERY busy 60 mph highway, during any available gap in traffic, immediately after which you must accelerate up to 60 mph asap to avoid being rear-ended, while climbing one of the steeper 1/4 mile hills in the area. I hit 7 psi boost on that hill. The coolant guage never budged.
Then, after "heat soaking" both the engine and transmission via that uphill sprint, a short 2 miles straight into the regular late afternoon stop and go in the area where three major highways intersect via 2 lights spaced just 1/4 mile apart. There is a solid 1 mile of stop and go here, with NO movement at all for most of the 15 minutes you spend getting through the bottleneck. Here, after 15 minutes of basically idling, I actually detected the SLIGHTEST moement in the gauage. It went from the left end of the base in the "2" in "210" to the CENTER of the base of the 2 in the 210.
I then accelerated up to 60 mph and did the last 2 miles to the apartment complex. The gauge moved just barely perceptably back toward the left end of the base of the 2.
Then, I parked for 2 minutes while retrieiving the day's mail. The gauge moved just barely back towards the right (higher) as a result of the brief heat soak, but declined again by the time I got to my garage.
So, net result in 90 degree ambient temperature was that the gauge had DETECTABLE movement from the left end of the base of the 2 digit to about the center of the 2 digit.
This is with a supercharged SSR in which the engine radiator is masked not only by the stock AC condenser and power steering cooler, but also by a large and dense aftermarket transmission cooler, and large and dense intercooler heat exchanger.
The bigger tests will likely occur this weekend, when temperatures here in Austin are expected to hit the more normal 95 degrees plus.
I'll let everyone know how the setup does in THAT tougher test.
But, early results are pretty encouraging.
By the way, ever since I had the new fan setup put on, Mike's auxiliary fan has not started up at all so far.
Jim G
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