Does grill block reduce engine oxygen intake?

How do you block and with what materials please? Thank you in advance for your help

 

i use pipe foam insulation. i take the ½ stuff and pack into the grill both top and bottom. a lot of people have concerns about when and how much, but i found that any ambient temps consistently in the 50's i block 100%.

i use scangauge to monitor water temps and this helps keep it at the 200º F range. now is this too hot?? without it, the car runs between 170 to 190 in summer. problem is, even with grill blocking, i frequently struggle to keep it above 150.

 

With the recirculation of exhaust through the system along with the blocking. Perhaps a temp suitable to a more efficent operation can be had with the twenty ten. I will see as the temperture get's pretty cold during the winter. Thanks again I will be searching out additional info from the site.

 

the recirculation is designed for fast warmup. but my issues are "staying" warm. when i had my 2004, i tracked temps while driving around one day on a relatively mild winter day. was in high 30's, did have a brisk breeze going which probably made it worse. but without grill blocking, i could not maintain 150º. i would get warm, then hit a red light, cool down, start up be back in the 140's and lower.

up until that point, i had not blocked my grill. after that, i started blocking and do so about 8 months of the year. i start about now (in fact just got back from hard ware store. cost $9 for some 4' lengths of ½ " pipe foam.) and will stay that way until about May. i have actually seen temps hitting like 207-208 when on freeway when temps were in the low 60's many times, but have never had an issue. probably on the high end of the safe zone, but safe never the less. even without pressure, its still below the boiling point of water.

 

I drove last year with full blocking in ambient of +28C and saw coolant temp get to 95C on the highway. In the city it dropped to about 90C max and often cycled down to 85C ("normal" thermostat regulated temp). It is safe up to about +115C coolant. I haven't done the calculation, but it shouldn't boil until around +120C. I did hear the fans in the above situation, but they were cycling on and off, so not at full heat yet.

Note that you can't get heat -out of- the car until the coolant is over about 45C (heater fan won't run). At a light, in -20C to -30C temps coolant can drop to this range in 5 min. That's a long light, but I do watch it drop. Most times on "short" trips I don't see more than 66C coolant temps in winter. It often drops close to 50C at lights. Still get toasty warm air at that state.

The -real- part to watch is the inverter temp. It's critical as overtemp can -drastically- reduce service life.

 

I have a scangauge, is it possible to monitor inverter temps with it?

 

I drive in 45-60F weather and have all top grille blocked and 4/5 on the bottom blocked. I have a tiny 1"by3" opening on the drivers side near the edge for the inverter to cool. I see scangauge temps of around 190F at its highest and an average of about 180F normally. Could I be ok with blocking all of the grille based on this information?

What temperature does the scangauge display that correlates with stages S1-S4? My ICE will turn on sometimes even though the scangauge reads 188F, I am assuming this is simply the coolant temp and doesn't accurately predict or correlate to the engine temp?

 

I don't monitor inverter temp as there is currently no way other than installing an electronic temp gauge or the "Canview", which isn't sold to non-PHEV owners, or the program ken has posted about and a laptop computer with a CANUSB cable.

Why aren't I worried about overheating the inverter? Well, to put it simply, here in central Alberta it -never- gets hot enough to overheat the inverter. Consider driving in, say, Texas or Nevada or even Arizona in the height of summer (the car is designed to do that), ambient temp. at what, 110F? My guess is the inverter temp. is higher then than in Alberta with an ambient temp. of 50F (a hot winter day) with full blocking. Yup, it's a guess. Nope, I'm not worried enough to do a measurement.

I -only- run full blocking in "winter" (just installed it yesterday). I -have- been caught with full blocking in "summer like" temps (for us that's up to 80F) with no coolant overheating, in fact, the fans were cycling, off most of the time.

Sigh, it's snowing now. Snow on the ground. I suppose it will melt in a few days, and won't be permanent for another few weeks, but you never know!

 

Probably heading our way. I lugged the studded tires for my FJ out of the basement, have them in the attached garage. Although we can run studded tires Oct 1 - April 30, I like to wait until the first major storm is predicted

 

What's a safe coolant or engine temp that would most likely guarantee the inverter is not too hot? I have full top and bottom grill block with 2x4 inch hole on driver side in bottom grill area. Highest I ever seen on scangauge for coolant was 204F and usually sits around 186F.

 

well... water boils at 212º so i would say anything below that would be good. its too bad that we can t get a better line on what the inverter temp would be.

 

Tell you what, next time you just keep your freezing rain and your snow.

Ok?

At least the factory studded snow tires worked fine

Check out how shiny the ice is



When I got out at a rest stop, I immediately went on my butt. I knew my butt was good for something!



The shiny bits on the front tires are the studs, not pieces of snow. Nokian has an interesting stud pattern



Typical road conditions.



I had to turn back from my trip, they had the Trans Canada closed near the Ontario border due to a bad accident

I strongly advise anybody considering winter tires, to try the new factory studded Nokian Hakkapeliitta 5 for cars, or the Hakkapeliitta 5 Sport Utility for trucks and SUV's. They really do work!

 

The area that I live in gets around 40-50" of snowfall a year (typically late November to March). My integrity's are about to go since they don't have too much tread left, barely passing the penny test. Should I get snow tires for this winter and then new fuel efficient tires for the summer? I would hate to have to shell out for two sets of tires in less than a year. My plan was to get the WR-G2's for this winter and maybe get one more summer out of the integrity's or use the WR-G2's as my exclusive year round tire. I commute about 50 miles a day so I am not sure if the snow tires would get worn down on the roads if they are clean. Sorry to get off topic here but it would be nice to see some advice from someone who has a nice set of Hakapelita's, the tires I was considering if I go with snow tires.

 

That is the way I do it, and it is the best way to do it, you end up with a "no compromises" plan for driving. You have a decent "all season" tire for maximum fuel economy and smooth, quiet ride during the three seasons, and a set of aggressive studded winter tires for snow/ice

It may seem like a lot of money having two sets of tires for your car/suv, but consider this: the wear is now spread out among 8 tires instead of 4

Long term, there really is only a very minor additional cost - if there even is any additional cost - running 2 sets of tires that spread the wear out

I can understand if money is tight. Perhaps go ahead and have decent fuel efficient tires - there have been recent threads on this topic - installed now.

Quite literally, almost any tire is better than the Goodyear Integrity. A quick look at the Tire Rack survey reveals just how poorly the tire does

 

Thanks for the reply Jayman, I figured running two sets would be best. Would studded tires get worn down on my 50 mi round trip commute (back roads)? I'm sure the roads will be clean most of the time because the commute is plowed so is studded really necessary or should I look for a non-studded winter tire? My thoughts on studded tires are that they are used mainly for roads which are not plowed or areas that get huge snowfalls like Buffalo, NY.

 

Studded winter tires don't wear out any faster than soft studless winter tires do

A huge advantage with studded tires - which I found out this morning on the iced over Trans Canada east of Winnipeg - is they provide good consistent grip on glare ice

A pickup spun out on one uphill icy section, and cars behind actually started sliding backwards down the hill. I kept a safe distance away and realized just how icy it was

 

Man, I feel sorry for you guys in the great white north. I can't fathom having to have different tires for winter. In my previous car, a Porsche, I ran summer performance tires year round.

I doubt I'll need anything different on my Prius. I will probably run blockers for the grille tho.