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mobil1syn said:
i think is your problem. you may be sending all the air up and over the hood at speed. id try without the winch and hood between the license plate and winch. a winch without an integrated control box dropped down to be mounted at the bottom of the tube may be something to consider.
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If I'm sending it over the hood, taking the hood off shouldn't matter significantly, I'm thinking. If I'm pressurizing the engine bay, it should make a big difference to remove it. Possibly similarly with the inner fenders if they're trapping hot air pockets. I suppose if I'm pressurizing the engine bay, louvering the hood would probably help, but I really don't want to do that if I can avoid it. But if that's what's happening, a 3 core radiator is unlikely to help much.

The trans cooler is behind the winch, and it's cooling decently even at speed.

I'll have to tinker some more with taking stuff (hood, front inner fenders, winch/license plate) off individually and see what makes a difference, and how much of a difference.
 
The Freeak said:
Can you build an air dam directly under the radiator to cause a low pressure area at speed, thus pulling air through the rad?
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Vertical, under the radiator, extending down a few inches? I probably could do it with some rubber, but there's a high likelyhood of the axle smashing rigid stuff in that area.
 
ScottRS said:
If I'm sending it over the hood, taking the hood off shouldn't matter significantly, I'm thinking. If I'm pressurizing the engine bay, it should make a big difference to remove it. Possibly similarly with the inner fenders if they're trapping hot air pockets. I suppose if I'm pressurizing the engine bay, louvering the hood would probably help, but I really don't want to do that if I can avoid it. But if that's what's happening, a 3 core radiator is unlikely to help much.

The trans cooler is behind the winch, and it's cooling decently even at speed.

I'll have to tinker some more with taking stuff (hood, front inner fenders, winch/license plate) off individually and see what makes a difference, and how much of a difference.
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i bet you are jamming the engine bay and the the air builds up behind the winch. no hood allows the flow, no winch allows you to get flow into the front of the radiator.

adding getting the temp differential and moving stuff around should get you some answers.

you could always dimple some holes to avoid louvers or do the cherokee thing and have a gap on the backside of the hood off the cowl.

ultra49ford-king-of-the-hammers.jpg
 
I painted some of the sides of the radiator tanks black to "fix" the temp gun pickup issue this morning, took it out for a lunchtime blast with no other changes, couldn't get it past 215 in what short drive I had handy, but with a quick pull-over at high temp, my previous huge temp drop that I was seeing, appears to have been entirely false due to temp gun not playing nicely with shiny aluminum. Temp drop on first check was closer to 5 degrees. It got progressively farther apart idling there, so I'm thinking the engine bay air stagnation issue is likely. I'll take the hood off for the next trial run of the same loop and see what happens.
 
I have heard of guys slicing part way through their radiator tanks and welding in an aluminum block off plate to add another pass. You won't get a 100% seal all the way around, but it would force most of the water back through. Should be pretty easy to make your current radiator a triple pass if you wanted.
May not help much if heat soaking the engine bay is the problem, though...
 
The Freeak said:
Are you running a thermostat? If so, what temp?
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Currently 180 "high flow" thermostat. Had a 195 in it before, and a 160 in-between the two. The 160 failed (partway open) but I'm not sure if it failed entirely or just stopped closing all the way (but would still open farther).

I have an oldschool circletrack water neck restrictor set from the 90's, really just washers with an open flow hole. Have those in 1", 3/4", and 5/8". Considering trying those as a "just see what happens" thing, partially trying to eliminate moving parts from the system. Need to get some more thermostat gaskets. If slowing it down with smaller flow orifices makes a difference, that's some science.

With the last checks I'm starting to wonder if my issue is (partially) too much water flow at speed. If that is the case, a three core radiator would help twofold, more tubes = lower velocity and more exchange area = more cooling. I need to figure out how to see Mobil1syn's fan shroud streamers suggestion at speed (gopro would be good here but I don't own one) and see what's happening there.

In the ever-enjoyable realm of project creep, I did discover something else driving around with the hood off: quick throttle blips blow some boost past the PCV valve, pressurizing the crankcase, and blowing oil out of the dipstick tube. Didn't see that before with the hood on, but now that I've seen it, I have more to fix. Yay.
 
This may sound counterintuitive- Maybe try a new "good quality" 195 stat?
Now hear me out (it sounds like you're already aware of what I'm about to suggest )
If your thermostat is "too cool", you may end up with the stat open so much that the coolant doesn't spend enough time in the radiator to lose heat.
Then the not cool enough coolant returns to the engine, where it gains heat more rapidly, which causes the stat to open immediately, and so on. Cascade effect. eventually the radiator and engine are nearly the same temp, and it just gets hotter and hotter.

Being that this only seems to occur at speed I'm more inclined toward air damming/ insufficient airflow, but every little bit helps (or hurts).
 
The Freeak said:
This may sound counterintuitive- Maybe try a new "good quality" 195 stat?
Now hear me out (it sounds like you're already aware of what I'm about to suggest )
If your thermostat is "too cool", you may end up with the stat open so much that the coolant doesn't spend enough time in the radiator to lose heat.
Then the not cool enough coolant returns to the engine, where it gains heat more rapidly, which causes the stat to open immediately, and so on. Cascade effect. eventually the radiator and engine are nearly the same temp, and it just gets hotter and hotter.

Being that this only seems to occur at speed I'm more inclined toward air damming/ insufficient airflow, but every little bit helps (or hurts).
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I hear ya, and dumbing that another step farther down is where I got to thinking try the restrictor neck bits: if I can have a thermostat that doesn't open, doesn't close, allows X flow all the time, I can eliminate a thermostat opening/closing at all. If I have a water flow issue, that should show it. If it was easier for me to put a metering valve in the upper radiator hose, I'd try that, but it's a pain, so I'm thinking try the restrictor washers and see if it helps/hurts/whatever.

The fact that I already have them, is one more vote in that direction. I can get a parts store quality (good? hopefully?) 195 thermostat locally, I can get more thermostat gaskets locally, a "high flow" thermostat is harder to get locally, but I can order it in.

Since I have an electric fan and no heater, I'm not really seeing a downside to the water neck restrictor idea, it's just a matter of getting to the parts store for more thermostat gaskets now. Same, really, for a new thermostat, I can grab one and try it, and for the $$ involved, probably a worthwhile experiment.

Since I'm stuck at work presently, but work is at home, I can do a bit of cooking: I boiled-up my takeout 160 and my 195. Since I'm at 5k feet, water boils around 203-205 here; my 160 starts opening at 170, is full open at 180, and only opens about 1/4". That said, the flow area of the cylinder open at that point, is the same as the 1" opening allows, so farther open is logically of no value. My 195 will not open in boiling water at 205. Science! More to explore. And I'd say that says, my takeout 195 is not of "good quality" at this point, it might have once been, but it's not any more.
 
Interestingly, winch off makes very little difference in coolant temp or radiator temp drop at speed. It actually makes more difference at low rpm low speed than it does at high speed. The biggest difference with the winch missing is the trans temp runs about 10 degrees cooler at high speed; it runs about the same temp at low speeds with/without.

On the plus side, part of where I drove it was to the parts store so I can start tinkering with slowing down coolant flow and see what that does.
 
Yes, winch off hood on. I'll try it with both off mad max style when it warms up later today. Winch off I thought could be inconclusive because I didn't do that till 8pm and ambient was down into the 80's by then, but it got up just as hot on coolant anyway, and still only 5-8 degrees temp drop across the radiator.

Thinking I should probably try a low speed high rpm combo as well, see if the bigger factor here is engine speed not road speed.
 
More science-ish. Not datalogging it, so it's a bit imprecise, but nonetheless...

Hood off winch off, same deal. Streamers on the radiator, I have airflow going through the radiator at speed, as much so as I have at fan-on idling crawl.
Low load low speed high RPM, first gear 30mph, heat climbs every bit as fast as it does in third at 60. Low RPM, keep it under 2k, it looks like I can drive it as-is all day. Where's the fun in that?

At this point, I'm thinking I can restrict the water flow and hope for the best, but I feel like that's ultimately a band-aid for my too-small radiator. Nonetheless, when the engine cools off, I'll swap to a more restrictive "dumb thermostat" (because I already have it) and see what happens. I'm willing to spend a few thermostat gaskets for info.
 
Can you add another small radiator in series or maybe one of those finned oil coolers since you don't have room for a bigger radiator?
 
Im4yotas said:
Can you add another small radiator in series or maybe one of those finned oil coolers since you don't have room for a bigger radiator?
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In theory, yes. In practice... it's ugly.

I do (sort of) have room for a bigger (thicker) radiator. I'm going to try that (three core, 28x19, aluminum, ordered today, hopefully get it and a water neck kit to make it Ford-ish next week). I think I can fit that. If I can't, it'll be because the water pump is too close to the fan, and I can go to the short Ford water pump instead of the long one I have now, if it comes down to it. I have the short pump timing cover/pump combo on my buggy carcass. FlowKooler makes a high flow mechanical variant of that pump as well, and for extra "yay" it's cheaper than the Edelbrock high flow long body reverse rotation pump too. I suspect the long body high flow pump flows more than the short body, but finding actual flow numbers for a mechanical water pump is pretty challenging.

The easiest place for me to put another radiator would be behind the back seat; if I went for true DGAF mounting I could put a 22RE/3VZE Toyota radiator there, but it'd dump airflow into my cargo space, which is less-than-ideal. Plumbing would also be less-than-ideal, and I think I'd be back into the realm of using both mechanical and electric water pumps to make things work. Another option would be to do something really silly like a mini XJ style radiator under the back seat, dumping down out the back of the tunnel. I'm not opposed to that either, in fact, I'd rather do that than put a Toyota radiator behind the back seat, but I'd really prefer to avoid that level of plumbing mess, I already have spaghetti to a pretty ridiculous level.
 
Commitment is taking that brand new radiator and cutting holes in it...
 

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Yeah, I know, kind of a lame "update". Three row radiator is in, hose hookups swapped, corner lopped off the one tank to clear the chassis, fan clears the water pump pulley (barely) by putting it in upside down, so now the "hey dumbass don't stick your fingers in here" sticker is on the bottom, but since the bottom is about the only place you can stuff a hand anyway, I guess that works. I haven't had any chance to drive it yet and see if it's making a difference, I'm just cycling the system to air bleed it so far.

Lacking an airflow gauge of any meaningful sort makes it hard to judge how much difference the thicker radiator makes in airflow, finger-feeling around the front of the grille feels about the same as it did before, so hopefully I didn't just screw my charge air, power steering, or transmission cooler airflow too badly. With Trail Hero as close as it is, I don't really have a lot of time for more rework, I'm just about at that "gonna have to be good enough" point now.
 
It worked good enough last year, I think you will be fine.

If you are really worried just plumb in a windshield washer pump and douche them occasionally.
 
So a bit more of a longer term update.
From where I left off, it was good enough at Trail Hero, but had a few issues as well.
Heating is still an issue. A good friend is of the opinion that the turbos are just flat out too small. I have more investigation to do on that, but suspect he's right. His take is, the exhaust side is too restrictive, holding too much heat in the heads, and it just soaks and builds, and no amount of fan and radiator can deal with that.
The belly tank, to borrow from oldschool Mythbusters, is busted. It works, until things get heat soaked. Then it's just a fight to keep fuel moving. I'm going to ditch it and will have to figure out something else for the fuel capacity I want. To be fair, it keeps delivering fuel while cool to beyond expectations; the last trip out, my daughter put it on its side with the engine ticking and no oil pressure, but still fuel delivery going on, and drove it back onto four wheels with no sign of fueling issues. But later on, on flat ground, after heating, no fuel pressure until we waited it out to cool off. I've got a fan, a fuel cooler, heat wrapped exhaust, heat wrapped tank, and it's just not enough.
On a side/vaguely-related note, while out 'wheeling, I was moving a log and it took an unexpected roll, catching my hand between it and a rock, and breaking a finger. So I'm tinkering at even less than my typical speed.
 
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As my dad would say "You got 9 other good fingers, use them".:flipoff2:

Just spitballing, but can you ceramic coat the exhaust and the fuel cell? Ceramic does a really good job of not letting thermal radiation from passing through it.
 
gt1guy said:
As my dad would say "You got 9 other good fingers, use them".:flipoff2:

Just spitballing, but can you ceramic coat the exhaust and the fuel cell? Ceramic does a really good job of not letting thermal radiation from passing through it.
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I have not tried ceramic coating.
I have the exhaust header wrapped from the turbos back (including the mufflers).
I have a heat shield between the exhaust on that side, and the belly tank.
I have the belly tank heat blanket wrapped (foil backed firewall insulation stuff, on all sides).
I have a fan drawing air from the interior under the passenger seat, into the underfloor belly area. It's triggered off of ignition-accessory position.
I have a trans cooler with return fuel running through it, and a fan on that, also running off of ignition-accessory power.
Once it's hot, it takes for-fawkin-ever to cool off. And it takes a while for it to get hot. But it is still getting hot eventually, to the point of vaporlock at the pump inlets.

To the other comment, I'm surprised I didn't flat out explode the tip of the finger I broke. It's still healing (and still swollen) several weeks after the fact. Plenty of "just the tip" jokes though.
 
ScottRS said:
I have not tried ceramic coating.
I have the exhaust header wrapped from the turbos back (including the mufflers).
I have a heat shield between the exhaust on that side, and the belly tank.
I have the belly tank heat blanket wrapped (foil backed firewall insulation stuff, on all sides).
I have a fan drawing air from the interior under the passenger seat, into the underfloor belly area. It's triggered off of ignition-accessory position.
I have a trans cooler with return fuel running through it, and a fan on that, also running off of ignition-accessory power.
Once it's hot, it takes for-fawkin-ever to cool off. And it takes a while for it to get hot. But it is still getting hot eventually, to the point of vaporlock at the pump inlets.

To the other comment, I'm surprised I didn't flat out explode the tip of the finger I broke. It's still healing (and still swollen) several weeks after the fact. Plenty of "just the tip" jokes though.
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Fuck, how did I miss turbo charged.

Turbos are fantastic mufflers all by themselves.

Straight pipes from the turbos and dump behind the front tires somewhere. Maybe a small race muffler on the end.
 
ScottRS - Am I reading this correctly?
"I have a trans cooler with return fuel running through it, and a fan on that, also running off of ignition-accessory power."
 
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The Freeak said:
ScottRS - Am I reading this correctly?
"I have a trans cooler with return fuel running through it, and a fan on that, also running off of ignition-accessory power."
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I think so. It's a trans cooler, but has no trans fluid in it, just fuel to air heat exchanger. It's cooling (theoretically) my return fuel coming back from the rails before it's returned to tank.
 
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