rad and coolant (fwd)

[Orin Eman]

Forwarded message:
>From owner-diy_efi-digest-owner at coulomb.eng.ohio-state.edu  Mon Oct 20 07:50:02 1997
Message-ID: <3448A335.190F at espace.dcl.com>
Date: Sat, 18 Oct 1997 04:53:25 -0700
From: talltom <"talltom(SPAMBLOCKER)"@espace.dcl.com>
Organization: IMPECCABLE
X-Mailer: Mozilla 2.01 (Win16; I)
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: DIY_EFI-Digest-Owner at coulomb.eng.ohio-state.edu
Subject: Re: RE: rad and coolant
References: <md5:4FE3E40B8938B9A291DCA335357D12EF>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

From: Robert Harris <bob at bobthecomputerguy.com>
Date: Sun, 19 Oct 1997 10:57:51 -0700
Subject: RE: rad and coolant

I borrowed a book from Dave Williams, now overdue and on the way back  -
I
promise! by Century published in the 60's that explains graphically wear
and
temps and why a fast warm-up is critical.  This is the results of a 60
hour
Gasoline Engine Test on a small industrial motor

     Temp        Cyl wear        Fuel Consumption    Power
      40   f         .008 in           3.8 gal/hr                  26 hp
      100 f         .002 in           3.5 gal/hr                  27.2 hp
      140 f         .001 in           3.2 gal/hr                  28.5 hp
      160 f         .0005 in         2.9 gal/hr                  29.0 hp
      180 f         .0003 in         2.8 gal/hr                  29.5 hp

"F. Thermostats

The thermostats function is to retard coolant flow through the radiator
until
coolant temperature increases to operating range.  A cold engine does not
provide the best performance  and is subject to shortened life and
sludging.
 More than a gallon of water is formed as each gallon is burned.  In cold
operating engines a portion of exhaust gasses and water blows by the
piston
rings and forms corrosive acids in the crankcase.  This contamination is
greatest in wintertime due to retarding of the crankcase ventilating
system by
low air temperature and increased warm-up time"

Moral of all this is to bring the engine up to operating temp as fast as
possible to minimize wear.  If electric fans, don't turn them on until
operating temp.   If you can control matters (EFI can on most engines)
get it
warm (~180) as fast as you can.    At the right temp you make more power
and
get better economy.  A note about oil.  Seems to lubricate best at about
180 f
 average and somewhere it MUST exceed the boiling point of water on an
open
surface in order to drive the water out.  If you don't, all the water
makes
sulfuric and nitric acid in your oil and all the wonnerfull things that
follow.

-----

I've seen pretty much the same thing in a graph. The interesting thing
to me was the general curve, which on what I saw went considerably
higher than this example.(250*??) Basically the wear curve goes down
the hotter it gets, and gets flatter as it goes. At 180* it's pretty
close to flat, at 195(gm stock thermo) it's nearly nonexistant.
Anyhow, my approach was to say the hell with the little bit of difference
in wear between 180*&195* because I feel that 195 turns seals into
bakelight which cuts grooves in the shaft and leaks oil which shortens
engine life Real fast if you're one that insists that engine's shouldn't
have to be checked for oil between reasonable changes.(if ya can't put
them together better than that ya better have somebody else do it!:-)
160* is still to high in the wear dept for me to be comfortable with.

  With all this about something as simple as a cooling system, it's
not hard to understand why we haven't gotten far on efi...:-)