[DeTomaso] Cooiing.

[JDeRyke at aol.com]

In a message dated 2/11/07 10:55:21 AM, pantdino at aol.com writes:

<< My guess is that the coolant temp is proportional but not equal to the 
engine temp, and that the main goal in temp control is to prevent the large 
coolant mass from boiling. Also, there really is no such thing as "engine temp", as 
different parts of the engine will have very different temps..... >>

I agree. As you say, temps vary radically all over the block, heads and the 
whole cooling system.  The biggest problem for us amateurs is, we need is a 
fully instrumented engine AND cooling system to see minor effects like changes in 
surface tension of the coolant. But we tend to make 1.0 change, check at 1.0 
place (usually with a  a suspect temp gauge & crummy sender) and conclude 
there's no improvement in what we did. There's a big delay-loop in some of the 
results too, which is why I hesitate to hang too much confidence on oil temp 
readings. FWIW, I've had problems getting consistency of readings with my Costco 
IR gauge, too- being a fraction of an inch off from the 'target' spot changes 
the reading more than the thing I'm trying to evaluate! 
I also keep remembering a comment on production engine cooling by Carrol 
Smith - if you must go to straight water to improve engine cooling, you've got 
other problems besides cooling... - or something like that. Ignition timing, 
compression, rad size, air flow thru a rad, water velocity in the system- the list 
goes on. There are probably no Panteras running identical components or 
engine parameters like timing, compression etc which also makes evaluations 
difficult.
And while our personal Pantera never had catastrophic boil-overs, the water 
temp was sometimes what I called 'uncomfortably high' relative to other brands 
of performance autos we own. I changed virtually every component in our 
cooling system with almost no effect on steady-state-running engine temps. Then I 
switched to an aluminum rad (Fluidyne) and water temps dropped 20 degrees under 
the worst conditions with no concurrent changes. Did that "fix" it? Dunno- but 
its consistent and I'm satisfied- for the time being. Cheers- J DeRyke