COOLING BY KENLOWE

[piman]

Hello John,

that looks nice and tidy, I trust it goes as well as it looks?

I wonder why Jaguar fitted the coil on the engine, it seems a less than ideal spot from both heat and vibration perspective. Triumph also did the same on many cars, with mine I've re located it on the inner wing, I'll probably do the same with the MK 2.

Alec

[oldtimer]

Hi Alec
I totally agree with you, especially the second sentence.

John H,
Excellent photo, I like the super exhaust manifold too. Pity we have not got some soft water around here. The water in my area is so jolly hard. I suppose one can always buy distilled water, that my help in the long term. Although I have thought of it from time to time I have never actually done it.

Oldtimer

[Martec]

May I just add a bit to this post, many years ago I fitted the recommended fan to my Marina engine and removed the mechanical fan. After a return from holiday in heavy stop start traffic and a hot day my family were not impressed with the heater on full blast to cool the engine. The mechanical fan is still fitted.

I read somewhere that the mechanical fan used 5bhp we attempted to save with the electric fan. The car now has 130 Bhp a huge radiator and an electric fan as well, but only covers part of it.

The Radiator on the MkII is tall and narrow and I have a very big fan from a scrapyard bolted to the bodywork and does block the air flow a little but is still OK and I'm glad of both (no air flow restriction if the fan is pumping) on hot days and continental holidays.

Modern cars all seem to have only electric fans, I recently took the fan off our 240Bhp S type. The size of the supply cable alone shows the power of this fan and its potential through put. A small electric fan for the MkII doesn't stand a chance, particularly as it is known there is no air flow through it at 70mph.

Brian

[piman]

Hello Brian,

" particularly as it is known there is no air flow through it at 70mph. "

That's the first time I have heard that?

Alec

[Martec]

Hi Alec,

The information I have is in the main from Ken Jenkins advice and over the many years I have been modifying and refining the MkII, but other sources have confirmed this. I know from another experiment that I tried that the jacket water temperature can rise to 90 degrees from its normal 70 degrees, very alarming.

Due to the comments from very old articles in JEC and other magazines ( 8 years of rebuild and read everything I could find on it) I had my local radiator guy fit a 4 row modern (then) copper core to the top and bottom tanks (replaced the old honeycomb core) and a theoretically uprated fan, from the tin bent bladed fan to a nicely shaped plastic fan from a 2.5 BMW in the scrapyard (woe is me as that scrapyard is closing or has closed). As It has always had a high concentration of anti-freeze in it the car has served us well in the heat of Europe and UK. Other comments stated that although the car has a 'swoopy' design it is aero-dynamically a brick (all cars are).

I have just followed advice from people I respect and have more experience that me.

Best wishes
Brian

[piman]

Hello Brian,

while the radiator grille is quite small I would have thought that it would let sufficient air in. What does come to mind, and this stems from Aston Martin's experience, making sure there are vents in the front of the car to allow air out of the engine bay. They found this when testing a, I think, a DB3 or 3S when the bonnet flew off and the car immediately gained 3 or 400 rpm. After this they incorporated vents to exhaust air from the engine bay.

Alec

[Ronniebiggs]

On the subject of electric cooling fans, they can be fitted for a couple of reasons; 1) Increase the cooling, e.g. in traffic. 2) Replace the standard belt-driven fan to reduce power consumption (OK, not much of a saving) and also reduce noise (can be considerable). On my own 3.4 Mk2 I would fit one for the latter reason, but I've not found cooling, power or noise to be big enough issues and I like to keep my cars as standard as possible. As regards air flow restriction, I concur with the comments about reducing under-bonnet pressure. If the air can't get out, it won't go in. Early modifiers of drum brakes fitted whopping ducts to blast air in, but it took real genius to work out you needed an equally big hole to let it out. However, as CFD is such a black art (why do you think Adrian Newey gets paid so much?) I wouldn't want to put forward a solution! The Law of Unintended Consequences suggests a "cure" may make things worse. Take one for the team, fit a Kenlowe, and let us know how you get on.