Quote:
Originally Posted by Silber Adler
I meant that you might take the thermostat out and running your car without it. Was a bit ambiguous. The thermostat is quite a restriction to flow. I have solved heating problems in two engines by taking the thermostat out.
Because your water temperature runs at a certain temp does the cylinder head? I would doubt that the water temp is equal to the temp of the cast iron. It has to adsorb heat from the metal and probably is slightly lower than than the block/head. Maybe you could point your ir meter at the coolant hose flowing out of the engine or at the coolant sensor. Maybe you have done this.
Are the passage ways inside the block corroded and restricted? Is your engine running inefficiently causing lots of heat.
Lots of good ideas from others as well.
My car with 200 on it ran at 95deg I changed the thermostat (both were labeled as 80deg) and it runs now at 85.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Silber Adler
I have re read your post and it looks like you have done your homework before you posted.
Is your timing retarded or perhaps your car has lots of blow-by heating up the internal engine.
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Ahh, okay. I thought that might be what you were getting at, but I wasn't sure because in the the FSM that SD Blue posted, it specifically says that, "It is therefore wrong to remove the thermostat for better cooling of the engine." While I never planned on permanently or semi-permanently using the vehicle without a thermostat, I wasn't sure what the objective of testing the temperatures without a thermostat would be.
The place I like to focus my IR testing is right at the area around the engine temperature sensor. Not only is it more accessible for the IR gun, it also seemed logical to test at/near the sensor reporting the temps.
From what I can tell, the engine seems to be running very efficiently. About 6 weeks ago, I rebuilt and balanced the injectors (using Monark nozzles, and getting all injectors within 3 bar of each other). I'm currently averaging 28 MPG with a 60/40 mix of freeway/city driving. I have not yet emptied an entire tank on the freeway, so I can't report on highway-only efficiency. My Mercedes-only (diesel specialist) independent mechanic tells me he's very impressed with the low amount of blow-by from my engine, especially considering its high miles.
I personally don't know how to measure blow-by and I haven't done a compression test, but the car has good power, doesn't smoke, and when removing the oil-filler cap on the valve cover with the engine hot and running, there is less blow-by than any of my 3 friends with the same engines in their cars. (How scientific, right?)