Well you do have air in your reservoir and that is the cap you are removing I assume. Even if not, it is part of the system.

The whole reason we have a coolant overflow reservoir, as you probably know, is because the fluid expands as it heats up. If you didn't have that air in the reservoir then the system would over-pressurize. You need that bit of air to compress and for the cap to be able to control the pressure without spilling coolant all over. The pressure you are releasing is just the pressure accumulation from fluid expansion.

By removing the shroud and flaps you have increased mid to high speed cooling (typically when you don't need it) at the expense of low/stop/go/city cooling.

I will state the obvious, the flaps open when the pressure from the front of the radiator exceeds that which is flowed through the opening for the fan, the converse is also true, when the fan sucks air through the radiator, the flaps are pulled shut increasing the air being pulled through the radiator core, without the flaps and shroud you might as well remove the fan altogether as its just moving air from the side/back/engine bay around.... modding the shroud for a second fan or getting a better fan assembly with shroud would be much better here, but try it maybe it will work for what you are doing.

Coming from a guy who runs a very large fmic and removed the AC condenser....

Life is good in the engine bay, even in 104 degree weather :) Highest i've seen is 205 while sitting, but it promptly drops to 187 once i start moving, even at only moderate speeds.




Life inside the cabin, however..... can get pretty fucking miserable. Lol. It's not too horrible, but I'm definitely not cruising around in the lap of luxury.

well I took a 2-3 minute log coming home, only to realize I didn't have ECT checked before I started logging -_-, but i'll give yall a run down. It takes me about 20 minutes to get home from work, so that's the time frame for the below scenario.

Basically temps were 105 ambient, coolant temps were 185 (this was the first light I had come up to after leaving work).
- Sit at light for 2 minutes ( most of a song on my ipod so im rounding) and temps climb to 195, take off from light and proceed to speed limit of 45 mph with lights every 200-400 yards for a total of 4 lights.
-ECT's are hanging around 190, and when I make it onto the stretch of hwy (5 miles, no lights, 60 mph speed limit) coolant temps settle at 190 +/- 1 or 2.
-wait at light outside neighborhood for roughly a minute, ECT's climb to 197, and then proceed down neighborhood street. This street is about 1/2 mile long with stop signs every 50-75 yards or so, basically every other street. By the time I was down this street (speed limit 35 mph) I was pulling into my driveway with 198* temps.

So basically this mod is a wash I feel, it isn't running "substantially" cooler when moving, but it isn't exactly as detrimental at low speeds as everyone seems to think... I'll try getting a solid log either tomorrow or Saturday for yall.

I installed the CS FMIC shrouds a couple weeks ago (I already have the top radiator plate that I linked to in an earlier post)

I got the CS shrouds because I got the rad plate with the vent cutouts and I wanted to block them.

After a couple weeks I can say that the CS shrouds do show an improvement in cooling. My temps were normally 187 when cruising on the freeway and rarely dipped below that (except on cool nights). In the last couple weeks since installing the shrouds, my cruising temps drop to the 183 degree mark more often than not - and even hit 181 on cooler nights. I still have a couple large gaps in the top plate, but I'm pretty sure that the CS shrouds help ECTs.

I'm fairly surprised none of you getting this deep have boxed the radiator yet...

I guess everyone has lost interest in this due to temps dropping off but I figured I'd bring it back to report what I've found...

Since installing my FMIC my ECTs have been considerably higher around town; on the highway they settle at ~187 but around town they're usually around 190 and whenever my speed drops below 40 they slowly climb... stopping at a light usually leads up to around 200 and takes quite a while to drop back down once I get moving again.

Anyway, today I poured a bottle of generic brand equivalent of Water Wetter in; holy shit what a difference. I was skeptical before but this stuff makes a bigger difference than I ever would have imagined.

My ECTs are 181-183 on the highway right now, and the highest I've seen yet is 190 at a light. 15 seconds after moving again it was at 183.

So what is this generic water wetter stuff called?

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i use semen in my radiator, I see about 150F highway temps and about 155 max stopped. Works well.

Although the water pump does sound to be working harder.