Does grill block reduce engine oxygen intake?

[grnmoster]

How do you block and with what materials please? Thank you in advance for your help

[efusco]

Originally Posted by grnmoster

How do you block and with what materials please? Thank you in advance for your help

If you use the search tool you'll find lots of pictures and ideas. But most of us use that foam pipe insulation and force it in the slats for the grill. Be sure, when you do your search, to look at the various temperature limits for full grill and partial grill blocking.

[DaveinOlyWA]

i use pipe foam insulation. i take the ½ stuff and pack into the grill both top and bottom. a lot of people have concerns about when and how much, but i found that any ambient temps consistently in the 50's i block 100%.

i use scangauge to monitor water temps and this helps keep it at the 200º F range. now is this too hot?? without it, the car runs between 170 to 190 in summer. problem is, even with grill blocking, i frequently struggle to keep it above 150.

[grnmoster]

With the recirculation of exhaust through the system along with the blocking. Perhaps a temp suitable to a more efficent operation can be had with the twenty ten. I will see as the temperture get's pretty cold during the winter. Thanks again I will be searching out additional info from the site.

[DaveinOlyWA]

the recirculation is designed for fast warmup. but my issues are "staying" warm. when i had my 2004, i tracked temps while driving around one day on a relatively mild winter day. was in high 30's, did have a brisk breeze going which probably made it worse. but without grill blocking, i could not maintain 150º. i would get warm, then hit a red light, cool down, start up be back in the 140's and lower.

up until that point, i had not blocked my grill. after that, i started blocking and do so about 8 months of the year. i start about now (in fact just got back from hard ware store. cost $9 for some 4' lengths of ½ " pipe foam.) and will stay that way until about May. i have actually seen temps hitting like 207-208 when on freeway when temps were in the low 60's many times, but have never had an issue. probably on the high end of the safe zone, but safe never the less. even without pressure, its still below the boiling point of water.

[David Beale]

I drove last year with full blocking in ambient of +28C and saw coolant temp get to 95C on the highway. In the city it dropped to about 90C max and often cycled down to 85C ("normal" thermostat regulated temp). It is safe up to about +115C coolant. I haven't done the calculation, but it shouldn't boil until around +120C. I did hear the fans in the above situation, but they were cycling on and off, so not at full heat yet.

Note that you can't get heat -out of- the car until the coolant is over about 45C (heater fan won't run). At a light, in -20C to -30C temps coolant can drop to this range in 5 min. That's a long light, but I do watch it drop. Most times on "short" trips I don't see more than 66C coolant temps in winter. It often drops close to 50C at lights. Still get toasty warm air at that state.

The -real- part to watch is the inverter temp. It's critical as overtemp can -drastically- reduce service life.

[2009Prius]

Originally Posted by David Beale

I drove last year with full blocking in ambient of +28C and saw coolant temp get to 95C on the highway. In the city it dropped to about 90C max and often cycled down to 85C ("normal" thermostat regulated temp). ...

The -real- part to watch is the inverter temp. It's critical as overtemp can -drastically- reduce service life.

So what inverter temperature do you see with full grill block at +28C? Thanks!

[tom1l21]

I have a scangauge, is it possible to monitor inverter temps with it?

[2009Prius]

Originally Posted by tom1l21

I have a scangauge, is it possible to monitor inverter temps with it?

Unfortunately not (yet). Some time ago Hobbit said he had finally given up trying to make it work. Apparently there was some kind of firmware/hardware limit of ScanGauge in data processing.

[tom1l21]

Originally Posted by 2009Prius

Unfortunately not (yet). Some time ago Hobbit said he had finally given up trying to make it work. Apparently there was some kind of firmware/hardware limit of ScanGauge in data processing.

I drive in 45-60F weather and have all top grille blocked and 4/5 on the bottom blocked. I have a tiny 1"by3" opening on the drivers side near the edge for the inverter to cool. I see scangauge temps of around 190F at its highest and an average of about 180F normally. Could I be ok with blocking all of the grille based on this information?

What temperature does the scangauge display that correlates with stages S1-S4? My ICE will turn on sometimes even though the scangauge reads 188F, I am assuming this is simply the coolant temp and doesn't accurately predict or correlate to the engine temp?