asiab3 wrote:
Apologies if this sounds like thought-vomit.
Oh me too. Here's mine.
Will you R-E-L-A-X already?? Do you know how many people's lives have been turned upside down by becoming slaves to a stupid gauge, obsessing over every stupid little hill or breeze?
ONE HUNDRED THREE degrees, did you say? How the hell is the engine supposed to be running as cool as you like when the cooling air itself is hot?
How do you suppose Volkswagen managed to sell these cars all around the world for people without any gauges? These cars can TAKE IT. All of the whining and mewling about how these cars can't handle this and can't handle that (look at those horrible advertisements for all that aftermarket junk) is in most every single case that I have run across because of some human error. They sure as shit were not as conscientious as you are. They were nowhere near as alert as you are. And YOU are the guy changing his plans because of some stupid gauge number? You need to read some of my desert trips. Why the hell do I do them endlessly, but to prove that these cars can take it? I add more thousands of highway miles AFTER I broil the damn thing just to make sure that I didn't "weaken it" like some would claim. Read about the 460* head temps in the Road Warrior where I was laughing at and cursing the VDO CHT gauge that RandyInMaine had lent me. I knew my engine better than some stupid interloper leering at me from the dash, I laughed and did not let up the accelerator one damn bit. That was what, 2005 6 7? Can't remember but that the heads gave me 515,000 miles before they were ruined by a machine shop, go figure.
So try this: Jake Raby passes out cold at the thought of a Type 4 engine running CHTs above 400. He says that the seats will fall right out. So he suggests Len Hoffman heads. You pay for proprietary seat installation techniques that are guaranteed to keep the heads happy. My question is, if the Len Hoffman seat installation technique is that magnificent, can they handle a little more heat? I trust these used Yuma heads in Chloe, I trust the BobD original heads implicitly! Implicitly and explicitly! Take me to the hottest damn place on Earth and give me the hottest damn day it can offer up, and let me drive one more damn time from 238 feet below sea level to the Towne Pass at 6,000 feet at full throttle for 28 miles, and this time will you please read the write ups?
p.s. if it is hot outside your engine will be hot! that is not abnormal.
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by Amskeptic » Fri Aug 03, 2007 7:05 pm
Just a quickie, this Starbucks has a busted air conditioner and they are closing it.
Just did the Las Vegas to Barstow run. It is 117* outside. My dad is a trouper but this heat is getting to him.
Engine did fine, oil 245* case at lower left 220* (air flow) exhaust pipes at about 765* taco plate 240* it is hot but running well. Did some truck drafting hopscotch up the hill, works good. So disappointed that this Starbucks had no a/c. . . .
Out into the frying pan. . .
Colin
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July 20, 2008
Now it is 100 degrees as I head east on CA168? to Nevada where I pick up US95 once more. And it was 102* on the long stretches up hill where the headwind began to make my little bus work too hard. The temperatures were startling:
Exhaust pipes L 822* R 812*
Oil filter 254*
Crankcase left rear corner 242*
Left valve cover 282* (ouch!)
Right valve cover 242*
Muffler 654* at center
Pavement 134* in the sun
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July 19, 2009
There is no describing it, but I am glad I got to enjoy it from the vantage point of an old air-cooled VW where the waves of stunning heat are not just something to see from the glass-enclosed A/C aquariums that passed me, noooooo . . . this heat is talking directly to me and it is talking to my poor engine and it is definitely harrassing my fuel pump, and that Makes The Day, the sheer unbelievability of this deadly heat concentrates you beautifully, the shared passage where you are
praying to your exhaust valves to carry you through, the understanding that this big old planet in the Universe rotates around a furnace and you can feel it like you never have, Today:
May 16, 2014
See, "praying to your exhaust valves". If YOU want to know what YOUR engine thinks, get out there and drive it! THEN go ask the valves what they thought. Did you clearances close up? If they didn't, there it is, your Free Get Out Of Gauge Hell card. You did read, I presume, that the BobD swallowed a plastic bag three and a half weeks ago and my head temps went up to 535*. My valve adjustments showed not a trace of upset. Gauges are good for that sort of emergency. I am still driving it.
You know that the exhaust valves run at a red hot 1,000* on their faces, right? Intakes run at about 300-400*. It is not so much the heat itself that you need to collapse in terror over, it is the differential across a lousy 1/2" of suffering aluminum. Have you wondered why these engines block the damn cooling air right across the center of the cylinders and heads? Because the intakes are too cool. Too cool! Heat them up a bit, give the cooling air to the exhaust sides of the heads and the outside of the cylinders because it ain't the heat itself that causes all these cracks, it is the temperature differential. I'll take a hot damn desert any day over a cold 45* day on a long uphill with a lean running engine.
Chloe (singleport 1600) did < DID get pissed off with me when I ran 2,000 miles at freeway speeds with head temps that would stay in the 420-430 range until I discovered that it had too-small fuel injection exhaust valves running on their outside rims. The seats, though damaged by extreme gas cutting shrouding, were firmly in the heads and the valves were fully within spec.
Ask yourself if these engines can't take a lousy 410* up a hill every once in a while. Now give yourself 420* just for the hell of it. My gauge blinks at 430*. I'm still here, still driving without a care . . . except for trashy plastic bags.
Colin
(p.s. now that I told you to relax, what is with this pinging? Do you have atrocious carbon build-up in your combustion chambers? High compression? Only under load?)