Yeah, she runs a little hot when pushed hard while towing. Nothing that cant be managed by dropping back below 100 into 4th gear but still a little annoying.....
The cooling system as currently fitted is in good shape and everything appears to working correctly, it is just not big enough....
Currently i have a PWR radiator utilising with their standard 55mm / 16 Fins per inch (FPI) core. PWR offer a 68mm core and a 55mm close mesh (19 FPI) core so in order to increase my cooling capacity, either of these cores should do the job right?? Wrong - PWR advise that fitting either of these cores into the Patrol may well have the opposite effect due to the reduction in air flowing through the core due to the restriction caused by the extra 13mm of core thickness or the extra 3 fins per inch. Basically, the thicker the radiator the faster you have to be going to get the appropriate amount of air moving through it. Hence why a v8 supercar will overheat if driving around town....
The importance of airflow through the radiator was further confirmed after speaking with Brad from Brunswick Diesel. They have developed their own radiator specifically for these engines which has a 58mm / 14 FPI core. When doing wind tunnel testing during the development they found that cooling efficiency actually started to drop off at highway speeds if they went to a thicker core or 16 FPI. The efficiency drop off was obviously even more obvious at lower speeds.
So, according to the experts, if i can increase airflow through my existing radiator i will almost certainly see an improvement and possibily open up the option of fitting either of the above mentioned cores. The condenser core pretty much spans most of the effective length of the radiator and seemed like a good place to start.......
