Cooling fan turns on at 202F normal?
 

So i just installed a grill block because everyone is doing it. anyways without it the car runs around 195-198 in most conditions. fan never turns on. now with the grill block, other than it running a bit warmer which is expected, it seems like the cooling fan turns on way too soon. usually i see the coolant temp drop after it reaches 202-204F. im using scangauge II for the coolant temps.

is there any way to have the fan turn on a bit later, or i should say hotter? maybe in the 210 area or even higher?


THanks!

mine doesn't come on until the temps are at somewhere around 220 or so. not sure how your set up is but I think you can get different temp switches for the electric fans to kick on at different times. with t-stats runing 195 or so I think 202 is really low for a fan to be coming on. you may be killing all the advantages that the grill block is giving you with that fan.

not sure about on your vehicle. still seems early to be coming on

My fan comes on at about 204 also. I've opened part of my grill block for the summer, to avoid the fan coming on.

forgot to mention this is for a 98 civic hx. i've read somewhere that the fan should come on around 235 but the manual says 203. maybe a different year civic's temp switch can be intergrated to change when the fan turns on.

Is your engine alluminum? I have heard that overheating an alluminum engine pretty much destroys it. maybe that is the reason for the low fan turn on temp.

Here is solution for you https://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Flex-...mZ170230355592. That's what I have in my vehicle and I set at 216*F to turn on my fans. It's still working after a year useage.

Two thoughts.

If your cooling fan is coming on your thermostat is wide open which minimizes the work the water pump has to do to flow coolant through the engine.

To some extent this would offset the power drain of the cooling fan.

Maybe an adjustable portion of the grille block to allow finer adjustment, possibly from inside the vehicle with a cable (seen one in a thread on this forum).

Ideally you wnat the thermostat wide open, but the fan off. Fan not running when airflow is adequate, running when vehicle is stopped in traffic.

I would avoid increasing the fan activation temperature very much for fear of causing other much greater problems.

regards
gary