But, again blocking the upper grill is a very small area, so it doesn't have as big of an effect as blocking the lower grill area. Higher ambient temperatures will require more air flow to cool your engine down and that must be taken into account when doing modifications like this. That being said, this is for my climate, not yours. This never happens in winter, and very rarely in summer. I can see when the radiator fan kicks on to cool things down. I always run my car with a scangauge installed which allows me to monitor my coolant temperatures. I have no issues at all with my engine getting too hot on my daily commute to work. Therefore, the grill is incredibly oversized for my environment, and I can take advantage of that and gain some of the benefits talked about above. This is the opposite of my climate in winter, haha. This means running through a hot desert in the middle of summer with the A/C running. OEMs must design it for all conditions, so it is sized for a worst case scenario. Lets also consider how the grill was designed. We have to make sure enough air can get to the radiator to cool the engine. First off, the grill is there to allow cool air to the radiator for cooling. However, if we understand why there is a grill and how it was designed, we can better understand the modification. Isn't it bad to block it off? It certainly can be. That is all well and good, but the OEMs put a grill there for a reason Daox. However, this was a fun project to do, and it gives the car a bit of character with the different colors. Since it is a small opening, the effects are not as pronounced as blocking the much larger lower grill area. Since less air is blowing around the engine bay, the warm air intake is able to suck up warmer air since the heat isn't being blow off the exhaust manifold quite as much.

It also had the side effect of increasing the intake air temperatures of my warm air intake. The upper grill block does help the car warm up a bit faster by not allowing as much cold air to pass over the engine. It is currently December, and it has been in the mid 20s F in the morning here in Wisconsin. Next, blocking grill area speeds up warm up times. Thus, pushing air around the car's body is advantageous because the body is more aerodynamically 'slippery'. The engine bay is very aerodynamically 'dirty'. Preventing air from going through the engine bay nearly always improves aerodynamics. So, I am going to share with you how I went about designing it and testing it out.įirst off, why would you ever want to block off your grill? There are two main reasons to block a grill off. This past weekend I took some time to put together a 3d printed upper grill block for my 2014 Mirage.

3d printed fastener slots