My brother has been a auto mechanic for 30 years and is certified

he say my car runs hot, to hot he thinks. anyway. He put i n a race car functional fender vents and it kept the engine bay cooler..

anyone done this yet.

 

Lets see pics! Fender vents might not be a bad idea as long as they look good. You can definitely see the inside of the fender from the engine bay so it would surely be functional.

 

Looking on the web for some. there is a guy in town that does stuff like this, but he is expensive.

 

? for a guru, what if you took of the back rubber strip on the cowl, woudl this allow more air to come out.

 

What makes him think it's running too hot? Has he hooked up a temp gauge or anything? Not doubting him or anything, just curious why he thinks that and/or if he's comparing it to other Toyota vehicles, etc.

You could remove the rubber strip, it's really easy to take off. But I don't think the gap is big enough to make a big difference in engine bay temps.

 

Wait, he's been working on cars for 30 years, and his option of cooling down the motor, is to put in vents? Wow.

 

no taking sides but he probably suggested that because it was the cheapest way to cool it down a little.

try getting a different grill. the stock upper oem grill restricts alot of air. I bought a mesh figure engineering grill off ebay for $130 & it brings in alot more air and will help not only in cooling the engine but better efficient air flow to the intake.

there was a guy that i met at a couple shows who made his own grill he bought all the material @ home depot. & it looked pretty decent.

 

Does it overheat or detonate? If not, it is fine. If it is overheatingsomething is wrong mechanically and that is what a warranty is for. I dought his redneck engineeering idea of adding fender vents is the answer because I am sure the engineers at Toyota designed the vehicle to run at a specific temp for efficiency.

 

OP, they aren't the stick on fender vents that everyone slaps on their cars are they?

I know someone on here had mentioned the "burning rubber smell" they get while driving their Xb in hot weather. Well this weekend I was moving all day (100+ degrees outside) & I did get that smell.......

Hasn't done it since but it did have me worried a bit. I'm hoping an upper grille swap would help get more air to the radiator and engine bay. Maybe some redline water wetter might help too *shrugs*.

 

I really don't think airflow is that restricted by the upper grill.

Last winter I made a 300 mile trip on wet, salty roads and the front and top of my engine was totally covered with dried salt crap. Most of the plastic engine cover looked white there was so much salt on there. In 300 miles my engine bay looked worse than my father-in-law's Forester's engine bay that was untouched (not cleaned) for 30k. So I think if that much crap got in through the grille, it's flowing a lot through there. There was even a post a long time ago about the amount of crap that gets in the engine bay.

Obviously it's not allowing as much as a totally open/mesh type grille, but it's still letting a lot through. I'm not sure how much impact allowing more airflow would drop engine temps anyways. If it's running hot enough to be on the verge of really tooooo hot, I think you'd have to get a bigger radiator and oil cooler.

But all of this contemplating is really pointless if the OP's mechanic doesn't have oil/water temps. Unless he's got a lot of experience with our engine to just "know" it's running to hot by standing there with the hood open. Or I'm just retarded, which is usually the case.

 

oh no, not this again?!

 

atleast we dont have to worry about stuff like that out here in cali mike n' dike

 

dang some harsh words there WRCZX3 ouch!

they do have additives that you can pour into ur radiator or reserve to cool it down a couple degrees.

i never had to use any so i dont know if it really works

 

But true.

The thing I'm finding hard to believe, is the 30 years in the field. If he started at 16, that would make him 46. OP is 28, that's an 18 year gap between siblings. That's some age gap. That means the parents were at least 44 when they had OP. And that's if they had the brother at the age of 16.

 

Sometimes the truth is harsh words but it still doesn't change the facts. Seriously why would you trust some dude who just thinks your car runs to hot to butcher it and put fender vents in? I would imagine that Toyota, arguably being the largest and most reliable auto maker in the world, did a little more homework than Billy Bob the mechanic when designing the ideal operating temp for a brand new car. If you add the fender vents becuase you like the style, well thats a different story and strictly a personal style preference.

 

Isn't the XB actually made by Daihatsu but branded under Scion/Toyota?

 

Nope. They are built in Tasumi, Japan by Scion.

 

So am I reading this wrong then???


http://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/...ng+page-4.html

 

 

^ You typed it in the wrong area.