Cool Running - I wish!!

Just got back from the 2000 Register National where myself, Anne and the three girls and the estate have spent the weekend.

I travelled down friday morning in the estate with Anne following later when the girls finished school.

It was an interesting trip down, I have never run the estate in such hot weather and with an outside temperature of 25 degrees it became apparent on the motorway that sustained 80mph driving wasn't possible as the oil presssure gently fell in the heat, not wanting to ruin the engine I slowed down ,crusing at 65 soon restored it. I think there are two reasons for this, firstly the reduced sump capacity - as the sump has been reduced in size to fit the front diff, it holds 1/2 a litre less oil than a standard Stag engine, secondly with the diff in front of the sump there cannot be much airflow over the sump to cool it. I need to look at fitting a water / oil intercooler as there's already a gearbox oil cooler in front of the radiator

On the trip home, with a temp of 30 degrees or more I was suffering from overheating water, as the temp gauge would soon head towards too hot in traffic jams or at 70 mph, there seemed to be a sweet spot at about 55mph, where it would sit at normal, but faster or slower than this had the gauge going to the red, even with the heater and blower on full in the cockpit  - not much fun for 2 and a half hours on the M5, but preferable to head gasket failure or warped heads on the TV8

I currently have a "pusher" electric fan on the radiator, as there isn't much room for the preferred "sucker" type on the engine side.

I do need to fix this - probably a good job the car isn't going on the 10CR in its current state.

So, I am going to try and find either a thin sucker type fan that will fit, or perhaps two smaller ones that I can fit to the back of the radiator out of the way of the crank pulley.

The other issue may be the heat radiated from the tubular exhaust manifolds - its time to look at ceramic coatings or exhaust wrap I think, as when I got home everything under the bonnet (even the water filled washer bottle) was hot to the touch.

Who would have a prototype ??

Anyway it was a great weekend with some 90 or so big saloons turning up, often driven by CT regulars! Plenty of scrumpy drunk too! :)