Seriously, this needs a reference to the constitution? Don't take the internet too seriously, sorry if you thought I was suppressing your ideas. Me stating that your ideas are garbage is not taking away your freedom to shovel it out.
Grille inserts
- Thread starter Oldguy
- Start date
Seriously, this needs a reference to the constitution? Don't take the internet too seriously, sorry if you thought I was suppressing your ideas. Me stating that your ideas are garbage is not taking away your freedom to shovel it out.
Well said.
It's my opinion that restricting airflow is not a good thing to do... By any means.
Just like it is your opinion that it's fine.
What amazes me is when people have such a strong opinion of something they call someone else's opinion garbage, and they're on the side of what could cause damage.
I prefer to err to the side of caution.
The irony is your post basically restated what I said , it is fine if all is good , but could contribute if the system is failing ...but my post is garbage.
Ya my response was harsh, I really should have just said the sorry if you thought I was suppressing your ideas part. A difference of opinion makes a good discussion.
Well , that's what took me back was the fact that it came across so heavy-handed... I know I'm probably the biggest idiot on here, but I try to be respectful of other viewpoints.
Having stood on the side of the road with a guy that had a similar set up and was already dealing with cooling system issues, I became convinced that he might have been okay had he not contributed with a little obstruction...he had an automatic transmission and had gone up an extremely long mountain and had over a hundred thousand miles... He had already done a water pump and he was headed in the direction of needing a cooling system rebuild.
I felt like having the inserts in his case was a restriction he didn't need that a better functioning cooling system could handle easily.
You know this is a funny forum... I bet half the threads are some guy trying to straighten out a problem because they did something that was none stock to the vehicle.
I can't argue...I know they are fantastic in stock trim but they look so good lifted with big tires and goodies .
Thank you for your above response.
Curious all the people saying grill inserts block air while running a massive bumper and winch in front of their Jeep...
That's true ... And it would lead me to think that adding grill inserts if you have a winch would be a terrible idea or adding a winch if you have grill inserts would be compounding things.
But more importantly the winch will get you out of the woods.
Of course if you overheat the Jeep because of the winch... It's what stranded you in the woods.
Blaine made a good statement the other day referring to all the armor that people add drops the vehicle lower and consequently you need the armor...
You know at the end of the day nearly every single one of us ..me included... Can't leave well enough alone.
I had them on my 03. Perfect cooling system. No issue off roading in 115°. That said, I removed for other reasons and decided I like the stock look better. Logically, they must block some flow, but if your parts are functional you should not notice.
Not_Invented_Here_
TJ Addict
Completely useless anecdotal evidence here but I've been rocking them since this past March or April without issue. I do not wheel but KC summers are notoriously hot and my driving conditions are typically city with light/medium traffic or short highway commutes in light traffic. They're one of two aesthetic mods I've made that serve no functional purpose and I'm loathe to remove them but then again this thread makes something of a case for it. This forum creates as many problems for me as it solves 
Didn't mean to voice support of one side or the other, just more that people usually don't bat an eye or notice any temperature increase with all the extra weight and mass in front of the grill.
Didn't take long for the restricted airflow crowd to show up.
If those inserts are causing your Jeep to have a meltdown, you have other, very serious problems going on.
If those inserts are causing your Jeep to have a meltdown, you have other, very serious problems going on.
That was my point , if the system isn't operating effeciently , those could accelerate overheating .
The newest TJ is 13 years old , so odds are many out there have some miles on them , and history shows cooling system issues start at around 125-150,000.
Otherwise , they don't matter .
Nothing more exciting than a good old TJ Forum peeing match.
I think that's the issue; we know that they must block the flow. Notice that I did not say that they lessened the flow, which has been disproved by the aforementioned mathematics, and which is a very different situation.
When @pagrey did all the math awhile back I thought about what he was saying for a long time, and I realized that either I wasn't understanding something, or that the math was incorrect...and I didn't suspect the latter to be the case. So, I did what I usually do when I don't understand something: I took it to an extreme version of the concept at hand and tried to see if it made sense. Thus, I envisioned a single-slot grille opening, with the remainder being blocked; according to the math the airflow through that single slot can be the same as with seven slots if certain conditions are met...but that doesn't mean that the cooling system will still work, because that latter part is a separate question.
To that end: we know that if you block the airflow to a radiator it becomes less capable of cooling because it cannot do what it is designed to do - that can be proven with a piece of cardboard - and we know that there must be a tipping point where it can no longer cool the engine...so if we're really talking about whether or not a change to the grille can cause overheating, it seems logical that we have to ask "what level of grille blockage would cause the radiator to become problematically inefficient?" Seems like that could also be roughly discovered with a few pieces of cardboard, now that I think about it.
The answer is - it depends on how efficient the radiator is now.I think that's the issue; we know that they must block the flow. Notice that I did not say that they lessened the flow, which has been disproved by the aforementioned mathematics, and which is a very different situation.
When @pagrey did all the math awhile back I thought about what he was saying for a long time, and I realized that either I wasn't understanding something, or that the math was incorrect...and I didn't suspect the latter to be the case. So, I did what I usually do when I don't understand something: I took it to an extreme version of the concept at hand and tried to see if it made sense. Thus, I envisioned a single-slot grille opening, with the remainder being blocked; according to the math the airflow through that single slot can be the same as with seven slots if certain conditions are met...but that doesn't mean that the cooling system will still work, because that latter part is a separate question.
To that end: we know that if you block the airflow to a radiator it becomes less capable of cooling because it cannot do what it is designed to do - that can be proven with a piece of cardboard - and we know that there must be a tipping point where it can no longer cool the engine...so if we're really talking about whether or not a change to the grille can cause overheating, it seems logical that we have to ask "what level of grille blockage would cause the radiator to become problematically inefficient?" Seems like that could also be roughly discovered with a few pieces of cardboard, now that I think about it.
Theoretically, the system can handle some loss of cooling efficiency and still handle the engines requirements.
Under this thought process, it stands to reason that all vehicles aren't in the same condition depending on how crudded up the system is , so a 20 percent loss (imaginary number) would be more detrimental to one than another .
These likely aren't a deciding factor , I think it's just a gut reaction that anything that seems to block air may affect cooling .
Of course , less air coming faster is another principal in cooling , along with myriad other things.
Not taking a side, but a winch does not block air flow through the grill. The air only changes speed as it goes around it. Unlike the inserts, which are directly in the airflow path.
IMO, it could be a contributing factor (the final straw) in an existing compromised system being pushed to it's limits.
IMO, it could be a contributing factor (the final straw) in an existing compromised system being pushed to it's limits.
If anything, I would think it more likely that a winch likely directs air away from the grill, acting like a spoiler, creating negative air pressure directly behind it, and a positive above it.
My point was just, it doesn't seem like anyone has actually studied this, and I found it ironic how people are arguing about a bit of mesh (which we stick in front of every radiator just about ever in sports cars), and ignoring some fairly other large things, like bumpers, winches, debris strikes, etc.
At the end of the day, I don't think it really matters. If your cooling system is pushed over the edge by a 15% reduction in air flow, I don't think the mesh is the biggest concern. It also seems likely that if you're THAT close to failure, it's going to happen anyways, with or without mesh.
The grill inserts do the same thing. They simply increase the airspeed through the grill openings. The fan clutch determines the airflow through the radiator increasing it and decreasing it as needed. This is the part most people have trouble wrapping their heads around. There is no change in flow through the radiator, just a change in load on the fan.
Sorry to the OP who just came here to share a cool mod to his Moms Jeep, but this is the fun of it right? If anybody wants to rehash it we could venture back to the thread with the math instead of dumping all over this thread.
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