What temp should my stock srt8 charger run in stop and go traffic? Sitting at a stop light yesterday it was a little over 200 and I thought that might be to high. Judd
If I might be of some help, it all depends on a few diff. factors; your outside temp(more correctly the concrete temp, I would think this time of year that should not be to bad though), are you getting WOT from one stop light to the next?, do you still have your little plastic piece under your engine compartment? FYI mine gets above 200 even with a 180ts, I also have not been able to put that plastic piece back on. Please correct me if I have misinformed.
Stock, they'll often run up to 220* and a few degrees over maybe. Your high speed fans don't kick on until 219*. It's not real good for performance but they're designed that way. The cooling system is pretty much bullet proof with plenty of capacity (providing your fans are working). The 180* T-stat won't make a difference unless you have air flow through the engine compartment. So you need to be going down the road or have the fans on to see the lower T-stat. In stop and go or city driving you need to modify the fan turn-on temperatures to take advantage of it. There are a number of home-made mods or the Predator tuner that can do that for you.
Have a lot of people taken off the plastic piece under the engine compartment? Does it really make a difference, and are the any issues with moisture getting to the filter? I remember reading a while back that some guy made a scoop or flap of some sort to allow cooler air in from down there, but couldn't find the post. When I put my Airhammer on, moving the reservoir positioned the hoses right over the intake hole under the filter. Not too thrilled with that, so any advice on how to get a little more air underneath would be helpful. Thanks!
The belly pan is for aerodynamics. With it off you're going to get a lot of turbulence from the bottom side of the motor. You might get slightly less gas mileage and your top speed might be reduced from 173mph to maybe 163mph. Not sure how it would effect the airflow through the engine bay. The air into the air filter comes in through the brake cooling duct by the lower left fog light. Some people have fashioned a duct/hose from the duct to that hole in the bottom of the air box area. There's some debate as to that being a risk if you hit a really deep puddle... Don't know how effective it is or how much air flow you'd be cutting off from the left front brakes. My opinion is that sealing off the air box area from the engine bay would give you the biggest gains. Especially in slow driving or sitting still. If you watch your IAT temperature it rises very steeply just sitting at a red light.
