Insulation for blanked pre-heat pipe inlets?

[jkp]

Hi there

Having just fitted a pair of twin carbs to my bay I'm down to finishing touches. My van runs has a history of running pretty hot so whilst this might be nitpicking / worrying unduly now that the pre-heat inlets are blanked I'm looking at the tinware that used to clamp around the risers and wondering if I should be doing anything to reduce potential heat / air intake now that the pipes are gone. I can see a couple of options:

- Figure out something I can use as an insulator to fill the clamps and provide some better sealing / insulation above the blanking plates.
- Replace the tinware with some new stuff with no holes for the risers. Everyone says new tinware isn't very good compared to the OG stuff (which I believe mine is) though...

Thoughts?

Cheers!

 

[sparkywig]

Either buy a new piece of tinware, or blank the one you've got.
How do you know it runs hot?

 

[jkp]

Oil temp sensor consistently reads hot. Sometimes getting up to 130 on very hot days. I’ve tested it’s calibrated correctly in boiling water and unfortunately it is

I’ve heard tell that reading the temp at the heads is a better approach but this is what I have for now. Interestingly though - I do get a reading from the 123 dizzy I have which is a reasonable amount lower…

 

[ozziedog]

Where abouts is your sensor fitted? It’s quite possible that you might hit those temperatures just before it hits the oil cooler if it happens to be fitted there. Those 123s are considered reasonable too.

Ozziedog,,,,,,,,,Just a passing thought.

 

[sparkywig]

Is the sensor on mounted the engine oil outlet line or return line from the cooler?

 

[jkp]

Its a dipstick sensor....would love to be told that its nothing to worry about!

My recent work fitting dual carbs in combination with changing the curve on the 123 to be a little more conservative seems to have done something though - I did a decent run back today from a night away - sitting at 55-65 on the motorway and doing some town driving (lights and whatnot) - it seemed to hold steady at about 105 today which is a lot better than it has been. Granted today wasn't as hot as recent days but I think I'm headed in the right direction...

 

[jkp]

Just to close out on the original topic: I ordered some new tinware in the end as it was cheap-as-chips (lets hope there is no catch when it arrives!)....it'll tidy up a bunch of other holes that have been blanked and I just think it'll give me piece-of-mind that I've done everything I can when it comes to sealing off sources of hot-air from the engine where I can...

On that note though - one thing I have noticed is that the rear valance gets really warm on a good run...enough to turn it into a sort of radiator. I do have an aftermarket exhaust (vintage speed thing) on there and its a long time since I fitted it so I cant for the life of me remember if the original setup was any different. This has been covered before but shout if theres anything I should be mindful of on that front!

Cheers folks