George,

I personally have no experience with thermal reactors, so cannot comment, but your argument on heat transfer through conduction is spot on! Exhaust valves glow red, and sometimes even white hot from the heat absorbed from exhaust gasses - the bit of conducted heat from the headers seem insignificant by comparison!

Jerry - if you are interested I'll send you a set of templates for blanking-off plates tomorrow.

Cheers!

Willem Fick

thanks, I think I'm going to put some screen on there to keep out bugs and stuff. I think I worry to much to

Jerry:

It is good to be careful. I sometimes wish I would be less spontaneous ...

You know, you could cook in there, so don't make the screen too permanent. I have personally heated up sausages on my engine tin last year, at an autocross for lunch. No, it wasn't while driving. :) The engine tin is perfect "shelving" for heating food. Yes, my engine is so clean, I eat off it.

I think for actuall cooking, you'd want it on the headers, so what better location than in the heat exchangers? Here is some reading: "Manifold Destiny : The One, the Only, Guide to Cooking on Your Car Engine!" by BILL SCHELLER:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0679723374/qid=1107939129/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/104-7984592-6077568?v=glance&s=books

I haven't read the book, but I bet it's a lot of fun to try some more involved recipes. :D

Take care,

George

Hey Willem...I would love a set of those templates...

With pleasure!

I'll make up some stencils, photostat them onto A3, and post to whoever wants as .pdf! To make them up does require some welding, but still shouldn't take much longer than an hour!

Warm regards!

Willem Fick

Jerry, John,

You have PM.

Cheers!

Willem Fick

"I have personally heated up sausages on my engine tin..."

- This is a fun thing to do at a concours. I did foil wrapped burrittos...

Maybe I'm really confused, I would think that if you are not going to have any air from the engine cooling fan going through the heat exchanger, it would be better to screen them than totally cap them. So I agree with GeorgeK. Caping one end off would eliminate any air flow through them at all, but dont see the harm in leaving on the heat exchangers. I think the heat would still dissipate with minimal airflow through the exchangeers, so think of the heat exchangers as heat insulators carrying out the heat from under the car. Am I way off here? I'm not a physics wiz, I just feel like I did the last time I slept in a Holiday Inn Express! :)

I did just that- screened them off and put some hose clamps on there to hold the screen.. Footwell blowers provide plenty of heat all by themselves.
The PDF's that Wil has are of left and right block off plates of the engine tin, which is a wise alternative to the $90 left side block off from performance products.

Jerry,

Are you serious? Do they charge $90 for those couple of pieces of tin, or is theirs more elaborate? (If not, it's a complete rip off!)

Cheers!

Willem Fick

its fiberglasshttp://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1108126474.jpg

Wow, even more of a ripoff then!

With FG, once you have the mold, making these plates must cost close to nothing! Making mine, cost me around $3, which included powdercoating, and I didn't even break out into a sweat.

You can imagine how chuffed I am with saving $87...

Must say, the fibreglass looks nice though! Seems like a simple enough mold to make up - will give it a bash!

Cheers!

Willem