I’ve taken the advice from my radiator cap thread and bought what I thought at the time was a reasonable price at the Ford dealer ($10) for one.
After opening it and seeing it was a different cap than the one on my truck,I wrote the Motorcraft cap# down and back to the parts dept.
Partsman says the one on my truck (original equipment) is listed in the parts computer for a 6 cyl.engine,I have 4.Since I KNOW that’s the same cap I’ve been toting around for 7 years,I’ll take the one listed for the 6 cyl. ($7 more-but at least it’s the one I want.)
Thanks BTW,to the poster who told me to check to make sure the new and old cap line up in dimensions.The 4cyl.cap is listed at 13 lbs.pressure.The original cap,and the one I bought is 16lb.I understand from elementary physics pressurized water boils at a higher temp,and one of the reasons cars switched to a pressurizeds system (or higher pressured one,)
So here’s my question.I live in the desert and a lot of new cars are sold with the "desert heat cooling system upgrade"words to that effect in the newspaper ads.I’m thinking mine is somehow tied into that.
Would a 6 cyl.engine require more pressure in the cap than a 4? Ford seems to think so.Is the radiator bigger in the 6cyl?And if it is why?Maybe I have the 6cyl.radiator as part of the "heat cooling system upgrade?Is having higher pressure in a system that the "book"doesn’t call for somehow inefficient or harmful.
I’ve never had the heat gauge measure more than halfway up the normal bar in 110 deg F stop & go traffic,and it usually sits around 1/4 way in normal range.
Bonus question for the SDMB click & clack types.What should I expect in increase of MPG/performance in a $70 clean the injectors package at the Lube& Tune.I mentioned I’m looking for things that have possibly lower my MPG by a mile or 2 lately,tho no noticeable drop in performance.
Maybe, the higher pressure is due to a heavy duty cooling system, or maybe at some time in the past the wrong cap was installed. If you are the first owner, it could even be the guy at the factory installed the other cap in error.
Maybe, it does stand to reason that a 6 cylinder engine which burns more fuel requires more cooling. How that is done is something the design guys figure out before the car is built. Bigger rad., maybe a different airflow duct to the rad., bigger fan, or more pressure in the system. I should note here that increasing the pressure in the system does not make the car run any cooler; it raises the temp at which the coolant boils. I think you are assuming that a six cylinder and a four have different rads in them. This may or may not be true, a very careful reading of a parts book would be about the only way to know for sure.
These last two may be related. Most (if not all cars) the temp gauge tends to run about in the middle if everything is normal. If the engine does not reach operating temp, the fuel system may not go into closed loop (responding to the signals from the oxygen sensor) and may remain in cold start enrichment. This would cause you to
A) Use more fuel
B) Spew more crap out of the tailpipe
The fix for this is simple, replace the thermostat. T-stats are usually very simple to replace and cheap.
Now on to injector purges.
Do injectors get dirty? Yes
Can a dirty injector cause problems? Yes
Poor idle? Yes
Poor fuel mileage? Yes
Hard starting? Yes
Is a clogged fuel injector the only thing that causes these symptoms? NO
If one of the above problems is being caused by a clogged fuel injector will an injector purge help/ fix the problem? Probably
If I was given a car with one of the above complaints would an injector purge be my first recommendation? No, probably not depends on the individual symptoms
Injector purges are profitable for a shop and many times do make a car run better. However many chain stores/ Iffy lube / poor mechanics tend to oversell them IMHO After all if your only tool is a hammer every problem tends to be a nail.
I live on the desert and the most important thing about cooling systems is to keep them clean. Always use purified water that you can buy by the gallon in supermarkets. If you have a cross flow radiator (tanks on the sides, this is particularly important and you might even go to distilled water which is also available at most supermarkets.
I think the only thing a higher pressure system does is raise the boiling point. It doesn’t change the cooling ability. With the coolant recovery systems on most cars, “boiling over” is not much of a problem any more. The only thing is, once the coolant boils it can’t get any hotter whereas with a higher boiling point the coolant temperature can keep going up, and up, and up.
Perhaps the higher pressure cap IS the “desert heat cooling upgrade”. Sounds like a typical slimy car dealer tactic. Holding more pressure in the system doesn’t really make it cool much better, but will make the car less likely to “overheat” (boil over) since the boiling point of the coolant is raised by the higher pressure cap.
this sounds like typical ford behavior.
Probably none, and even more probably not any better than you’d notice from a 3 dollar bottle of injector cleaner from the parts store. In fact, that’s probably what it is.
I’d bet you would see more improvement if you changed the air filter.
PS: the guys that the Kwik L00b generally don’t know crap.
