I seem to be drawn to cars that overheat. In addition to a Morgan +4 I have
a '47 Ford with a 400 ci smallblock Chevy, notorious for overheating due to
siamesed cylinders, and a '36 Cord with beautiful horizontal louvers
running around its "coffin" nose, but insufficient air flow. The
overheating problem with both of these non-Morgan cars could be cured with
louvers.
IMHO, louvers are for LOW SPEED heat removal. Heat builds up under the hood
as there are no low pressure areas to draw it out at low speed. Heat rises,
the louvers let it out. The Ford and the Cord only overheat in traffic.
I've run the Ford without its hood and viola!, no overheating -- even with
the air conditioner on. Whenever you see Cords stopped during a tour, you
see the hoods up. Passersby think we're showing off the engine, which we
are, but we are mainly letting the heat out so the d___ thing will restart.
This procedure is known as the "Cord Salute". With either car on a hot day,
when you stop and raise the hood there is a blast of hot air like dragon's
breath.
Morgans, however, will also overheat at speed, and the suggestions of Chas
Wasser, Maurice Owen, Fred Sisson, et al are directed to these problems. If
you remove those louvers, however, no amount of air dams shrouds or
whatever will keep it from overheating at slow speed. Open a louvered
Morgan hood on a hot day and there is a small rush of hot air, but nothing
like that of a non-louvered hood. OK, I acknowledge that the +4 is putting
out about 1/3 the heat of a 400 ci Chevy but it is also in a much smaller
compartment.
I think louvers got there start back in the early days of automobiles when
engines were huge and inefficient, speeds were slow, and engine
compartments were small. They still look cool.
Howard Clark
P.O. Box 413 / 100 East Third Street
Brookston, IN 47923
765-563-3210 FAX 765-563-8946
'65 Morgan +4 2 str, '36 Cord 810 Beverly, '47 Ford Street Rod
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