Thursday last week was extremely hot in Sydney, over 42°C in the suburbs. I got caught in traffic on the M4 going towards Parramatta after a truck breakdown. Traffic was crawling.
Unfortunately I’d removed my cooling fans for some adjustments, so I was just relying on the cooling fins and my oil cooler, but neither work well without air movement.
I still had my temperature gauge fitted. The cylinder head climber to over 220°C in the slow moving traffic, and stayed there. It even hit 230°C, that’s 446°F, at one stage. I reckon that is way too hot, and the engine was pinging and struggling big time. Even when the traffic started moving again it stayed well over 200°C until I got home.
So I’m convinced. I’ll make sure I have these fans fitted until the end of summer. Who knows when I’ll get another day like that.