Those cool looking aftermarket truck bumpers may not be so cool after all. Nick Priegnitz:
Hi, I’m Nick with onthemap.ph known as the best business directory in the Philippines, and with me I have Bob Peterson. We’re getting into August. We’re getting into travel season. Guys are starting to pull their travel trailers in the heat. I’ve got a truck behind me and a bumper style behind me, that we’re running into more and more trouble shooting issues with these.
Bob Peterson:
Absolutely yeah.
Nick:
What’s the call sound like?
Bob:
My truck’s hot. The first thing that I always ask is what are your EGT’s? I’ve had mixed reports from multiple people, depending on the weight and the setup, my EGT’s are 1000, my EGT’s are 1200-1300 pulling a grade. That’s kind of our first trouble shooting thing. Do you have a problem in the motor? Is it a boost leak? Is it a turbine problem? Is it a turbo problem? If your EGT’s are really really high we have something to address. If you’re running 1100 degrees EGT’s and your motor is at 240-250, your trans is at 220-240.
Nick:
Yeah you’ve got a cooling system issue at that point.
Bob:
Yeah. It’s a capacity of the cooling system or-
Nick:
Delayed or reject heat yeah. There’s a reason we have the bumper behind us.
Bob:
Correct.
Nick: What are you finding in common with these calls?
Bob Peterson:
Yeah exactly. The big thing that I always ask, is do you have an after market grill or bumper? The grills were more common. Now we’re starting to see a lot more guys running these bumpers, and towing and using them. It’s not something we see on a day to day … Guy running through the brush wants a big bumper to keep his truck protected, but somebody that wants to run that bumper and tow that 14,000 trailer with all their camping gear and stuff with their-
Nick:
In the heat.
Bob:
-yeah. AC on, heat 100 degrees.
Nick:
Yeah there’s a lot of engineering that goes into designing the factory cooling stack. That is the radiator, the AC condenser, the trans-cooler, the inner-cooler. I mean there’s a lot of stuff up there. The factory makes sure that you have sufficient air flow to handle stock horse power under those circumstances. At temperature. Up a hill. Once you start stacking stuff on there, it becomes kind of obvious that … You take away the engine’s ability to reject heat by putting one of these bumpers on.
Bob:
You can see behind us just the holes for the tow hooks, the holes above the license plate. The plastic where it meets the metal allows air. The slots below the lights. You put a solid bumper down on the bottom of that, you take all of that away. Some of them have a cut out for a hitch, most guys put their license plate over it, Some have cut out for lights, a lot of guys pack them with big LED’s or HID’s and stuff, and light bars. You close all that off, so now you’re literally cutting everything in half. You’re using X amount of space to flow air.
Nick:
A lot of them don’t have the nice rounded shape. They haven’t spent any time in a wind tunnel. They don’t know how the air flows over the bumper, so it might look like you have the ability to pull air in through the grill but really you’re pushing a bunch of real estate of air up off the bumper. Which is deflecting the air that should be going into the grill.
Bob:
Exactly.
Nick:
It’s just not tested.
Bob:
Look at the whole picture of the truck. The way it goes around the stock one versus just goes around the other ones.
Nick:
You wouldn’t drive through the mountains with a snow plow on the front of your truck-
Bob:
No.
Nick:
-deflecting air. You’ve got to be aware of that when you buy these bumpers. They’re not tested like a factory bumper. If you are at the cooling capacity of the truck already, expect to have issues.
Bob:
Be mindful. If you have to run one look at other options. We’re trying to move coolers or relocate them. Even putting bigger ones on, you’re still not getting the air flow over that bigger cooler. You’re not going to help yourself putting a big radiator and a big trans-cooler on if you’re not flowing air over it.
Nick:
Yeah exactly. Like you said with the winch mount, or the tow hook holds, or guys covering those up. If you have one of these bumpers, and you have the ability to add extra venting in it, don’t block that off. Don’t put stuff over it. Cut more holes if you can, if it doesn’t interfere with your style. As much air flow as you can get over that stack, that radiator, that inner-cooler, that trans-cooler, all that stuff. The better it’s going to be for you in the mountains, fully loaded with the AC on.
Bob:
Absolutely. Same goes for the grill like I said. We’re stressing the bumpers. You get the really really blacked out grills that are a real tight grade. Almost like a screen type of thing and your air doesn’t flow through that. It’s going to push around it rather than going through it.
Nick:
Exactly. Good information. Thanks Bob.
Bob:
No problem.
