started the morning with catching up the air in the STS-V tires. As the seasons change tires sometimes need to be brought back to desired pressure.
i really like the wheels on the V but they do get dirty. Still enjoying this dual power air compressor.
Love having a choice of V or XLR but working at the store today so the V wins.
Although it may seem counter-intuitive, my large, performance-focused rear-wheel drive Cadillac STS-V handled just fine in the ice we got here in the Dallas area.
With my Roadster taking up all the warm garage space, the STS-V was left to brave the cold on the driveway, which disappeared under about an inch of ice.
The only issue when we did manage to get out on the roads was ground clearance — when only ruts were available as traffic dug through the ice and shifted it to the center of the road then the STS-V aero underbelly would plow the center ice a bit.
The Stabilitrak and traction control help with keeping things in hand when they might otherwise get out of hand. I also used the performance manual-automatic shifting option to start in 2nd gear in some cases, making it easier to ease forward off the ice.
As always, let caution be your guide of course, and assume anyone else you see out on the ice needs plenty of room to maneuver.
All in all the STS-V did very well and I would not hesitate to take it out again in foul weather.
We receive some meds packed in thermal blankets with Nordic Ice gel packs tucked in to keep them cold. “freeze and re-use as long-lasting ice packs” they say. I have a hot intercooler coolant system (most any day). What happens if we put these two ideas together?
In my intercooler system, coolant flow up from the pump to the intercooler, then down to a heat exchanger, through a reservoir, another heat exchanger, and back to the pump. Almost none of the system is accessible with the nose of the V in place.
However, if I remove the engine covers and gently pry back the air guides, I can just slot in Nordic ice bags on the AVS aluminum coolant tank.
I had extras so I put them near the filter to try to provide some local A/C.
The yellow line is ambient temp in the driveway — yes 100F here in Texas. The blue line is air into the engine intake — around 120F. The Red line we would like to see go down to below 100F (wishes). What we see is that it falls from 148F to a flat steady 138F and stays there regardless of the iced tank.
I did discover that there was radiator air leaking into the filter area near a joined metal location and applied a seal there to block hot air coming to the filter.
The test was not ideal, as no air was flowing over the two heat exchangers since the V was sitting with the engine running in the driveway. I was hesitant to drive with the Nordic Ice packs just loosely stacked on the AVS tank. However, I could in a future test add a fan over the heat exchangers.
It would be great to engineer a system to allow ‘transfusion’ of cold intercooler coolant into the system when heat soaked and thus restore it to cold temps for testing.