I have had mine off for 3 years.

But I think it's a good idea to run it.

What is WORSE, is pulling out your wheel well liners without the underpan.

I have 4 temperature sensors in my engine bay, that I tested with for over a year (hot air intakes vs. stock intakes, FMIC vs SMIC, Oil cooler cooling + stock radi vs. Oil cooler cooling and upgraded radi, FMIC + upgraded radi vs. stock) and the worse thing you can do is have no liners and no underpan. Freeway driving will make your temps climb and the fans will struggle at 100C on a 80F ambient day.

I stay within 20F of ambient without the underpan with very hard driving. This is output from the Apexi FMIC. What an underated FMIC.

Tony

 

jpandes (and everyone else without a pan),

Do you have an aftermarket temp gauge or have you modded the stock temp gauge?

If no to both, this explains why you didn't miss the pan. Consider getting some sort of functional temp gauge ... the stock one doesn't cut it.

James

 

I installed the Blitz FMIC and my fans have been consistently running without the undertray installed. Not good. I am consistently at 95-100c.
I am reinstalling the undertray now that the Blitz is installed and see what differences that brings.

 

Why would the omission of the fender liner makes it worse? We need a wind tunnel.

 

Don't have one yet. I will be getting a Water Temp Guage.

 

You've probably figured this out, but the stock gauge behaves something like:
1) At 130 start moving to the middle.
2) At 150 be completely in the middle.
4) At 245 start moving toward the H mark.
6) At 250 Be at the first H mark.
7) At 260 be at the second H mark.

I haven't tested this, so I'm just making experienced guesses. Basically the stock gauge stays in the middle between about 150 and 245. So you could be running at 220 (where the fans first turn on) all the time and not even know it.

I think that this is a Mazda thing. My wife has a brand new Tribute and it does same thing. If I ever tow anything (came with a factory hitch) I'm going to add a real water temp gauge. Funny ... then I have a 94 Saturn and the gauge works like it should ... Must be that someone in Mazda considered the public dense and didn't want calls from moving temp needles. Anyone else care to take a guess as to why they did this?

later all,

James