don't let it get to you, some people are just grouchy, and for others it might be that time of month... ;-p
With taping the shroud, I'm not surprised that fixed it, airflow and cooling are fickle things. It actually got me to wondering if that might be a partial issue with undercooling some of us see.
The efficiency of a fan blade to move air is greatly affected by a number of factors, one even being the design of the tip. You can greatly increase (or decrease) the efficiency by how the shroud is spaced from the tip (or if you even have a shroud or not). If the shroud is spaced too far away (or if you don't have one) it can greatly reduce how much air the blade moves for a given rotational speed. That is due to turbulence introduced at the blade tip which can reduce how much air is moved, sometimes by a great deal.
With the spacing of the shroud being off by that much, you're going to see too much air being sucked in from the engine bay and bypass the radiator. That is going to greatly reduce the cooling efficiency of your setup. For peak efficiency not just having a close fit, but actually making an air tight seal between the radiator and the shroud would be necessary. To further increase efficiency you would want to tighten up the clearances between the fan blade tips and the shroud and make sure the shroud completely matched up with the dimensions of the fan blades (as it stands now, they aren't that tight and some of the rear edge of the tips are stick back from the trailing edge of the shroud).
But that would need the engine to be incapable of moving in relation to the radiator, otherwise you'll end up with damage to the fan blades or shroud.
I think it'd be interesting though to see how much better cooling we can get by simply sealing up the shroud to radiators fitment. Just a thought anyway, sine I have no way of checking mine right now since it is still waiting at the dealership an hour away for a heart transplant.
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