Alright, 03 GT with a Vortech V2, 3.33 pulley, treadstone FMIC, and my own power pipe that is installed inside the fender. Issue is that during track days I am overheating within a few laps (during winter I can usually get through my run session before I am in the red). Unfortunately I know with how I have my car set up + where I live (summer temps are consistently 100+) keeping my temps manageable under racing conditions is damn near impossible. But I am curious if any of you have had similar issues and have any ideas for what would be the best "bang for buck" fix? Right now the most consistently positive vote I have seen is bumping to a higher cap radiator such a fluidyne or a mishimoto. Can any of you justify getting the fluidyne over the Mishimoto since it is $200+ over?
Somewhat unrelated, but do you have forged internals? When you mentioned 'laps', I am just imagining how much abuse stock internals would be experiencing with long periods of boost on a track that would allow you to make laps.
Nope, completely stock bottom end. I too am interest to see how long it will take the abuse for. I honestly don't do too many events a year, maybe 3 or 4 at best. All I am just hoping for is when it goes it can go in the least catastrophic way possible haha.
Engine running too hot? You need to do 2 things. 1) Increase coolant capacity and 2) increase coolant-to-air contact with a bigger radiator. If the car is overheating to 230+ degrees with a 195*F thermostat, it'll reach the same 230+ degrees with a 170*F thermostat. The only thing a lower temp thermostat will do is make your heater take longer to heat up in the winter.
OP, you need a bigger/better aluminum radiator with more coolant capacity. A high volume water pump would be good investment as well. Slowing down the water pump with a bigger water pump pulley may help as well.
When you're racing, the engine is staying at high revs for long periods of time. This leads to the coolant being constantly cycled very quickly and passing through the radiator too fast to get cooled down. The result is overheating. Slowing down the water pump by underdriving it may help with this but it may not if the radiator isn't up to snuff anyway.
EDIT: Those in this thread with the 170*F thermostat, I recommend you take that junk out and put a 190-195*F thermostat back in. You're not doing yourself any favors, especially if you're running alcohol. There's a temperature range where the engine burns most efficiently and it's around 200-210*F. Any hotter than that will be prone to warp, evaporation, and pre-ignition. Any colder than that will be prone to loss of power, accelerated engine wear, and excess carbon buildup. Go too low with the coolant temp and you'll start to have homogenization issues, crankcase contamination, and potential issues with oil viscosity. You've got to keep the engine hot. Lower coolant temp means more heat extracted from the cylinders which means a loss of power through lost heat energy driving the piston down. You'll have increased ring wear due to the rings not getting enough heat to fully expand against the cylinder walls causing more blow-by and further power loss. With a greater temperature difference means the exhaust cools down faster before leaving the head causing carbon to cake to the combustion chamber, piston, valves, and exhaust port. If you run it too cold (less than 160*F or so) then you'll start having issues with the fuel losing suspension in the air prior to ignition decreasing combustion efficiency. With coolant temps less than 180*F degrees, that means the oil temps aren't but about 200-215*F degrees which is not hot enough to keep it clean. Condensation sets in and water gets absorbed into the oil. The oil has to stay hot enough to burn out any condensation and contaminants (212*F and hotter) and keep the blend together. It can't do that if all the heat is being sapped out of the engine. Do you want sludge in your engine? Cause that's how you get sludge in your engine. Oil is too cold and over time, begins to lose it's blend and gel up. This is also why sludge is such a problem in alcohol cars due to the cold burning nature of alcohol. That brings me to another point about a low temp thermostat and alcohol. You're doubling up on the problem. The alcohol already isn't generating a lot of heat to begin with so you need to increase the thermostat temperature to force the coolant to stay in the engine longer and build up heat. Otherwise, you're gonna have contamination, sludge, and washed cylinder walls out the ass.
To sum it up, you want to get the coolant up to 200-210*F as fast as possible and keep it there.
Holy crap! Hahah I would be curious to see how many events that can handle hard in the throttle. I can't really answer your question about aftermarket cooling mods though.
I am using all the stock cooling stuff besides a Reisch 170 degree thermostat. I have only run on the street, however, there have been multiple times when I had to do back-to-back runs so I could show all these guys that their built LS cars couldn't hang
I do the same on my sbe... 1-4 pulls and shutting it down after 12 seconds and letting it catch a break between runs. I think OP is talking about minute or longer 'laps' haha - I was just impressed is all. I can almost promise that is part of the reason OP is in here asking how to keep it cool after minute or longer laps of it seeing boost. It would be the same as a person running a 100 yard dash compared to a mile all out in my opinion. I just never really stopped to consider how well the bottom end or stock cooling system would handle that sort of racing.
One of the best bang for your buck cooling mods would be shrouding/recirculation baffles. There's a lot of gap between the radiator and the core support where air can hang out and recirculate instead of moving along and helping reject heat. Going beyond that you can box in from the inlet of the bumper to the radiator to further promote consistent airflow. You'll see that particularly on purpose built race cars. Won't cost you much besides some sheet aluminum and screws.
Beyond that, what kind of track speeds are you talking about? If they're relatively low, you could benefit from upgraded fans. If it's pretty fast they may not matter all that much, and you'd benefit more from a better radiator core.
Not that I have any experience with racing, but I'd go with a new radiator (bigger the better), quality higher flow fan, 170* thermostat and the computer tuned to turn the fan on at that temp and remove all obstructions in front of the radiator like the ac condenser, if not in use and functional air scoop in the hood that allows for airflow onto the engine at speed.
Baffle/duct work to direct the air through the radiator is what i would start out with. After that would be a good coolant system drain, flush, clean and fill with new fluids. Larger radiator, electric water pump, 180-190* thermostat w/fan temp adjustments. Then an oil cooler
^^^ agree. My car had a 170* thermostat in it when I bought it. During the winter the car ran cooler. During the summer it ran in the normal range. It didn't make a difference at all. It was cool fall evenings that was interesting. The car would run cooler on the interstate but in town the water temperature would go up into the normal range. Then it would go back down on the interstate. When I had the supercharger installed we took it out and put the stock thermostat back in.
---------- Post added at 04:10 AM ---------- Previous post was at 04:06 AM ----------
OP, what oil are you running? If your water temperatures are getting that high think how high your oil temperatures are getting.
---------- Post added at 04:10 AM ---------- Previous post was at 04:06 AM ----------
[/COLOR]OP, what oil are you running? If your water temperatures are getting that high think how high your oil temperatures are getting.
Eagle, I am running Mobil 1 10w30 iirc, now for the rest. What my main take away from these posts seems to be that obviously I should increase cooling capacity with a bigger aluminium rad. Mishimoto is a acceptable brand over fluidyne (are there any other suggested brands I should look into). Next ducting and straightening all the fins on my intercooler, condesor, (that is not getting removed, you will have to pry that from my hot, sweaty dead hands) and radiator. As for coolant and stats, I will most likely try and do a complete system flush before the next time I track the car and hope that it nets me a couple of degrees. Water Wetter didn't seem to help as this was added the last time I went but it was added with a 50/50 mixture of water and Motorcraft gold. As for moving to a 170 degree thermostat I am just going to pass on that change as there is a LOT of controversy on if that is a useful modification or not. Next, I also forgot to mention in my post but you can see it in the picture is that I am running a 95 style cowl hood, would swapping to a ram air style hood be worth the time or is having the large area for heat exhaust at the top of the hood better for cooling. I know these hoods were design more for induction rather than exhaust but I can't help but think that having a massive hole at the top hurts cooling performance. And lastly just a small side note since there seems to be some confusion on if I am drag racing or doing circle course, I am doing circle course. Typically a track day for me during the summer months consists of 110 degreee ambient temperature, 20 minute long "race" sessions, RPMs usually don't fall lower than 3500, about 5 sessions in a day with a few hours between each run session.
Thank you all for the help and sorry it took me so long to chime back in on my own thread.
Not to mention if your problem is running too hot, above the intended operating range, a lower thermostat opening isn't going to help you, because when it's too hot your stat is full open anyway.
Now I will say there's some instances where you would want to go with a slightly lower stat. Anytime you have a concern about the stat actually opening at the correct temperature, you can kind of compensate with a different stat. For example on some of the 4Vs it's a 200F stat, but it often doesn't open until 215F engine out. If you throw in a 180F stat you can bring that down closer to 200F. It can also be a bit of a fix for engines that have localized cavitation/detonation problems, at the expense of system efficiency.
Larger radiator, Box-in the radiator. Fill in the gaps around the radiator so that air has to go through it rather than around it. Our cars are bottom feeders, meaning a lot of the cooling air comes in through opening in the bottom of the bumper, not the front. You can convert it to a front feeder by blocking off that bottom opening but I don't recommend it unless you do a full extraction hood duct system like you see on true race cars. You'll need a large air deflector under the radiator support. Some guys run one from the Ranger truck. I made my own and it's about 4 inches wide and probably the same amount from the ground when the car is lowered. This air deflector forces air up into the radiator and creates a low pressure zone behind the radiator to draw the air through and out of the radiator. The 03-04 Cobra hood is probably the best stock hood for heat extraction. If you can get one of those, open up the vents and you'll see an improvement. IF you still have A/C make sure your condenser fins are straight. Since it sits in front of the radiator it blocks air. You want to be able to see light when you look through the condenser and radiator.
I run a Mishimoto radiator and love it. One of the best things I've done for my car.
There's no right way to do it with that cold of a thermostat. The right way would be to use a 192-195*F thermostat thats fully open by 200-205*F and have your fan cut on at 210*F. The corn will thank you for it.
my car runs right around 205-210 degrees when its stupid hot outside 90+ and I have the AC full blast ive seen it get as hot as 225 which I don't like at all ide rather it stay around 110 but I don't think 15 degrees will make a huge difference.
The 170 t stat is not a good ideal if our motors were designed to run around 200 degrees.
I was watching a high horsepower motor build on television a couple of years ago. I believe it was a Chevy motor and the builder guaranteed before hand that it would reach a certain horsepower. It didn't make it. It was a few ponies short on the engine dyno. After checking everything he discovered that the oil wasn't up to operating temperature yet (212*F or 100*C). He warmed up the motor a little more and it made up the difference. Oil runs at a higher temperature than water but you will not get proper oil flow with a motor running at 81*C like some of the posters in that link said.
Have you thought about adding a meth kit? It's getting hot from heat soak. Getting those iats down will help tremendously. Meth will reduce iats and it will also help with preventing detonation. Sure a better radiator and all the things above can help, but the problem lies with the blower causing the heat soak. Not the actual cooling system.
No, it's caused by the coolant system not being adequate for the extra heat put into the engine by the blower. That meth kit won't do anything to bring down coolant temps. Besides, for the money it would cost to set a meth kit up correctly + cost of water/meth, he could upgrade the radiator for cheaper.
I've heard Water-wetter additive work well. It may be enough to keep you out of the red.
Also I saw no mention of the intake coolant mod. It won't help the overall issue but may save that #8 hole! https://www.redlineoil.com/Products.aspx?pcid=10
That's an interesting question. The standard is going to be a Ford internal test procedure for the specific vehicle profile. For instance something like a class 8 truck is gong to have to operate full bore indefinitely with a fairly high ram air, and the minimum cooling is determined by what region it sells in. A medium duty might get away with a lower target, some application specific ones get tested in whatever application they use. For a lot of light duty stuff they seem to target something akin to pulling the longest grade in the country with the hottest summer heat, all accessories on, loaded as heavy as possible. This would probably translate into something like pulling a 15-30mi long grade, going up 3,000ft, at 55mph around 110 deg F. I'm not a Ford cooling system engineer but I'd wager their test procedure for something like a passenger car is something like that.
RDY4WAR;11631081it's caused by the coolant system not being adequate for the extra heat put into the engine by the blower.
/QUOTE said:
A meth kit will absolutely help coolant Temps especially if running the car hard for a while. Keep the air going in cool, you keep the engine cooler. Sure, a better radiator won't hurt either but you aren't getting rid of the problem where it starts.
So back to my original statement....Yes, a better radiator and boxing it in will help. So will a meth kit.
A meth kit will absolutely help coolant Temps especially if running the car hard for a while. Keep the air going in cool, you keep the engine cooler. Sure, a better radiator won't hurt either but you aren't getting rid of the problem where it starts.
So back to my original statement....Yes, a better radiator and boxing it in will help. So will a meth kit.
I have dumped hundreds of gallons of meth through my turbo engines with absolutely zero change in coolant temps. Whether the IATs were 180*F or 80*F, the coolant temp stayed a steady 205-210*F.
Intake air temps have no affect on coolant temperature. It's the other way around. Heat is put into the coolant system by combustion and 1200+*F EGTs.
Simple test on this. Take your spark advance at idle and retard it back to just 1-2*. You'll start to see your coolant temps shoot up due to increased EGTs.
In both my 289 in the '66 and my turbo car, the coolant temps heat up slightly quicker with it vs coolant but makes no difference once the engine is warmed up. I mostly use it for corrosion resistance.
Coolant temp can have a very slight impact on intake temps but only on engines with coolant crossovers in the intake manifolds and at idle to very low rpm when the air is moving slow through the ports. When you're 3k+ rpm, the air is moving so fast through the ports that it doesn't have time to get affected by the engine heat and vice versa.
In order for you to spray enough meth to have an affect on coolant temps, the meth would be your primary fuel source taking up 70+% of the fuel in the cylinders. Even then, we're talking maybe a 200-250*F drop in EGTs. At WOT and 12psi, I figured up about 25-30% of the fuel in my cylinders was meth and I saw an 80*F drop in EGTs. It was still higher than 1200*F.
Absolutely correct about the oil temps. Oil temps will almost always be higher than coolant temps, even with an oil cooler. You don't want oil temps to be lower than coolant temps cause that causes condensation to occur in the crankcase which is a bad thing. You don't want it to get too hot either cause then it becomes too thin and can flash ignite if it gets into the 380+*F range.
I have a Cervini 95 Cobra R hood that has vents next to the wiper blades. There was a lot of discussion on whether it was a heat extracting hood or an induction hood so I did a test. I taped several strands of yarn on the back of the cowl to find out which way the air was flowing. Even at speeds as low as 30 mph the yarn was being sucked into the vents.
I learned a long time ago to listen to the guys that have done it. Guys that are fast or quick and make big power. Not guys that just repeat some bull **** they read and are slow and make no power.
Just because someone writes a book page in a post doesnt make them right. SVTPerformance Cooler Heads Prevail : Reische Thermostat Install
Guys have been installing lower temperature thermostats like for ever..
The third sentence in post 1 in that thread says, "That is, if your cooling system has the ability to flow enough coolant and dissipate heat well enough."
I know for a fact that the stock 2v cooling system isn't capable of holding water temperature at 170*F on hot days and Indiana doesn't get to 110*F. When I was running one I could see the difference on my gauge. The most interesting consequence of running a 170 thermostat was how the water temperature reacted on cool evenings. At highway speeds the water temperature ran cooler. In town it went up to where it runs with a 195* thermostat. On hot days it ran where it does with the 195* thermostat all the time.
Now it did make it run cooler in winter and it took a lot longer to defrost the windshield and heat up the cabin.
Post 18 is by the manufacturer who wants to sell thermostats. In that post he clearly says that it will not make much of a difference with the stock radiator and timing. I really don't know if Terminators have different radiators than GT. If they do them perhaps they can cool to a lower temperature. I do know that the water-to-water intercoolers are usually iced down between passes. In once sentence acknowledges that cooler temperature won't make much more power then attributes his victory running three consecutive passes (probably without time to ice down) to the 170 thermostat.
Sorry, but that link did not make me a believer. And, if the OP's water temperature is hitting redline (250*F?) then obviously a 170* thermostat is going to be of no help at all.
I stumbled across this thread. OP you might want to read post number 7. It might relate to your situation. Posts 23 and 24 talk about over spinning a water pump or a rubber hose collapsing. http://forums.24hoursoflemons.com/viewtopic.php?id=17867
You're talking inlet side. I just realized that all of your references have thermostats on the inlet side. Our thermostats are located on the outlet side. A 170 on the inlet side is probably pretty close to a 192 on the outlet side but I couldn't find any credible references that showed the difference between the water temperature going in and the water temperature coming out. On corral.net someone posted it was a 30 degree difference. I don't know if I believe that. A guy on corvette forums said there was only a 5* difference. People responded by saying he must have had a clogged radiator. A classic car article said that a car with a 180* thermostat (outlet side) should have a 165-170* water temperature coming in. But that was with an entirely different radiator and fan system. I'm pretty sure our systems are more efficient than that.
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