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cooling down between passes

6K views 23 replies 10 participants last post by  5gearbanging 
#1 ·
So, what I’m noticing is extreme heat off my intake, intake piping from intercooler, and wanted some thoughts on how to cool down between passes. I’m shutting down between passes, opening the hood and putting a fan under the car to cool it down. Seems like on these hot days, it’s not really working. Even with an hour between passes the coolant temp stays the same and I get steam coming from the valve cover breather instantly. I’ve seen people spray water or some homemade concoctions on their engines or intercoolers, others leave the engine idling to allow the coolant to pass through and cool it, and some shut off and put bags of ice on their intake manifolds. I do notice my fan isn’t kicking on after the pass and my air inlet temps on my datalog seem high, but not extreme, and my coolant stays pretty consistent. I also think that because everything is aluminum and steel tubing, it will radiate heat more. it’s also a a/a intercooler, so if no air is passing through it won’t cool inlet temps if it’s idling. Should I be leaving it idle with a fan on it, or any combinations of the above? Just looking to see what you experienced racers are doing, Thanks!
 
#2 ·
IAT peaks at the 1/8th mile where I’m on the brakes at 140 degrees, coolant temp is highest on deceleration peaking at 206 degrees based on my datalogging. I start datalogging before the burnout and shut down on deceleration, so I’m unsure what it’ doing from then on.
 
#3 ·
Cooling

My advise would be to get the Carpet Blower fans and put one right in front of the intercooler and let it blow in there and keep your electric water pump on after a pass with the electric fan running. I also have another fan that I blow up at the converter to keep it cool between rounds. I attached the pic on this post. These help a good deal and keep the hood up after a pass. I had a a similar issue with the car getting hot when I started going rounds. Try to get the coolant temp down to 150 or around that before shutting stuff down. You will need a pretty decent generator and a battery charger as well cause the electric water pump and fan take a good amount of power.
 

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#6 ·
I,m a NA guy and not boosted at all. I use ice water in a garden hand pump sprayer and hit the radiator immediately with it while the fan is running on the manual switch. Several minutes later I start the engine to exchange the water from the radiator to the block. Then give it a quick shot again. Anyways that's how I cool down. If I don't do that it affects IAT a lot also. The big difference mine go down instead of up at WOT. But my block temps have a pretty big influence on what is gonna happen. I try to stage the car at the same IAT's also. But that is the bracket racer in me for consistency.
 
#7 ·
I have electric water pump and fan, so cool down if fairly quick. I also put a fan blowing on the S/C and another blowing at the front of the car. Usually cooled off to less than 120* in 10 min. I leave at 160* and see no temp rise until after I lift. By the time I hit the return road temp is fairly stable at 180* or so unless it is really hot out. One of the benefits of running E85 is the engine takes a lot longer to build heat as the fuel burns cooler. The only other service the car gets is a down load of the datalogs, hook up battery charger and change out the water in the I/C tank. I might look at a plug or two depending on what I see in the datalog. Oh and put a couple of gallons of fuel in the tank if needed.
 
#8 ·
I’d like to figure out how to put my fan on a manual cycle, I’ll do some research, but I know I don’t want to keep shutting down hot. I figured I would spray intercooler, radiator, and transcooler, while idling engine to lower coolant temps. It seems like there isn’t enough “return road” to stabilize temps for me. A test I could do is datalogging idle to see if it’s cooling enough or I need to add air or spray everything. From my little bit of experience, if I shut down at 200 degrees and put a fan on it for 30 minutes, it doesn’t drop temp much because the cooled coolant in the radiator isn’t flowing, it would be more efficient at idle with a air if anything. Electric water pumps seem to look better and better every time I consider going to one.
 
#9 ·
General consensus though, leave idle and allow coolant to pass through and either use manual fan switch and let the car cool itself or use a external fan to cool. If this doesn’t work efficiently, spray cold water across them and allow the factory fan to run and use the external fan on the converter?
 
#11 ·
If the water temp is acceptable before your run I wouldn't worry about it myself. The air temps will be whatever the turbo's produce and the water temp will cool the block down. If you need to cool it down then you can use a weed sprayer with water and cool the radiator down (engine off). Once it's cool start engine and let it circulate for a few minutes turn the car off and repeat procedure.

I had a problem once where I cooled the car down too much and I was in the water box stalling the run until the water temp got high enough that the computer would switch to the correct mode but I never got it warm enough and the car fell on it's face on the launch.

ks
 
#12 ·
Water Pump

The electric water pump will be a good upgrade for sure and is worth the money and with a 55 gallon it is very street-able. I really would highly suggest getting a strong fan on the intercooler. My logs will look like 140 first pass and if I do not use fan it'll be like 150's on second pass then like 160 on the third then stays about 160 every pass after. I bracket race the car so I was really struggling at first. I did not have a fan when I first started. I see alot of guys pointing them at the turbo as well so maybe some will give advise on that. But with fan blowing on cooler and hood up itll be 140 like every pass at the end. I do 1/4 and am at about 20 psi on an s480.
 
#14 ·
Oh boy I've fought this...immensely! But I'm N/A for whatever it's worth.

Water sprayed anywhere can get hung up between the fins, run down the frame rails, gets under the tires, etc. I quit doing it.

Fans. Big fans, and LOTS of airflow. I use a leaf blower under the car to cool the converter and then in front I'm using two HVAC blower fans (110v). That's on the one race car which is still, unfortunately, running pump gas.

On my car (maverick) I switched it to Methanol and got rid of the heating issue completely. Actually now it barely gets to temp at all and if the actual air temp in the morning is below about 50F, I'll burn a gallon of gasoline just trying to get some heat in it. E85 is similar. Brother ran E85 for a while in his 63 Fairlane/552" BBF. I wasn't impressed with it but the carb was the whole problem there.

Electric water pump makes a big difference; such that you can circulate water with the engine off. If you've got an electric radiator fan, combining that with the electric water pump will cool the engine quickly. On my Maverick, it'll cool from 210 to 100 in about 5 minutes.

BUT.....

oil temperature can be an issue, and for that I've put an oil temp gauge in the Maverick just for this purpose. As long as oil temps are around 150-180 degrees, it'll repeat ET's--well as long as the loose nut behind the steering wheel doesn't do something really stupid. Cooling the engine oil is done with the fans, but it takes much longer to cool the oil than it does the block; and since it's not circulating in the block with the engine off, it just doesn't cool off that much. In later rounds when there's 2 minutes between, sometimes I'll have to dial it a little differently due to higher oil temps. Usually a hundredth or two faster.
 
#15 ·
x3 on the electric water pump. Makes all the difference in the world. I can cool my car's coolant from 180 down to 140-150 in less than 5 minutes (usually less than 3, unless it's hot out). I have a digital coolant gauge and you can literally watch the temp drop a degree every few seconds. Without the water pump, it was almost pointless. Of course, I run my electric radiator fan at the same time.
 
#17 ·
Last winter’s projects now that I bracket race in the Summit ET Points Series at a local NHRA track were a C4, electric water pump and manual brakes. Mezeire elec pump with idler, as I still have an alternator, but that’s it. A tech at Mezeire told me no T-Stat, not necessary. I put a switch in the engine compartment so when I return to the pits I can run the pump with the car off. I converted the fan harness to strictly manual, controlled by a switch in the cockpit. So in the pits, pump on fan on, box fan on intake (because cooling the block and heads down has little effect on the intake) and a battery charger at 15 amps. Small generator in the back of my truck. The 2003 Mach 1 motor is stock, and NA, as is the radiator and fan. Having the manual fan switch is huge for a couple reasons. After cooling the car in the pits, when I head off to the staging lanes, in the lanes, and doing burnout, fan is on. As I approach the tree, switch the fan off. No HP robbing load during run. Cross the stripe, turn on the fan. Fan on all the way back to pits and in the pits. I don’t think the engine ever sees 160. The other issue with the fan was having it come on during a run. The load can cost you a hun or two, which can put you off your dial in and put you on the trailer. Had it happen once.
 
#19 ·
It’s been extremely reliable, but then again, it was a motor that had I believe a 6800 rev limiter (stock), and I go through the traps now at about 6500, so not really pushing the envelope. I shift the C4 at 6300. Time will tell how reliable the C4 is, but after one season of bracket racing.........just fine. I purposely overbuilt everything in the driveline so I could never break it with my NA 4V mountain motor 281 cubes. So want to have fun, beat as many people as I can. Usually dial a 11.4’s and 5’s. I’ve thought about cams, lot of work and expense with a 4V, and if I did everything right with good specs on the cams I might run 11 flat. At the end of the day, all that would mean is for that group of cars in Pro Eliminator that I race against, cars that run 11.0-11.3, I would be chasing instead of being chased. View ain’t worth the climb. It’s a bracket car. And it runs amazingly consistent, based on the weather. If I was as consistent on the tree as the car is, I would go a lot of rounds. But working on it and having fun.
 
#21 ·
So far so good. It does’nt see a lot of hours of use of course. I figure for each run about 15 minutes of total “on” time for the pump between the run and in the pits. So on a 4 run day about an hour total. So the pump has about 15 hours on it for a full season. Maybe 20. And of course if it failed at the track, and it’s a track only car, I’m never far from the trailer.
 
#23 ·
I've been running a Meziere 55 GPM pump for years now. My system is full automatic.

My pump controller runs off a sensor in the normal location right by the T-stat housing. The pump idles at a slow speed anytime key is on run to make sure the engine block and heads warm evenly and so the sensor knows the real water temp. As soon as outlet temp gets to ~160F the PWM starts to ramp. By 170F it is full speed. This targets 160-170F for engine temp.

My fan senses the cold tank temp. It has the same real slow idle and ramps when the cold tank is 120F. By 140F it is all in at full speed. I change this around depending on race or street.

My IC pump runs with the fuel pump unless I manually cut it off.

When I put my key on accy it goes into a cool down mode. It runs until the manifold temp drops below 100F or the battery goes below my car's safe restart voltage. I can always restart even if I leave the key on acy for hours.

My end temp is 180 or less on a single pass. I can hot lap a couple passes without worry. The big worry is the trans temp with more than two passes. I usually use a blower to cool the TC and trans between passes. I could go up hot but I have less safety time if I get on the too soon converter and someone wants to burn me down. I don't have a lot of sitting time on boost with the trans locked.

I'd never go back to a mechanical pump. My car is full automatic, all I do is turn the key like any normal car (except for the intercooler pump).
 
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#24 ·
My car was an NA stick car, I had a small generator that I hooked up a battery charger and big carpet dryer fan that I blew up under the engine to cool oil pan and block, I had my electric radiator fans and electric water pump running and a bag of ice on the intake manifold. Before each run i just made sure I dried of the block and wiped up any drips from the ice.
 
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