The Big Fat Track Car Cooling Thread

[Norm Peterson]

I don't understand how anybody who designs a hood doesn't get this right. I understand not wanting waster constantly cascading off the windshield and down the front of the firewall. But what's so hard about a few molded 10mm nipples for attaching some dangling rubber tubing off a "tray" like mold under the wiper area? Then you could run a nice 1/2" gap between the back edge of the hood and the aformentioned "tray" for air to be drawn off. What idiot thought sealing the top of an engine bay was a useful goal?

Same 'idiot' who realized through aerodynamic testing that locally high pressure air at the base of the windshield (and for several inches in front of that) would push more outside air into the rear of the engine compartment (a relatively lower pressure region) instead of letting any hot engine compartment air out. It's not hard to see that "solution" making an existing cooling problem worse instead of better.

Aerodynamic behavior is not always visually obvious and can be exactly opposite to what a simplistic "common-sense" approach may suggest should be happening.


Norm

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[JohnD]

The center hood is just behind the radiator. The first fin is over the water reservoir cup.
Main issue was the 2 big coolers completely stopping the flow.
Plus 100f out

Yeah, yours is about 4" further back than mine I would guess, the front edge of my opening is 2" behind the rad. You can see from the pic that Race Louvers take a very different approach than Trackspec. They've got data to back it up. I didn't do this just for cooling even though that was the main reason, I wanted aero downforce and this unit provided it in spades.

Two days ago I did a 1:35.005 at Mosport, my previous best was 1:36.6, weather was the same on both those two days those times were done and there were no other changes to the car. There's more in it, prolly another second or so, I am still getting used to having the back end freed up and learning how to best take advantage of that. Understeer is pretty much a thing of the past. I thought their aggressive design with the front louver being straight up would hurt straight speed but it didn't, my top speed on back straight was unchanged, but corner speeds were all up.

Main thing is that whatever you did makes you happy, if yours does then I'm happy for you. Different strokes for different folks.

 

[shogun32]

Same 'idiot' who realized through aerodynamic testing that locally high pressure air at the base of the windshield (and for several inches in front of that) would push more outside air into the rear of the engine compartmen

I'm trying to decipher the color-coding on this.

 

[Norm Peterson]

I suspect that red means relatively lower pressure and blue relatively higher, and there's a correlation with airflow speed. Flow over the curved roof has to speed up, which drops the local pressure (this being the principle behind lift and how heavier-than-air airplanes manage to fly at all).


Norm

 

[Flyhalf]

Yeah, yours is about 4" further back than mine I would guess, the front edge of my opening is 2" behind the rad. You can see from the pic that Race Louvers take a very different approach than Trackspec. They've got data to back it up. I didn't do this just for cooling even though that was the main reason, I wanted aero downforce and this unit provided it in spades.

Two days ago I did a 1:35.005 at Mosport, my previous best was 1:36.6, weather was the same on both those two days those times were done and there were no other changes to the car. There's more in it, prolly another second or so, I am still getting used to having the back end freed up and learning how to best take advantage of that. Understeer is pretty much a thing of the past. I thought their aggressive design with the front louver being straight up would hurt straight speed but it didn't, my top speed on back straight was unchanged, but corner speeds were all up.

Main thing is that whatever you did makes you happy, if yours does then I'm happy for you. Different strokes for different folks.

Yeah i saw them. I was the first 2018 with the trackspec vents. i like them a lot. And yes aero was main reason.
I'll be exploring a more aggressive splitter and together with those vents i can put a nice want behind

By the way
I'm starting a nice project on : spray water on the cooler with 3 nozzles I'll keep you posted

 

[JohnD]

By the way
I'm starting a nice project on : spray water on the cooler with 3 nozzles I'll keep you posted

Evaporative cooling! You might be onto something there, that should be interesting.

 

[shogun32]

I'm starting a nice project on : spray water on the cooler with 3 nozzles

what's the parasitic loss from the crank-driven water pump and spraying apparatus? (joke)
Have you figured out the optimal droplet size? I can see it now, a garden chemical sprayer hooked up to in-cabin pressure bottle, which you furiously pump up while driving the front straight.

Hmm, actually why not hijack the windshield washer/wiper system? It already comes with a decent spray pattern, pressure, and a handy cockpit switch at your finger tips that even has built-in timer/pulse patterns. Extra points for using 91% rubbing alcohol. Not as cheap as water obviously. But you'll have to use ~2x as much volume for the same amount of calories extracted from the hot surface.

 

[HeelToeHero]

what's the parasitic loss from the crank-driven water pump and spraying apparatus? (joke)
Have you figured out the optimal droplet size? I can see it now, a garden chemical sprayer hooked up to in-cabin pressure bottle, which you furiously pump up while driving the front straight.

Hmm, actually why not hijack the windshield washer/wiper system? It already comes with a decent spray pattern, pressure, and a handy cockpit switch at your finger tips that even has built-in timer/pulse patterns. Extra points for using 91% rubbing alcohol. Not as cheap as water obviously. But you'll have to use ~2x as much volume for the same amount of calories extracted from the hot surface.

The Neon SRT4 with the molar stage 3 with "turbo toys" had an intercooler sprayer. It's been done.

 

[nameuser]

So to add to my cooling (or what I hope will help) I have been working on a brake cooling set up. I used the lower cervinis grill to match the upper. This opens up the lower grill a bit more than stock to help expose my coolers for more air. On the outside portion of the openings is the placement of my duct inlets. I had a buddy design/build a 3d printed inlet for this areas. Originally I wanted the entire scupper used to direct air but I don’t think his printer could print that big of a piece. He used half the area. Then I built block off plates to cover the remainder of the opening so I wouldn’t put air into the fender well areas on either side.

No one makes a backing plate yet for the magnaride spindle so I decided to just build my own. It’s a crude rough draft but I’ll be testing everything this week in 98-100 degree temps.

I’m open to input and welcome it for future changes etc.

Have any extras laying around? You could easily sell these as no one is mass producing them. I’d be willing to pay if you want to work something out. Just PM me.

 

[AlbertD]

Apperently the fins of trackspec dont need any "wall in the front because they already act like a pressure reducer (they are longer then others) although i was thinking to create a "firewall in the front of the vent to increase the extraction.
I saw the main benefit from a aero point of view. Car is glue in the front at high speed turn .

@Flyhalf I built some custom wickers and performed a tuft test to analyze the results. You may be interested in checking it out: https://www.mustang6g.com/forums/threads/verus-trackspec-hood-vents.114816/page-2

 

[sonicc]

So has anyone looked into making duct for radiator to improve cooling? Something like this, where the inlet opening is about 1/3 of the outlet opening. More fancier setups could play with the angle of radiator and ducting behind radiator to vent the air out the hood. To me this would seem like a very efficient mod paired with center hood vent, but I don't know enough about air flow/dynamics and how well this would work on our cars.

Source: https://professionalawesome.com/how-to-make-your-street-car-cooling-system-track-day-and-race-ready/

 

[Flyhalf]

That is for 2 reasons.
1. Downforce purpose
2. Cooling of course
Moving and recline the radiator in our cars is a very Hard job. There is not a lot of space. Also Air Co. Needs to be remove of course
Vorshlag did inclime th radiator 10°upfront but was a huge work
Plus. S550 doesn't have side opening (lime in the 350) where to put auxiliary coolers(trans and extra radiator) so most of our coolers will be piled one after another in that small opening(overheating guarantee)

Ducting is actually the best solution
I did duct my coolers and radiator in my 18 and I've seen huge improvment (20-45f) on OIL TEMP (the one that soffer the most) CHT temp and trans temp.
I've also created a cooling water spray system but that is another story

 

[sonicc]

@Flyhalf your ducting is kinda how I imagined it would go, but I'm curious what's the reasoning for 3 different sections for upper opening?
20-45 degree drop from just ducting is pretty good. Have you seen any further drops in temp with the sprayers?

 

[shogun32]

Ducting is actually the best solution

Indeed. Rads can only flow air so fast and compared to vehicle speed it just hits a brick wall and spills around the side. the ducts let it settle down and get trapped so the only way out is thru. I'm tempted to put some dirt-bike rad vanes in front to clean up the in-flow.

 

[Flyhalf]

@Flyhalf your ducting is kinda how I imagined it would go, but I'm curious what's the reasoning for 3 different sections for upper opening?
20-45 degree drop from just ducting is pretty good. Have you seen any further drops in temp with the sprayers?

Lower grille is all dedicated to oil cooler
Upper grille is devided in 3 because
The center is the trans cooler. So the 2 on the sides are directly to the radiator.
And yes water spray is incredible.
I have 5 nozzles total
2 oil
2 radiator
1 trans

In 90f with real gauge
Oil temp
Standard 285f
Ducted 260
Water spray 240

With 70f water spraying keeps oil at 220
Trans max at 214f
CHT max 220

I lost a transmission already so cooling was my #1priority. If this year i will still have issues ..ZLE

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