The Big Fat Track Car Cooling Thread

[shogun32]

But I think in the end, it's more about getting cooling air into, and out of, the radiator, i.e., ducting and venting. If you can keep the coolant temps down, the oil temps will follow, to some degree.

I'm planning on track vents and boxing the 3-pass Mishi rad. Cooling hot oil with not quite so hot water isn't a good way to extract joules. Hot oil in a cool air-stream would seem to be a better combo but your observation seems to shed doubt on that.

My V8 is getting the underside-mounted oil cooler. I wonder how hard it would be to retrofit to EB.

Sponsored

 

[SVO MkII]

I'm planning on track vents and boxing the 3-pass Mishi rad. Cooling hot oil with not quite so hot water isn't a good way to extract joules. Hot oil in a cool air-stream would seem to be a better combo but your observation seems to shed doubt on that.

My V8 is getting the underside-mounted oil cooler. I wonder how hard it would be to retrofit to EB.

Yep. The Mishi kit for the EB has it mounted in front of the rad.

I moved it down to the lower drivers side, venting into the wheel well.

It's just too small. But, my coolant temps were too high as well, so hopefully the hood vent solves the problem.

 

[Scootsmcgreggor]

Not sure what I need to do next to cool the engine oil.

A giant oil cooler. Many guys on TMO have shown that a setrab 948 or 960 is necessary (along with ducting) to keep oil temps in check for hot lapping in warm weather. If you're doing TT and not at full burn for 20 mins straight and are ok with oil temp in the 280's you can get away with a mishi cooler, but even then it needs to be ducted and with hood vents.

It shouldn't be too much of a surprise that the Mishi coolers are not terribly effective, they're essentially the right size for a ~250hp NA engine.

 

[shogun32]

It shouldn't be too much of a surprise that the Mishi coolers are not terribly effective, they're essentially the right size for a ~250hp NA engine.

right, so why would Mishi FAIL so spectacularly at their engineering? Why offer a product that has no way in hell of working when they have in their inventory a unit that is 50% bigger and could at least make a credible stab at working for purpose?

 

[TundraOnKings]

A giant oil cooler. Many guys on TMO have shown that a setrab 948 or 960 is necessary (along with ducting) to keep oil temps in check for hot lapping in warm weather. If you're doing TT and not at full burn for 20 mins straight and are ok with oil temp in the 280's you can get away with a mishi cooler, but even then it needs to be ducted and with hood vents.

It shouldn't be too much of a surprise that the Mishi coolers are not terribly effective, they're essentially the right size for a ~250hp NA engine.

Damn!! Okay, larger cooler. Damnit - back to the drawing board.

 

[Scootsmcgreggor]

right, so why would Mishi FAIL so spectacularly at their engineering? Why offer a product that has no way in hell of working when they have in their inventory a unit that is 50% bigger and could at least make a credible stab at working for purpose?

Its a great question. My best guess is price point. If they sized the cooler (2-3x bigger) and lines to best practice (-12 lines) it would be $1k+ like a custom Setrab setup and I think sales would be far less.

So either the above or they just designed it to accomplish a very different objective. They showed in their own testing that temps dropped like ~20* and that's at steady state on the freeway. But there is very little thermal load being put into the oil cruising on the freeway compared to a 20min lapping session. They were happy with temp reduction in their test so maybe they were not trying to make a track capable cooler? Or that's just marketing covering for the desired price point. Who knows.

My 948 setup with the GT500 oil pan (12qt) hit 260*F at the end of my last track day, ~88-90*F ambient. Fully ducted fluidyne triple pass rad and ducted oil cooler. Some people may be comfortable with oil temps above that but I'm not so at least for me a 948 is just barely big enough.

 

[ihasnostang]

you can only stack so many heat exchangers infront of one another. If diff coolers with a fan work without being in the front why wouldn't an oil cooler underneath work? Might need custom length hoses.

If someone wanted to do an experiment buy a cheap arduino computer that can do 4 thermocouple channels and place one at the same height behind the intercooler(if equipped) then behind the oil cooler, and behind the radiator.

 

[Flyhalf]

There's a lot of info in this thread regarding oil coolers. I'll defer to GT owners as to the absolute best approach for the V8. But I think in the end, it's more about getting cooling air into, and out of, the radiator, i.e., ducting and venting. If you can keep the coolant temps down, the oil temps will follow, to some degree.

And viceversa

 

[luc]

you can only stack so many heat exchangers infront of one another. If diff coolers with a fan work without being in the front why wouldn't an oil cooler underneath work? Might need custom length hoses.

If someone wanted to do an experiment buy a cheap arduino computer that can do 4 thermocouple channels and place one at the same height behind the intercooler(if equipped) then behind the oil cooler, and behind the radiator.

Agree 100%
If you look at engine cooling as a package with oil being a part of it and coolant the other part, it doesn’t make much sense to cool the oil with a huge cooler in front of the radiator if the end result is a great reduction in the cooing capacity of said radiator
It’s why i mounted mine parallel to the ground

 

[TundraOnKings]

I’m really not a fan of race louvers hood vents, but I might have to go that route as well it sounds like. I’ve tried to research it a bit, but since it’s been mentioned, are there any companies that produce a louver that can be closed to prevent rain entering the engine bay? I live in the PNW, and although I normally do not drive the car in the rain, you never know when you’ll get stuck in a downpour. Happen to me tonight - dry for 6hrs, then an inch of rain dumped unexpectedly.
I’m signed up for another track day next Friday and it’s showing rain.

 

[shogun32]

What's with this fear of a little water getting on a engine? The whole compartment is weather sealed

 

[TundraOnKings]

What's with this fear of a little water getting on a engine? The whole compartment is weather sealed

I would just worry about parking outside for extended periods and constant water in the engine bay. I normally park in the garage, but if I’m working on a different project I might leave it outside. Anytime I can keep water off of anything I do. My tractor is built to withstand it as well, but rust happens and makes things a PITA.

 

[tosha]

I would just worry about parking outside for extended periods and constant water in the engine bay. I normally park in the garage, but if I’m working on a different project I might leave it outside. Anytime I can keep water off of anything I do. My tractor is built to withstand it as well, but rust happens and makes things a PITA.

Most GT500 replica hoods have rain trays, though I don't know how efficient they really are to extract heat. You could technically buy a takeoff hood, install louvers on it and swap just for track events, depending on how often you go to tracks.

 

[Ewheels]

I would just worry about parking outside for extended periods and constant water in the engine bay. I normally park in the garage, but if I’m working on a different project I might leave it outside. Anytime I can keep water off of anything I do. My tractor is built to withstand it as well, but rust happens and makes things a PITA.

There was another member on here (don't think he's active anymore) who made his own rain tray for his Race Louver vents.
Left it in for daily use and removed it for track days. It can be done.

EDIT: found the picture

 

[SVO MkII]

I’m really not a fan of race louvers hood vents, but I might have to go that route as well it sounds like. I’ve tried to research it a bit, but since it’s been mentioned, are there any companies that produce a louver that can be closed to prevent rain entering the engine bay? I live in the PNW, and although I normally do not drive the car in the rain, you never know when you’ll get stuck in a downpour. Happen to me tonight - dry for 6hrs, then an inch of rain dumped unexpectedly.
I’m signed up for another track day next Friday and it’s showing rain.

I'm with you. I use this car as my DD in the Chicago area, including winters. I rigged up an aluminum baking dish under the vents, held in place with a couple of wing nuts, with a rubber hose that drains over the the drivers side, away from any belts or electronics. Seems to work well so far. It's hard to see from this pic, but I'll take a pic from the underside when I get home.

Sponsored