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The Big Fat Track Car Cooling Thread

TeeLew

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Is there any way to disable the factory "safe modes" associated with high inferred oil temp on the factory gauge? I have several cooling mods, including race louvers on the hood, and I am now seeing approx. 40 deg difference between my mechanical oil temp gauge, and the factory inferred temp (mech gauge reads 245, and inferred temp is in the yellow, where the ECU starts pulling boost, approx 285).
The inferred oil temp is based off the CHT. Your water is too hot. I know I've bored everyone to tears with my ideas about engine temps, but your water is too hot, which makes the ECU think the oil is also too hot. You've addressed the oil side of the equation, but that's only part of it.
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Hack

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I finally wrapped up my first set of planned mods and got my car out on track. No problems with heat so far! Running Mach 1 wheels with Pilot 4S tires 305 front 315 rear.

I'm using Race Louvers in the hood for engine cooling.
Stock brakes - I added JLT vents from the deleted fog lights, but also kept the air diverters on the lower suspension arms. I just trimmed enough off the air diverters so they don't interfere with the vents. I didn't push the brakes super hard during this first track day. I'm just using good fluid and above mods. They feel a little squishy, but I didn't notice any changes during the day. On this track I don't think I get much over 100 mph, so it probably wasn't too hard on the brakes

I have a Derale 13740 cooler with the two small fans on the rear diff. I also wrapped the exhaust near the rear diff as extra insurance.

For the MT-82 I'm using a stacked plate Derale 51608 mounted in the front of the car above the bumper beam.

Tilton 40-524 intermittent pumps.

I'm using two Spal 185 FH controllers to run the pumps. Right now I'm just using a toggle switch to turn them on and off.

I wanted to post and thank everyone in this thread for sharing their knowledge, and especially @ddozier . I would have never gotten this car together without your help!
 
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Egparson202

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Nice build, @Hack! Photos would be a bonus. 🙂
 

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Gloucesternige

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I have just read a lot of this thread and find it very informative and interesting..

You may have seen my thread here.. https://www.mustang6g.com/forums/threads/do-we-actually-need-an-oil-cooler.180890/ from the UK, where I have removed the stock coolant/oil heat exchanger and monitored oil temp without it. Thanks to some of you guys I have realised the oil temp on the dash is a calculated figure so means nothing in reality.

Question:- With no oil cooler at all I am seeing temps up to 140°C, measured at the Mishimoto blanking plate for RHD cars. Does this sound right to you? I believe the oil is actually getting this hot and the engine is soaking the heat away as I see the high temp when running but see more like 90°c once turned off.

Why did I do this.. just to see if this engine actually "needs" an oil cooler under normal running conditions?
 

bnightstar

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I have just read a lot of this thread and find it very informative and interesting..

You may have seen my thread here.. https://www.mustang6g.com/forums/threads/do-we-actually-need-an-oil-cooler.180890/ from the UK, where I have removed the stock coolant/oil heat exchanger and monitored oil temp without it. Thanks to some of you guys I have realised the oil temp on the dash is a calculated figure so means nothing in reality.

Question:- With no oil cooler at all I am seeing temps up to 140°C, measured at the Mishimoto blanking plate for RHD cars. Does this sound right to you? I believe the oil is actually getting this hot and the engine is soaking the heat away as I see the high temp when running but see more like 90°c once turned off.

Why did I do this.. just to see if this engine actually "needs" an oil cooler under normal running conditions?
You need oil cooler for track driving for sure. Do you need it for street it really depends how you drive on the street. If you are like me and love to curve canyons or have a heavy foot then you do need oil cooler even for street driving. I have seen my CHT temps to get over 105-108Celsius even on the street in canyons driving. And I have seen my Fiesta overheat on the street because there was a junction on the highway and my radiator fan just simple died. So better have any help you can find. Especially on the track where the car is at it's limit.
 

Gloucesternige

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You need oil cooler for track driving for sure. Do you need it for street it really depends how you drive on the street.
I am aware we need an additional cooler for track driving, but I wanted to see if we needed it for street driving or not? Many cars don't have an oil cooler in stock form, even sports models like the GT86.

I think my test has proven that we do need a cooler, even for road driving, but I cannot believe I am seeing temps of 140°C under normal street driving? Admittedly, I have a cheap Amazon temp gauge for the test, but I checked it in boiling water and it read a little low. I have made you tube videos over on "Nigels Mustang Channel"
 

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TeeLew

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I have just read a lot of this thread and find it very informative and interesting..

You may have seen my thread here.. https://www.mustang6g.com/forums/threads/do-we-actually-need-an-oil-cooler.180890/ from the UK, where I have removed the stock coolant/oil heat exchanger and monitored oil temp without it. Thanks to some of you guys I have realised the oil temp on the dash is a calculated figure so means nothing in reality.

Question:- With no oil cooler at all I am seeing temps up to 140°C, measured at the Mishimoto blanking plate for RHD cars. Does this sound right to you? I believe the oil is actually getting this hot and the engine is soaking the heat away as I see the high temp when running but see more like 90°c once turned off.

Why did I do this.. just to see if this engine actually "needs" an oil cooler under normal running conditions?
OK, so I watched your vid. You've done some good work, here.

An engine produces a certain amount of power and that will mean a certain amount of the heat produced will need to be rejected to maintain operating temps. We can get rid of that excess heat many different ways, but our most powerful are water and oil cooling. The water temp cools the bulk temperature of the engine. It maintains the temperature of the block and heads. The oil cools the hot stuff, like bearing journals and the backs of pistons. Water has a large ability to transfer heat, but oil isn't so good at it. We need to keep the water cool and, as you've found, the heat gets transferred from the oil to the block and then from the block to the water and out the rad. This is not an efficient transfer path, though, so it wouldn't surprise me if oil temps were high. Oil splashes around an engine as much to cool the parts as lube them.

I think your measurements all make sense. The fact that oil is hot and there's a temperature gradient across a block wall is to be expected. It should be mentioned, that overly cool oil isn't good, either, so a thermostat designed with a benign failure mode is a good option. Oil has to be in the 110-115 deg range to make sure it can gas off water condensation and unburnt fuel residue. Running oil to 140* is probably either an emissions or mileage game.

Here's a rule of thumb. Dropping water temperature will significantly help cool the oil, but cooling the oil will have a much smaller effect concerning the water temperature. I think it's hard to ever recommend against running some sort of oil cooler and if you were still concerned, I bet a lower water thermostat could also address your daily driving temperature worries.
 

Gloucesternige

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OK, so I watched your vid. You've done some good work, here.

An engine produces a certain amount of power and that will mean a certain amount of the heat produced will need to be rejected to maintain operating temps. We can get rid of that excess heat many different ways, but our most powerful are water and oil cooling. The water temp cools the bulk temperature of the engine. It maintains the temperature of the block and heads. The oil cools the hot stuff, like bearing journals and the backs of pistons. Water has a large ability to transfer heat, but oil isn't so good at it. We need to keep the water cool and, as you've found, the heat gets transferred from the oil to the block and then from the block to the water and out the rad. This is not an efficient transfer path, though, so it wouldn't surprise me if oil temps were high. Oil splashes around an engine as much to cool the parts as lube them.

I think your measurements all make sense. The fact that oil is hot and there's a temperature gradient across a block wall is to be expected. It should be mentioned, that overly cool oil isn't good, either, so a thermostat designed with a benign failure mode is a good option. Oil has to be in the 110-115 deg range to make sure it can gas off water condensation and unburnt fuel residue. Running oil to 140* is probably either an emissions or mileage game.

Here's a rule of thumb. Dropping water temperature will significantly help cool the oil, but cooling the oil will have a much smaller effect concerning the water temperature. I think it's hard to ever recommend against running some sort of oil cooler and if you were still concerned, I bet a lower water thermostat could also address your daily driving temperature worries.
Thanks for watching my video. Thanks also for commenting here.
I wanted to try this out to see if we could run the car under normal conditions, it would appear we can’t??
I now have my MMR remote filter kit so will add a cooler to that. I agree with your comments regarding running oil too cool, however, watching the oil temps in my coyote shoot up so fast I feel it may not be required? I will probably redo the test once I have the system all plumbed in.
Another guy here in the UK is doing the same test as me but with better equipment, so we shall see what happens there?
 

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Dropping water temperature will significantly help cool the oil, but cooling the oil will have a much smaller effect concerning the water temperature.
So are you suggesting radiator before oil cooler (aftermarket upgrade)?

I called Vorshlag awhile back and they recommended the opposite. Most people I talk to also recommend the opposite.

I know the real answer is "both" but a radiator is roughly half the price of an oil cooler.
I'm thinking/hoping new radiator+ducting+hood vents will be enough for me in sub-90° temps
 

TeeLew

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At this point, too cool of oil certainly isn't your issue. I'm just mentioning it for when you do your cooler sizing. The additional oil capacity accommodated by the cooler will also provide more heat inertia, so it will take a longer time period to achieve a given temperature.
 

TeeLew

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So are you suggesting radiator before oil cooler (aftermarket upgrade)?

I called Vorshlag awhile back and they recommended the opposite. Most people I talk to also recommend the opposite.

I know the real answer is "both" but a radiator is roughly half the price of an oil cooler.
I'm thinking/hoping new radiator+ducting+hood vents will be enough for me in sub-90° temps
Here's what I know for sure. Both are wildly too hot while on track. If I were Emperor, we'd run about 85*C on Coyotes and 80*C on Eco's for coolant temp*. CHT would probably be ~8-12*C higher than that. *IF* we had the water cooled to those numbers, then it would be interesting to see where oil ended up. We might still need a cooler, but you can bet it would be much smaller than if we were running 115* coolant temps. The downside is that you need a *much* bigger radiator. Why to all this trouble to keep the water cool? Because that's your big hitter in terms of both detonation and bearing clearances. You keep the head cool so you can run a lot of timing advance/boost and you keep the block cool so the bearing journals don't thermally expand so much they leave you big clearances, low oil pressure and, eventually, scored bearings.

*Those numbers are not arbitrary. They are the optimum operating temp for those engines when used in IMSA and IndyCar. They can certainly be run far hotter than this, but you're giving up power by doing it.
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