Matt
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Re:Over cooling. - 2007/02/05 05:53
You are totally correct. 90 precent of the time race cars will run hotter than street cars. This is because of the frequency of wide open acceleration, and then power under breaking. At OT last year I was having overheating issues. I call overheating about 220. The engine will survive it, but your charge temp is too high, and your likley to get detonation.
So an easy porformance modification is to install a thermostat that opens at a lower temperature, in this case 145. This allows coolant to start flowing sooner, and give the radiator a head start to keep the temperatures at the end of a twisty 20 mile stage down.
After OT we increased the size of our radiator, added a second fan, and started running with the hood spaced up to allow air flow through engine compartment. This allowed us to keep the engine cool on the twisty X games desert stages.
Unfortunatly, when you start flowing sub zero air through this high efficency system, especially at a rally like Sno* Drift, which is high speed, and not twisty, the coolant stays at the 145 mark.
There was a freezing rain at Perce Niege as well, but with our choked cooling system we were running at a warm enough temperature to keep it from freezing more than 1/4 of the way down the windshield.
On an interesting sidenote. Everyone knows that running too hot sucks horsepower from a motor (high charge temps mean a less dense air, and a possibility of pre detonation). Did you know that when running too cold the air fuel mixture won't combust as efficiently (or completly).
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