boosted carving

anyone have any pointers and/or tips to making the car safer / more reliable for use on the road course with a supercharger?

I personally dont like the idea of boost on a road course but oh wellz.

I am also looking into safety and longevity measures for my future road courses.

What I can think of is

aluminum radiator
vented hood
brake ducting

i dont think brake ducting will help with a super charger, i have no brake fade what so ever with my braking setup.

aluminum radiator, that could be something to look into way down the line but i think the stock one does a pretty nice job so far.

i plan on getting a steeda race cowl hood

also i was thinking more alone the lines of things like an oil cooler

I'll give you a +1 on the Steeda hood and the oil cooler. With the Steeda hood, at speed, my IATs are only around 9-10 degrees above ambient, so there is a benefit there.

With the oil cooler, I use a little half-width Setrab 19-row cooler, and I have a hard time getting the car over 200* coolant tems, and most of the time the oil temps are around 180-190, and rock solid, no matter how much I abuse the car. At one point, I ran three consecutive 30-minute lapping sessions, and the floorboards heat-soaked from the collectors, but the engine temps never moved. Before doing the oil cooler, I was bouncing off 220* after about 10 minutes of running hard, so it does work. I also plumbed in an oil thermsostat (bypass mode) and an Accusump, for a little extra insurance. With a blower, I would suggest that a cooler should be mandatory. No data on the radiator, though, since mine's stock, and I have no plans of "upgrading." I'll replace it when it blows, or when I stop being able to control the coolant temps.

Another thing to add to the list: Power steering cooler. After those three back-to-back sessions, my Canton PS resevoir was puking fluid out the top, and I know the Miller Cup cars have a cooler that works: M-3746-A, and it should be under $100... Third on the list for next year for me.

SoundGuyDave said:

Another thing to add to the list: Power steering cooler. After those three back-to-back sessions, my Canton PS resevoir was puking fluid out the top, and I know the Miller Cup cars have a cooler that works: M-3746-A, and it should be under $100... Third on the list for next year for me.

Click to expand...

Here's a picture I snapped of a FR500C. I'm pretty sure the PS cooler is simply a steel loop routed in front of the radiator..could be something home-brewable..

This is the one I was thinking of...

wow!

I'll definitely do the oil cooler before my next track event, cowl hood is next. Do you have the street version or the race version?

Power steering cooler will be on that list soon too

I've got the race version: and hood pins are mandatory, they're not kidding....

For the cooler, you'll need to think about where you want to relocate your filter, since the stock filter with a sandwich adapter will have swaybar clearance issues. I plumbed in -10, but if I had to do it all over, I would go -12. The cooler itself can go just about anywhere. I mounted mine under the bumper horn on the driver's side, right in the "corner" of the lower opening in the fascia, but that's not optimal from a safety standpoint. I had an "off" earlier this month, and the fascia flexed and smashed the cooler. Talking to some of the racers, the cooler doesn't really need to be in the airflow, passive radiation will work.





The Tee fitting in the second picture is the line for the 2qt. Accusump, which I have mounted right behind the bumper beam. The cost of the fittings and line FAR exceeded the cost of the hardware, so brace yourself for it...

Hope that helps...

I was just about to bring this topic from the dead, but Kaldar beat me to it.

Why are boosted engines on road courses so vulnerable? It is simply the heat soak, or the sustained high forces on the rods leading to metal fatigue? Or Both?

One advantage I have racing at my latitude is cooler ambient temps. An average summer day is 70-something F. Getting over 90F is very rare, I'm not sure if we've even rached that temp this summer.

Vapour Trails said:

I was just about to bring this topic from the dead, but Kaldar beat me to it.

Why are boosted engines on road courses so vulnerable? It is simply the heat soak, or the sustained high forces on the rods leading to metal fatigue? Or Both?

One advantage I have racing at my latitude is cooler ambient temps. An average summer day is 70-something F. Getting over 90F is very rare, I'm not sure if we've even rached that temp this summer.

Click to expand...

There was a long discussion about this on another forum..basically the consensus was the issues with FI on the road course is being prepared to keep the coolant and oil temps in line for more than the 12-13 seconds seen at the drag strip. Assuming you can keep it cool, if you don't exceed the capacities of your weakest link(s) mechanically speaking, it will be fine. But you're correct, more power puts more stress on everything so it's not purely a heat issue, but this is going to be an issue for both NA and FI (assuming similar power levels).

I've tracked my 08 GT for 15 events but my Roush SC has a mild boost and is only rated at 445 HP at the flywheel. I have thus not been worried too much about over stressing anything on the track - should I be?

I find that on the track it runs cooler under the hood than in stop and go traffic as there is much more airflow under the hood.

I also live in the Great White North (Canada) and the summer temp on track days has only been up to mid 70 so far this year. The temp guage has never moved from the middle.

For next year I'm thinking about getting this hood -

http://www.trufiber.com/Trufiber_Mustang_SVT_Hood_p/tf10024-a45.htm

Just as a heads up, the stock coolant gauge (PCM driven) is little better than an idiot light. I have a stepper-motor water temp gauge to compare it to, and ANYTHING between 140-210* will leave the needle in the middle.

I was aware of how the stock light worked and assuming it is working correctly based on your real guage that says I have never exceeded 210 degrees so does that mean i am OK so far?

this may be a stupid question, but wouldn't the saleen supershaker help with safety being as the ait would be drasticly lower since its being sucked from outside the engine bay and help reduce detonation? your coolant and oil would still need assistance in cooling but would this help keep the engine safer?

Sleeper: I can't say either way, but I would get a "real" gauge in there soon if you're going to be tracking the car regularly...

Alpha: The PCM measures AIT, and will adjust the tune to compensate, so the shaker *MAY* buy you something in terms of power, but not for safety, as long as the tuner didn't disable the AIT tables, which any reputable tuner would NOT. I have yet to see any definitive info on the shaker/HP issue, but I would bet not, or a lot of the "full race" Mustangs would be running them. It's not just temp, it's also smooth flow, and there are a LOT of bends with the shaker setup. If you're looking to reduce heat, the oil cooler works wonders, as does venting the hood just aft of the radiator line, allowing the hot air to escape the engine bay in a low-pressure area. The Steeda hood pressurizes the engine bay with high-pressure air from the cowl area, effectively doing the same thing.

So dave, just to clarify... You don't have to have the oil cooler in an open area with air flow?

Wouldn't it be better to have to in like the grill though?

You can really think of the oil cooler as a heat exchanger, rather than something like a radiator... If you were to, for example, stuff it inside of the fender, out of the airflow, it will still dissipate heat to the surrounding area, just not as efficiently as if it was in direct airflow. When you think about it, a lot of the racers have diff coolers and/or trans coolers in the trunk, with no airflow to speak of, and that works out well... Yes, you will have more efficient transfer of heat in the airflow, but the real question still remains: Do you NEED that efficiency? The downside is, of course, more potential for damage with it exposed, not just from an "off," like mine, but also from debris hitting the grille at speeds potentially in excess of 200MPH. Think about a rubber "worm" coming off the rear tire of an M3 ahead of you, being shot backwards at 100MPH, and here comes your oil cooler, moving forwards at 100MPH... When I pulled the cooler, I had a small, but noticeable dent in the plates from impact with a blue-bottle fly... Said fly was, of course, smeared across the cooler... Have you ever noticed how "embedded" bug strikes are on your windshield after a fast track session compared to a highway run? Now, add mass to that and the damage potential is high.

For experimental purposes, I may block off the corner of the fascia (racers tape FTW!!) next weekend just to see what that does to my oil temps. If I can find the time to do the experiment (assuming that I remember....), then I'll post data points here after I come to some conclusion. My gut is telling me that the cooler is more thermally efficient (read: larger) than is actually necessary, so degrading the efficiency of the heat exchange will have no noticeable impact on the oil temps.



If you look at the pic in full size, the cooler is in the lower-right corner of the fascia, right above the crap on the splitter.

Hmmm, i see...

Good point, but also i have the Roush trak pak grille which gives me ALOT of room where the foglights would normally be.

I guess i'll experiment with it, my next mod is definitely that race hood though. What kind of temp drops did you notice?

Cooling upgrades should be addressed per application.

Theres nothing like hitting a corner hard and having the power steering cut out...Thats why that cooler gets my vote

Oil temps tend to be stable/safe on the s197..and many times upgrading the hood/grill/radiator will also drop oil temps more.

Not that every track car needs a PS cooler...just maybe one with a blower, moreso a Paxton blower kit that relocates the PS lines/fiuld tank

Like Soundguy said, remember hood pins..or those cool Aerocatch latches when the hoods replaced.

Who are a good source for a S197 Power Steering cooler and an Oil Cooler kit? I only found one supplier for the PS cooler. Thanks.