Quote:
Originally Posted by BBC69Camaro
I have always wondered what those guys do for prolonged cooling, especially in a hot climate.
|
...and especially forced induction. Keeping forced-induction anything on a road course happy is a challenge. Once heat soak starts setting in you start hurting things, typically from detonation.
A large radiator with ample airflow, large intercooler with ample airflow, large oil cooler with ample airflow, power steering cooler, and a way to exchange enough underhood air to avoid creating a "superheated" underhood enviornment but in such a way to avoid creating too much front end lift are all important. Not to mention shielding all the radiant heat sources in a turbo car so they don't bake all the more fragile bits under the hood when they are glowing orange for an entire track session.
Keeping a naturally aspirated car happy on a roadcourse isn't too bad usually; size the radiator right, size the oil cooler right, put on a good water pump and shield the plug wires and anything else that might melt from the radiated heat from the headers that will be scorching hot for 20-30 minutes straight and go try it. Add boost and you just upped the heat load on the engine & oil cooling system, so you might have to grow those components. You also just increased the amount of radiant heat under the hood, especially if using turbos. And now you have to fit an intercooler in that's large enough such that the intake temps don't heatsoak from prolonged boost-making engine load conditions, and chances are that intercooler is mounted up front and is now raising the temp of the air that flows through the radiator & oil coolers, reducing their efficiency, so you might need to move the intercooler or make the radiator & oil cooler bigger still... it's really fun shaking down a forced induction car for roadcourse duty.
I think we went through 3 radiator / oil cooler / intercooler variations on a friend's Procharged 5.0 track-day beater until it finally made it through a 30 minute track session without overheating something.