Cooling mods tests at the track

[Sam3]

Sharing my experience with a bunch of cooling mods and how they fared at a couple of tracks. Most of you will not be surprised by the results.

Part I, at Chuckwalla with 95° heat. This video has the list of 10 cooling mods.








Part II, at Big Willow with 85°.

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[keller]

Hey Sam, loved watching both videos. I noticed some bouncing in the Big Willow video. What is your suspension and alignment setup?

Btw, I wouldn't dismiss the LogR calculated oil temps. From what I have read, it's usually around ~10 F from real temps. Also, how could you read the LogR numbers since the Catalyst is right in from of it?

 

[Sam3]

Hey Sam, loved watching both videos. I noticed some bouncing in the Big Willow video. What is your suspension and alignment setup?

Btw, I wouldn't dismiss the LogR calculated oil temps. From what I have read, it's usually around ~10 F from real temps. Also, how could you read the LogR numbers since the Catalyst is right in from of it?

Thanks! Yeah Turn 8 at Big Willow is notoriously bumpy. In this video I have the Swift Spec R springs, but my car is really stiff with all the RV6 arms and spherical bearings. My alignment was 3.3 front and 2.6 back.

I just installed the JRZ RS Pro coilovers with even stiffer Swift springs, so we'll see how it goes when I go back to that track. I'm sure it'll still be bumpy. But now I can tweak the compression and rebound.

The thing that gives me pause about the Log R (or standard OBD II) reading of the Oil Temp is that it goes very high but the car doesn't hold back power, give a warning, or go into limp mode. In Misha's video with the FL5, the oil temp goes up to 302° F on the 'ring but the car doesn't pull power.

I put the Catalyst suction cup all the way to the right of the display, and I can still see the Log R coolant and oil temps, which are displayed all the way to the left.

 

[1sloazfk8]

As someone in AZ, definitely going to check this out later, I wonder how this would fair in our awesome 115* weather that I want no part of lol

 

[AlphaDigital]

If you told me you hit 300 deg. without an oil cooler while lapping in 85 degree weather at your pace, I wouldnt be surprised.

 

[honda4eternity]

I’ve got a brand new Mishimoto secondary radiator setup for sale. If you’re interested, let me know.

 

[Sam3]

As someone in AZ, definitely going to check this out later, I wonder how this would fair in our awesome 115* weather that I want no part of lol

I had the Radford Grand Prix Racing School a couple of years ago in the summer. It was 117° in Chandler, AZ. The first 3 days were on Hellcats. Out of a fleet of 8, only one mildly overheated. The instructor was running one with the red key (full 797 hp) chasing a Type R-engined Ligier JS F4 open wheel formula race car. And two professional rally racers were pushing really hard on a couple of these hellcats. These are supercharged monsters, not NA. Yet they managed to do just fine with such extreme heat. The NA Type R engine in the Ligier did just fine as well.

Also on the same day I overheated at Big Willow, a very fast track guy (running 1:25 lap time) kept going in his GT3, while I packed up and left by noon. This is a NA straight six.

It seems that small capacity engine turbo charged cars are the most challenged in the heat.

 

[Austin@Wunderladen Racing]

I've talked with Matt (one of my partners here at Wunderladen) about this a fair bit. He has a Focus ST track car, another platform that is notorious for having cooling issues on track. When he was tracking his car in relatively stock form he used to see coolant temps around 250F and then it would kick into limp mode. Since he's modified it a fair bit it's gotten much better.

Matt brought up a good point, one thing that the Civic and Focus have in common is the use of a headifold design (exhaust manifold integrated in the cylinder head) and having the turbo mounted straight to the head. This puts waaay more heat into the cylinder head than a standard configuration where the turbo is connected to the head with a separate exhaust manifold.

So what can be done about this? Well if the answer was simple someone would've likely found it by now. My thoughts gravitate towards anything that helps cool the cylinder head faster or provide increased cooling capability in the heat exchangers.

1. I know I've said it before and a lot of guys already have this covered but running distilled water and a water additive will transfer heat more effectively out of the cylinder head than coolant will.

2. Speeding the water pump up (I believe Honda changed the pulley size on the FL5 to do this) to increase coolant velocity through the cylinder head.

3. Adding extra heat exchangers (many have had good success with this) or moving to a multipass radiator (I don't think any exist for the FK8) but I would want to see rad inlet vs outlet temps before trying something like this.

4. Put on a larger turbo. This may seem a bit counter intuitive since larger turbo means more power and more power means more heat, but heat input into the cylinder head is heavily tied to exhaust back pressure. Stock turbos tend to have small A/R turbine housings which have a fair bit more back pressure than larger A/R housings. The more back pressure there is the longer the hot exhaust gas sits inside the cylinder head and the harder the cooling system has to work to transfer and expel that heat. Matt upgraded his Focus from the stock ST turbo to an EFR 6758 and it helped drop his coolant temps a pretty noticeable amount.

5. Venting. This is one of the largest improvements Honda made with the FL5. Again it's also something many have already done, but if you don't have a hood vent directly over the exit of the radiator your cooling system will struggle to expel heat. To pair with this, moving to a slimmer radiator shroud to give better exit flow from the radiator to a hood vent may be worth investigating.

 

[keller]

moving to a multipass radiator (I don't think any exist for the FK8)

Slightly expensive tho..

https://www.unitedspeedracing.com/p...tor-rr-honda-civic-type-r-fk8-2-0t-k20c1-2017

Put on a larger turbo.

Yeah. Stig_jdm once told me exactly that - he had a friend running big turbo with stock power and he didn't overheat in TX.

RV6 also considered that when designing their turbo:

https://www.civicx.com/forum/thread...ring-turbocharger-in-stock.78137/post-1232836

Re the FL5, I liked their move to a partial fan shroud assembly. At high speeds that could make a noticeable difference.

 

[Dave B]

Has anyone altered their FK8 fan shroud similar to the FL5?

On my stock engined car with a vented hood, I have noticed the same issue i.e. coolant temps can drop very quickly while oil temps stay higher for longer and may take a whole lap to drop from 265 to 250.

Another issue may be at what RPM do you shift. I usually shift at 6500 but wonder how much time is gained going to 7000 vs the added heat production.

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