The 24 Hours of Lemons Forums → Lemons Tech → DIY Cool Shirt
If duty cycle is an issue, wire the WW pump up to the kickdown switch so it only runs at full throttle....It'll rest during braking, tip-in, driver changes, etc....
If duty cycle is an issue, wire the WW pump up to the kickdown switch so it only runs at full throttle....It'll rest during braking, tip-in, driver changes, etc....
How about a little windmill on the car that runs a pump? That way it pumps faster when the car is going faster.
Bilge pumps cost money! What's wrong with windshield-washer pumps? Pocket-sized, i.e. free at the junkyard! Yeah, you engineer types will whine about the duty cycle and MTBF gibberish, but how do you know it couldn't pump water for 12 hours straight?
I really want to see a whole team wearing backpack-mounted cool-suit rigs as they wander around the paddock, so much so that I'm willing to hand out a Get Out Of Penalty Box Free card to any team doing so.
I accept your challenge. See you at Stafford.
Just a warning when doing this, we built one for summit, and it worked great, with 2 problems:
1) we used sheet metal to make a baffle in the cooler to prevent our solid frozen milk jugs from bashing into the pump (solid frozen milk jugs worked great, baffle did its job, but duh, of course it rusted in an instant and painted everything rust colored).
We used a wire shelf from the dollar store and cut it to fit. I mounted the pump directly to the bottom of the cooler and siliconed the screws and it doesn't leak.
Amazing thread.....anybody engineer the engine's cooling system to this level of excellence?
Priorities, Jim, priorities. 
Oh yeah, Dallas! The only place in Texas I've ever been where you didn't need a cool suit to walk to your parked car was on top of Guadeloupe Peak...on Christmas Day...and it was still warmer than than my home town.....I figure Oswald shot JFK just to get into an air conditioned jail cell...
LOL. If Jay insists on scheduling Texas races between May and October, he really should insist on mandatory cool suit systems in the cars. Maybe even on re-installing any A/C systems that have been removed.
Just thought I'd add a way to get a cheap 'cool shirt' system.
So, there I was moving my mother-in-law (big truck, even bigger enclosed trailer= official extended family and friends free moving source) and I see a cooler in her house with hoses running out of it... WTF? my MIL has a cool shirt system? I look at it. Dry breaks, high quality pump, well built... It's a MEDICAL device that she had to ice her knee after surgery, and it is for all intents and purposes a race cool suit system. I even cut up the knee cooler and pasted it onto a shirt, worked very well.
So I started looking around. It seems that these things are prescribed often for recovery and the medical supply companies don't want them back.... Found a few for free.. You still have to make a shirt, but the whole pump/cooler/tube/dry break system is taken care of for you. The cooler it not sealed at the top, so a little foam tape, etc. may be needed.
-John
Just thought I'd add a way to get a cheap 'cool shirt' system.
So, there I was moving my mother-in-law (big truck, even bigger enclosed trailer= official extended family and friends free moving source) and I see a cooler in her house with hoses running out of it... WTF? my MIL has a cool shirt system? I look at it. Dry breaks, high quality pump, well built... It's a MEDICAL device that she had to ice her knee after surgery, and it is for all intents and purposes a race cool suit system. I even cut up the knee cooler and pasted it onto a shirt, worked very well.
So I started looking around. It seems that these things are prescribed often for recovery and the medical supply companies don't want them back.... Found a few for free.. You still have to make a shirt, but the whole pump/cooler/tube/dry break system is taken care of for you. The cooler it not sealed at the top, so a little foam tape, etc. may be needed.
-John
This is what we started with. It worked OK, but the problem was the cooler was too small for the ice to last for an extended period of time. Since Jay won't let us add ice in the hot pits we had to go to a 48 quart cooler to make the ice last all day.
Evil Genius wrote:Just thought I'd add a way to get a cheap 'cool shirt' system.
So, there I was moving my mother-in-law (big truck, even bigger enclosed trailer= official extended family and friends free moving source) and I see a cooler in her house with hoses running out of it... WTF? my MIL has a cool shirt system? I look at it. Dry breaks, high quality pump, well built... It's a MEDICAL device that she had to ice her knee after surgery, and it is for all intents and purposes a race cool suit system. I even cut up the knee cooler and pasted it onto a shirt, worked very well.
So I started looking around. It seems that these things are prescribed often for recovery and the medical supply companies don't want them back.... Found a few for free.. You still have to make a shirt, but the whole pump/cooler/tube/dry break system is taken care of for you. The cooler it not sealed at the top, so a little foam tape, etc. may be needed.
-John
This is what we started with. It worked OK, but the problem was the cooler was too small for the ice to last for an extended period of time. Since Jay won't let us add ice in the hot pits we had to go to a 48 quart cooler to make the ice last all day.
I saw teams using Shop vacs to quickly empty the coolsuit then refilling it during pitstops? When did the no refilling coolshirts rule come down?
VKZ24 wrote:Since Jay won't let us add ice in the hot pits we had to go to a 48 quart cooler to make the ice last all day.
I saw teams using Shop vacs to quickly empty the coolsuit then refilling it during pitstops? When did the no refilling coolshirts rule come down?
It's been several races now where nothing is allowed in the hot pits except fueling and driver changes (if fueling is going on). Nothing else is allowed in the hot pits. Did you see the shop-vac/refill procedure done in the hot pits? Because if so, that would be quite a departure from the norm.
icemang17 wrote:VKZ24 wrote:Since Jay won't let us add ice in the hot pits we had to go to a 48 quart cooler to make the ice last all day.
I saw teams using Shop vacs to quickly empty the coolsuit then refilling it during pitstops? When did the no refilling coolshirts rule come down?
It's been several races now where nothing is allowed in the hot pits except fueling and driver changes (if fueling is going on). Nothing else is allowed in the hot pits. Did you see the shop-vac/refill procedure done in the hot pits? Because if so, that would be quite a departure from the norm.
By hotpits...you mean right in front of your spot in the paddock....since none of the CA races actually use the real hotpits? Maybe its different on tracks where you CAN use the real hotpits?
So, there I was moving my mother-in-law (big truck, even bigger enclosed trailer= official extended family and friends free moving source) and I see a cooler in her house with hoses running out of it...
I got one the same way, except that it was my sister-in-law's mother-in-law who had one. I still have to run some splices in the electrical system (the rest of the system is Lucas, what could go wrong?) to tap power to it. I had it at ECR and put ice in it on saturday afternoon and there was still some ice in it sunday morning, so I think it would easily last through a couple of driving sessions. The only downside is that the duty cycle is much slower.
By hotpits...you mean right in front of your spot in the paddock....since none of the CA races actually use the real hotpits? Maybe its different on tracks where you CAN use the real hotpits?
By hotpits, I mean real pit lane hotpits. I don't think the fueling area in front of your paddock space (at tracks that don't allow real pit lane hotpits) counts as a "hotpit." Especially since once you're done with the fueling procedure (no more than 3 people, all fire geared, etc.) you can do whatever you want to at your car in the paddock space.
icemang17 wrote:By hotpits...you mean right in front of your spot in the paddock....since none of the CA races actually use the real hotpits? Maybe its different on tracks where you CAN use the real hotpits?
By hotpits, I mean real pit lane hotpits. I don't think the fueling area in front of your paddock space (at tracks that don't allow real pit lane hotpits) counts as a "hotpit." Especially since once you're done with the fueling procedure (no more than 3 people, all fire geared, etc.) you can do whatever you want to at your car in the paddock space.
At the Dallas race we fueled at the gas pumps, then moved out of the pump area and added ice to the cooler. With no hot pit it was better than MSRH where we will have to enter the paddock to do the cooler service. We'll probably fill the tank in the hot pit first then go out for a lap and come into the paddock.
Scott, what did you use to seal up the holes you drilled in that cooler? Did you just use JBWeld to hold the drybreaks in place or is that something else? Thanks.
I used marine epoxy. Regular epoxy doesn't work, I tried.
-Scott
OK - so I was inspired to make one of these for myself.
A recent track day at a superhot Sears Point clinched it.
I was a little unhappy with the thickness of the nuts on the brass pipe - it left precious little room for the brass compression fitting to fully seat - I had to really teflon tape it up to get a good sealPlugged it in tonight (wiring's not 100% done) and my wife walked out to the garage with a load of laundry
her: " hey - are these shorts dirty?"
me: " uh yeah - HEY! are you ready for the moment of truth? I am just about to turn the power on for my new cool shirtt (tm) system! Now all my drivers will bask in the coolness provided by refreshing chilled water circulating..."
her: " maybe later" - exits garage to kitchen... well. At least one of us was excited about it.
All you other Ghetto Gearheads - enjoy the pics below
I think you're cooler is too small for long Lemons stints. You'll probably have to refill that thing with ice every hour or so. We use a 28qt cooler. Good for about 4 hours. We got ours at Walmart for $15. Easy enough to just swap everything into a bigger cooler if you were so inclined.
-Scott
List of other parts needed:
Parts Needed:
28 Qt Cooler $20
360gph Bilge Pump $18
RC Battery Connectors $5
Dry Disconnects (4 pairs) $65 (~$8ea) (Need to find a cheaper place for disconnects)
Marine Epoxy
Shirt Hoses
Cooler to Shirt Hoses
Cooler to Shirt Hose Insulation
Thanks Scott. I'm assuming those dry breaks are the same size as the ones on the FAST and Cool Suit shirts?
Yep. I have a F.A.S.T. Cool Suit system. A friend was able to use his Cool Shirt with our system. So they seem to be interchangeable.
-Scott
Has anyone tried block ice? Like, a REAL block - a go to the ice house and get the biggest thing you can fit in the cooler kind of block.
I haven't tried it but from what I've heard it lasts a fair bit longer than cubed. That's why some teams are using frozen water or milk jugs. Not so handy if the track is far from your home town though.
We also did this at Summit, but only had it ready for Sunday...and WOW, what a difference from the day before. As soon as you turned it on when strapped in you could feel the cold as it filled the tubing...and it really made a difference. Instead of being completely disgustingly wet with sweat, I was only mildly repulsive. The Wartburg is like a convection oven at speed.
We used a bilge pump and just barbed hose connectors, lots of marine silicone and duct tape.
Yep. I have a F.A.S.T. Cool Suit system. A friend was able to use his Cool Shirt with our system. So they seem to be interchangeable.
-Scott
One of our drivers had a FAST shirt with connectors for a metal clip instead of a plastic clip which did not work with the connectors I used. So we swapped the shirt ends.
Maybe and newer or older shirt in which they used different connectors but it was not happy with our connectors. All the Cool Shirts were fine.
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