hkerekes wrote:Removing the air to air wont change your overheating issues. The intercooler is not your problem, its ducting, intercooler being too far away from the radiator and or lack of fans. The air is not that much hotter after it passes through the intercooler and its definitely not hot enough to make any difference in coolant temps.
Your air to water heat exhanger would need direct airflow infront of the radiator to be effective in removing enough heat. You will also add pumps, water ,plumbing, the intercooler itself, hot and coldside plumbing wiring, relays, and switches. Adding 50 lbs, 10 points of failure and you will still have overheating issues.
An air to air wont heatsoak and the tune will stay the same on lap one vs lap 500. An air to water will absolutely have different temps and will cause problems with consistency.
Respectfully, I don't agree with a number of points.
Air to Air systems can heat soak. Subaru guys complain constantly while changing to front mounts. They can recover faster from heat soak yes, but they are not immune to the problem. As with all heat extraction systems it comes down to sizing for the application.
The heat exchanger for a water to air system does not need to be in the bumper. Sized right you can put it anywhere with the right fans and it will be fine.
Water to air is more complex, yes, but let's not pretend it's unreliable. It's a pump and fans, not a ton unreliable there. It's heavier, yes, but if I cared about weight I wouldn't have raced with the huge NAV headunit and full stereo installed, or I would have gone through and cut out all the stupid extra brackets still in the car.
I am not trying to argue that water to air is better in every way, I'm simply weighing it's cons against ways it could help improve the radiator performance.
Let me fully lay out the current setup again, because on paper it should not be bad. The ducting is not perfect, but it's pretty damn good. The bottom of the bumper is sealed to the bottom of the radiator. I have vertical plates cut to match the bumper cavity so air coming though the front openings is directed all the way to the radiator, it cannot escape to the sides. These plates also cover the small gap between the intercooler and radiator. I even have a plate along the top of the air path to make fully sure there is only one sealed path from bumper openings to radiator. Pictures from 2018 when I first did the work. I've improved things after we replaced the oil cooler with a larger one.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/mUA8oqMX6WrLjZBc8
My fans are just ok. They are two 1300CFM spal 12" fans chosen because they were some of the highest flowing fans for the depth requirements we have. I physically cannot fit a taller fan before they start hitting the turbo (see photo in that album). While I have the car apart to replace the exploded transmission I am going to see if I can modify how they are mounted to lean them more and make more room for fans. I would love to put a stronger fan or two in there, but it requires making space.
We have one hood vent now to try and get hot air out from behind the radiator. There is no direct ducting up to it because the space is so small. If I can lean the radiator I will make a better effort to duct this.
Cat is gone, down pipe is wrapped, turbo has a heat shield that works really well, so I've done most all I can do to limit the engine bay heating the radiator. Car has a tune to specifically address fuel maps and make targets safer. This single item made the largest change of anything we've done. Car went from overheating in 1 lap, to over heating after 30 minutes. Wide band (and fuel consumption) confirms we are in good target regions.
I will also point out that I am the only driver able to overheat the car unless it's a very hot day, then others can. This indicates that there is something about my driving that is making the issue worse. My brother turns similar lap times to me, but claims he never sees temps over ~212. I can get them over 220 if I don't back off. I've never tested to see how high they'll actually go. We are lining up better data logging to compare exactly how I'm driving differently, but I'd like to have a cooling setup that is driver immune.
In short, I'm just plain out of ideas. I can keep iterating on ducting over and over, but I've been doing that for years and the problem persists. I'm kinda tired of spending my stint getting to go 2 laps full speed 5 laps 3/4 speed.
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