Has anyone done any tracking with an upgraded SMIC?
I'm considering creating something similar to the M2 medium IC (as large as possible without relocating the battery) with a nice duct, but I wonder how it will do for the occasional track day.
Anyone?

 

I tracked my FD with bnr turbos and a PFS large SMIC with water injection and my intake temps were about 50c on a 75 degree day. Running 10lbs boost. 20 min session

 

SP ic with ducts but spray not activated, would delivery about 80°C intakes at 1 bar on a mid 30s day(mid to high 90s for you) on twins - which I expect is your normal summer track temp over there. One of the vendors over here does a dual pass set-up which is supposedly a bit superior, but they'd never approach a vmic or whatever.

 

My friends FD that I work on, had a PFS med SMIC, and went through a bunch of 30min track sessions in ambient temps up to 105degF. Stock ECU so we couldn't log air temps but no problems.

 

i'm also considering a FMIC, but i'm not sure about that either. i'm honestly a little scared i'll go with a SMIC setup and the IATs will still be out of control.

brosio, the biggest i want to do is a M2 medium-ish so i dont have to relocate the battery. am i trying to have my cake and eat it too?

 

My buddy was going to track his car today but the weather wasn't good (snow) and rain. I tuned his car with a small ebay intercooler for an M2. I think its like 10x9x4 in size. He has good ducting, and he has his intake getting fresh air into the filter with a large filter.

it was probably 20-25C outside when we tuned his car, and his max air temps were 26C.

We still have to take it on the track and he was going to this weekend, so no real track data, just a ton of pulls back to back when tuning his car.

Of the people with really low air intake temps from our group of people, the important part is getting cold ambient air to the air intake/filter. This is more important than intercooler cooling power. But we also duct the hell out of the intercooler. We have found that even small intercoolers work just fine for what we do. single turbo 15-18PSI at high elevation. Think first about intake filter location, and second about intercooler size. then how you can duct the intercooler and filter with fresh air.

side note. We ran his Garrett I forget his model, T3 journal bearing turbo HARD. got out of the car with it running, popped hood up and felt his cold side and hot side of his intercooler piping. suprisingly, the hot side was pretty cold, and obviously the cold side colder.

 

I tracked my car a few times with the PFS (medium sized) intercooler and saw air temps of ~50c on mild days running 10-11psi stock twins.

 

This then begs the question, what IAT is too high for track conditions?

 

For me I avoid going WOT past 60c (140f)

I also run a few gallons of race gas at the track to safeguard things such as high IAT, etc

 

Anything over 60 isn't good

70s blows engines for sure and 60s can

With twins and a fast driver you must have a FMIC/VMIC along with all sorts of cooling mods and ducting

Single turbo can get away with a nicely ducted m2 medium (that's about as small as you can go) and boost must stay below 12 psi

Fast drivers boosting more than 12psi will eat turbo kits etc...UNLESS they are running on e85 or race fuel. 12 psi is typically 350 HP on most single turbos so if you are being passed it's not because you need more power.

 

Stock mounts really suffer from heat soak when driven slowly and in traffic. Its a retarded design because the radiator discharge blows hot air right onto the bottom of the intercooler. I strongly recommend meth injection. I won't boost if a car hits anywhere around 60 degree intake temps.

 

My Freddy Fmic from the rx7 store is horrible when iit comes to flow. I would be way too scared to do a track day with it for coolant temps alone. However, IATs did drop from 50s heat soaked in traffic to 41 in about 6 miles at 75 mph.

I think a good quality Fmic close to the rad would be Better. You can down size to a Harley battery with 550 cca. 7"x4" is the general size for that.

 

I and many have tracked with front mounts. They key is a bigger front bumper opening than the stock bumper and proper ducting/management of air. I have a car in the shop right now with a modified stock bumper. I'll take pics in a bit.

 

Some pics. A Porsche 911 was used as a template for the bumper openings. Radiator is sealed all around with foam weatherstripping. Maradyne fans on radiator and oil coolers.

 

How are you guys monitoring the IAT? PowerFC?

 

Power fc with a fast acting sensor in the car above. The stock sensor is worthless.

 

Good to know, purchased. I'm going to run with the stock ecu for a little bit until I get it through the California SMOG test. Assuming the stock ecu won't be too grumpy, all the ranges are the same, just more responsive. We'll see.

 

I currently track with a CWR replica setup, and I'll hopefully be able to give you a comparison between twins and single turbo here shortly.

Pretty sure twins are the issue.

There were some pretty hard core track cars that ran M2/ASP or CWR style SMICs BITD that ran very manageable temps before v-mounts were invented

Also, to your question, why not just relocate the battery? My experience with mini batteries has been, they live a HELL of a lot better since I took them out of the engine bay.

 

We are going to do a track day with a smaller intercooler that is well ducted along with a large filter with cold air. The intercooler is 9" x 7" core that is 3.5" or 4" thick. Single turbo running 1 bar at high altitude. remember we have a lot less air to cool with than you guys down at sea level and run higher pressure ratio's on the turbo. I'll report back what the IAT's are during the track day on sunday this weekend.