FMIC and road racing
 

A friend of mine is wondering if running an FMIC on a Turbo II will make itoverheat under road race conditions. Obviously with an upgraded radiator as he will be around the 300 or 350hp mark.


Thanks you all!

Santiago

your gonna get mixed reviews here. I personally think fmic are always better, but you may want to upgrade your radiator.

Short answer: yes.
On our current setup we are running a mazdacomp radiator, dual oil coolers, custom ducting, opened up front end and large fmic. We are constantly battling temps with oil approaching 240 degrees after a 20 minute session on any day over 85 degrees. Water temps seem to stabilize at about 195-200 but start working themselves higher after 20 minutes as well. This is with approx 240-280 rwhp (depending on settings) and a hybrid turbo setup. None of this is good for the life of our engine. As of now we are contemplating going to a top mount or a small FMIC.
-Matt
www.bfimotorsports.com

would a v-mount be much better?

As fastcar freak said,you will get mixed reviews, I have a similar set-up to to 88gtu, I have no heat related issues, but I am using a TO4S, have cantilivered the back of my hood, cut away a 2.5"x24" piece of the front bumper, and the bumper support, custom AST, and very large Griffin radiator. I am making ~325rwhp. I think the two issues 88 has are first, he is using a hybrid turbo, which creates alot more heat (and less power) than a TO4, and the biggest thing is modding the bumper, and cantilevering the back of the hood. I can run 35 minutes at ~90 ambient, and never see over 210, oil or water. The FMIC is far better than a horizontal mount unless you have a reverse cowl hood, and proper air ducting.
88, call me on my cell, and I will explain my mods in better detail, or do a search on my user name, and you will see my write-up on my cooling mods.
In short, an FMIC works great, and you will not overheat w/my complete set of mods. Carl

when i removed my a/c and heating, i took the heater core out from in front of the radiator, and saw almost 1/4 guage drop on my water temps. also, i am going to be running the same hood setup as carl, with the rear of it proped up. most ppl say this will have a cowl effect, but it actually does the oposite, as im sure carl can tell you through experience. its like a venturi effect, with the air going by the opening, it pulls the engine bay air out. also, since the sides of the hood are slightly opened, this speeds up the air as it passes through the engine bay.

Yup, by opening up the front (and cantilevering the hood) as described my temps went from unmanageble(240+) to 195 same conditions(next day with mods done). :D

That large of a difference, huh? Opening up the front bumper seemed to be worth about 10 degrees last time I was at Buttonwillow. We'll have to try raising the back of the hood. Do you have any pictures of your ductwork up front?
-Matt

No duct work, I have since replaced the stock front end, but here is what I did, readers digest style;
Cut 2.5x24" hole where Faux molding is on bumper cover
cut bumper support to match
removed overflow bottle, and all other components that interfered with clear flow.
cantilevered back of hood by removing rear hood bolts
added hood pins for safety
two stock TII oil cooler in series,one at top, and one at bottom of radiator
100% distilled water with 1.5 bottles water wetter
radiator/FMIC plate, with sides sealed
This dropped my temps easily 30-40 degrees. My turbo is both oil, and water cooled. I will take some pics this weekend, but the stock bumper is no longer being used. Later, Carl
FWIW, I have a 23x23x3.5" griffin witha custom AST set-up as well.

Sounds exactly like my setup.
My only differences are:
hybrid turbo
2 oil coolers are in parallel not series
no cantilevered hood
Mazdacomp radiator, not griffin.

Do you have all the incoming air coming through the intercooler or other pathways for air to get to the rear most heat exchangers?
-Matt

PS: What intercooler are you running?

I am not using any ducting(currently). I am using an old school HKS fmic(soon to be replaced with a greddy two row). The radiator drops around 8" below the IC, so there is no obstruction there. actually one oil cooler is in the stock location, and the second one is roughly in the middle of the radiator. I have added, but not run with a one piece aluminum belly pan that starts in front of the car as a splitter, and runs all the wayback to the front cross member. Search my two screen names on the race forum, and you will see some pics, I am too lazy to find them right now. Moving forard, i am adding a reverse cowl hood, and I will have vertical reurns coming down off the bottom of the hood, and up fromthe belly pan to direct the air to the IC, Radiator, and coolers. Additionally, I have a GTC nose, with huge side ducts for oil coolers. These will be used with ducting to direct fresh air around/behind the FMIC, and into the radiator. This should give me cooler temps yet, even with the 50% increase in power to the wheels.
http://www.teamfc3s.org/forum/member...=t&img_id=3883 I'll post more when I get a moment

Carl, how did you fit a 23" tall radiator in your car?

At a "slight" angle ;)

We added a chin spoiler under the car at the bottom of the rad on our hybrid powered road race car. Previously the car was overheating like crazy, even with a 3" thick stock car radiator. The results were amazing, a 40 degree drop in coolant temps. The spoiler sits 3" off the ground and is angled at about 30 degrees from the road surface, fits right where the bottom engine cover plate starts.

-Trent

Hey Carl, you going to make it out to NASA soon?

PaulC

Paul, 30-45 days, perhaps a little sooner. :) Trent, glad to hear that, that engine is much happier now ;)

Hi my name is sam i am knew to the forum, i have had cooling problems i was thinking of you put a reverse cal hood with some little side loovers on the top right and top left hand side of the hood.... if you have the loovers to far toward the frount of the car you will be sucking the air into the hood instead of realesing the engine bay air.... if you guys have heard differnt please inform me.

Good, I'm missing the first event too.. Maybe I'll see you at T-hill on the 28-29th.

PaulC

Unless you have a highly modded engine your cooling problems can be solved by trouble shooting the cooling system itself.