NJ-JDM

iTrader: (23)

I hope this is the right section for this post.

To keep this as short as possible my main concern is the temps: water, oil, IAT. I baby my car when I first start to drive it. I wait until water temp is up to full operating before I do any kind of hard driving. After I have parked for any length of time, I always watch my IAT and will attempt to never boost the car until it's at least in the 50's C.

When I got my alignment last week. Car was on the rack for maybe 45 mins, hood closed. When I went to leave, IAT was reading 70C. It took 10 mins at HW speed to get it into the 50's.

So what do you do at an auto cross, sitting out in the sun after a run waiting for you next turn? What is the highest IAT temp one can see on the PFC and still go all out without fear of blowing anything up? Short of opening my hood, what else can I do?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

TomU

iTrader: (11)

Open your hood and run the fans between runs. Problem with autocross vs say a road course is you don't get a lot of airflow. On the plus side, you are not going WOT for 20 mins either.

Shainiac

iTrader: (7)

I see a lot of guys at grassroots drift events using the pump-style garden weed sprayers to mist water over intercoolers, radiators, ect.

What exactly is your aversion to opening the hood?

NJ-JDM

iTrader: (23)

No aversion to opening the hood at all. I do it every time I park. I just wanted to know if I should do something additional like the garden sprayer suggestion. My battery is pretty new so I will leave the fans on for some time as well.

TomU

iTrader: (11)

Water/meth injection is more efficient than spraying the IC. It has the benefit of reducing your intake charge as well as increasing the effective octane rating. If you are having trouble keeping your IAT down, you should look into AI

NJ-JDM

iTrader: (23)

Absolutely. I did a ton a research on everything about it including the installion and in the end I decided not to invest the time and money. Hindsight. I may have to move it back up to the top of work to do this winter.

I guess I will be the guy 'watering' my car between runs. LOL

BLUE TII

iTrader: (9)

Yeah, I am one of the guys watering my rotaries between runs at auto-x.

If you put a fan on the intercooler there wouldn't really be a reason to water an FD between runs if you have the dual stock oil coolers.

If you have 1 stock oil cooler on a rotary and a course that is keeping you in the high rpms the whole time you really should water down your oil cooler.

NJ-JDM

iTrader: (23)

Good to know. Still have one oil cooler...for now. I prob wouldn't have thought about that spraying that one.

I refuse to take my car apart anymore until there is snow on the ground. It's taken a year to get it back to running and driving after the coolant seals went.

BLUE TII

iTrader: (9)

Yeah, I am currently auto-x-ing an auto RX-8 with its one oil cooler.

If the course is high speed and I am in the mid rpms in 2nd the oil temps are fine.

If the course is slow and I am stuck in 1st bumping the 7,500rpm revlimiter around at 47mph the water spray will instantly turn into a cloud of steam on the oil cooler after a less than 60 second run.

Shainiac

iTrader: (7)

I've been running water-meth and water injection for a few years and it still does not help heat soak. It can help prevent detonation if you have very high IATs, but it does nothing to prevent the IC from soaking up radiant heat from the rad and engine.
I have a friend who plumbed his washer sprayer pump to 2 washer nozzles pointed as his radiator. After a run, he hits the washer button and it mists water over his radiator. Works pretty well, just don't let it freeze in winter lol.

BLUE TII

iTrader: (9)

I have a friend who plumbed his washer sprayer pump to 2 washer nozzles pointed as his radiator. After a run, he hits the washer button and it mists water over his radiator. Works pretty well, just don't let it freeze in winter lol.

This strategy is great, but only SCCA legal on cars that came with the feature stock in "Street" and "Street Prepared" classes.

On course, the heat exchangers may only be cooled by the atmosphere (except for standard *stock* parts).

On course, water may only be injected into the intake track.

If you put the push button in the engine bay/outside the car or with an interlock that locks out the function while in motion it should be fine.

NJ-JDM

iTrader: (23)

So it went pretty well on Sunday. Each heat was able to get 5 runs in. I had enough time between runs to idle for a few mins with the hood open to keep oil moving, then shut down and spray down the IC. So another 10 mins or so shut down. Each time I started back up my water temp was fine, under 94C. IAT was slowly creeping up for each run, btw 52-59C for the first 4 runs. The last run I left the line at 64C.

I was put in ASP, and there was only one other car so it was hard to judge how I was driving and how the car was doing.

rookie117

iTrader: (1)

I ran my first autocrosses this fall and my temps were fine. Im running the stock FC oil cooler, greddy front mount IC, and a corksport radiator with a large lincoln elecric fan. Seemed like letting it idle with the fan running 5 minutes after each run was fine and my oil temps never went high. I am wondering how it will do in the texas heat this next summer though. Is the idea behind spraying it down with water that next time you get moving it will cool better? I feel like you would need alot of water to soak everything down between each run.

BLUE TII

iTrader: (9)

The idea of spraying hot parts down with water is to cool the parts you are spraying by the principle of evaporation (like how sweating cools people).

It takes energy to turn liquid water to gaseous water, this energy comes from the hot parts as heat energy.

I have tested this and it actually cools much faster to spray the parts with hot water so that it evaporates more quickly.

As a secondary effect, the water remaining on/in the parts will evaporate on your next run so it will take more energy to heat the parts up again.

There is a specific rule that you may not externally cool parts while on course with anything but the atmosphere. Components may be wet, but you may not wrap them in cloth to trap moisture before your run. You may not use solid water in contact with components while on course (only in pits).

Except for stock parts (like stock WRX intercooler sprayer).

Brilliant7-LFC

iTrader: (7)

BLUE TII

iTrader: (9)

Yup, you do get water spots.
You get scratches and dents and destroyed front lips from hitting dirty cones and you get rock chips all over your car (even on the roof) from tires throwing gravel.

Still better than actual tracking where the car in front is constantly hosing you with sand/grit and you risk big damage/total from other vehicles and your own mistakes.

You probably won't have too much of an issue with heat in auto-x and a big single
I really noticed a huge hike in heat loads when I went to a hyper responsive single because its always in boost/blowing hot air and making lots of power.

Brilliant7-LFC

iTrader: (7)

NJ-JDM

iTrader: (23)

NJ-JDM

iTrader: (23)