Low dollar solutions for limp mode.

I figure it won't be very long before my car is sold....perhaps next season.. So...I'm not buying radiators, high cap water pumps etc. I'm looking at low dollar solutions to the limp problem now. I feel the reality is that I can't really stop limp mode from happening, but instead need a 7 minute stop gap measure to delay limp mode so that 35 minute sessions can be completed without incident.

A buddy and I were talking about how the WRX comes stock with a water res and sprayer for the IC. I was wondering what you folks thought about going all water in the washer res, and re-routing the tubing to mist nozzles at the rad and blower heat exchanger. I could pop the wipers off and just use the res button..

My buddy had done this with a fish tank air diverter and some cheapo spray nozzles on his car with an aftermarket turbo and IC.

The more important question is if the evap of the water at the rad and HE will really help to stave off the limp or not.

Because of the mass involved with an air to coolant heat exchanger(both rad and H/E) I don't think spraying is going to work.

The cheapest way that I can think of that will also work would be:

1. Completely box in the rad so any and all air entering HAS TO PASS THOUGH THE RAD, and not bypass/leak around it. This can be done very cheaply.

2. Put a 97/98 Lincoln Mark 8 cooling fan assembly on. Cutting is required but it can be made to work and it flows more CFM than anything out there I know of.

3. Drill 4 3/16" holes in the OE T-stat. (or, not recommended for street use, remove main diaphragm, retaining only the bypass block off)

4. Fill the engine cooling system with Evans NPG+ or NPG-R waterless coolant. (boiling point of 369*F)

5. Move limp mode to a higher temperature in the tune. (I'm not 100% sure this can be done yet but I believe it can) WARNING: DO NOT DO THIS WITHOUT THE EVANS COOLANT!!! NORMAL WATER MIX COOLANT WILL BOIL AND ALLOW LOCALIZED HOT SPOTS, WHICH WILL RESULT IN DETONATION RELATED ENGINE DAMAGE!

Jimmysidecarr said:

Because of the mass involved with an air to coolant heat exchanger(both rad and H/E) I don't think spraying is going to work.

The cheapest way that I can think of that will also work would be:

1. Completely box in the rad so any and all air entering HAS TO PASS THOUGH THE RAD, and not bypass/leak around it. This can be done very cheaply.

2. Put a 97/98 Lincoln Mark 8 cooling fan assembly on. Cutting is required but it can be made to work and it flows more CFM than anything out there I know of.

3. Drill 4 3/16" holes in the OE T-stat. (or, not recommended for street use, remove main diaphragm, retaining only the bypass block off)

4. Fill the engine cooling system with Evans NPG+ or NPG-R waterless coolant. (boiling point of 369*F)

5. Move limp mode to a higher temperature in the tune. (I'm not 100% sure this can be done yet but I believe it can) WARNING: DO NOT DO THIS WITHOUT THE EVANS COOLANT!!! NORMAL WATER MIX COOLANT WILL BOIL AND ALLOW LOCALIZED HOT SPOTS, WHICH WILL RESULT IN DETONATION RELATED ENGINE DAMAGE!

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1. The next problem is getting the enough air out. I would add extend the plastic piece that is below the radiator support, this creates a low pressure behind the plastic piece which helps to raw air from the radiator.

2. The bigger fan will not help your car to run cooler on the track. I have one and it really help to keep car running cool in the pits or in the city.

3.Evens even sats to remove the thermostat when open tracking the car at sustained high rpms.

I spoke w/ a fellow terminator owner who had been having chronic overheating issues at the track. He said the best thing he had done was to change the pulley size on the water pump to slow it down. This way the water goes through the radiator slower and has more time to cool.

The EVEN's literature does have a chart which shows that at the higher rpms the water pump is spinning past it's effective rpms and that a pulley needs to be installed to slow down the water pump. Most of us still have ac and drive our cars on the street so i don't know how this would effect low speed cooling.

racebronco2 said:

1. The next problem is getting the enough air out. I would add extend the plastic piece that is below the radiator support, this creates a low pressure behind the plastic piece which helps to raw air from the radiator.

2. The bigger fan will not help your car to run cooler on the track. I have one and it really help to keep car running cool in the pits or in the city.

3.Evens even sats to remove the thermostat when open tracking the car at sustained high rpms.

Click to expand...

I have done number 1 above and it is a very cheap and effective way to maximize the pressure differential before and after the rad, IE: lower under hood air pressure.

I am running the Evans relocated(hot side) stat, but I'm still running the factory oil cooler which, of course is restrictive to coolant flow, AND loads oil heat into the in coming coolant.
I have not changed out yet to an air to oil cooler due to the expense.

I can run full out, hard charging for about 5 laps at TWS 2.9 mile course, which is about 14.5 miles, before I have to start giving up some straight away speed by shifting early and not accelerating hard, and basically using the straight as a cooling zone.

I always run my heater on full, with the center dash vents aimed out the passenger window.(except the driver side one which I close)

I think a thirty five minute session would use me right up. I am usually quite ready to come in, after a 20 minute session.

It sure would be nice to be able to go all out, hard after it, for a full 20 minutes though.

Someday I'll get it all together, hopefully without spending a ridiculous sum of money. For now I'm pretty happy with the car, it's moderately fast, and it is just CRAZY FUN TO DRIVE HARD!

Jimmysidecarr said:

Because of the mass involved with an air to coolant heat exchanger(both rad and H/E) I don't think spraying is going to work.

The cheapest way that I can think of that will also work would be:

1. Completely box in the rad so any and all air entering HAS TO PASS THOUGH THE RAD, and not bypass/leak around it. This can be done very cheaply.

2. Put a 97/98 Lincoln Mark 8 cooling fan assembly on. Cutting is required but it can be made to work and it flows more CFM than anything out there I know of.

3. Drill 4 3/16" holes in the OE T-stat. (or, not recommended for street use, remove main diaphragm, retaining only the bypass block off)

4. Fill the engine cooling system with Evans NPG+ or NPG-R waterless coolant. (boiling point of 369*F)

5. Move limp mode to a higher temperature in the tune. (I'm not 100% sure this can be done yet but I believe it can) WARNING: DO NOT DO THIS WITHOUT THE EVANS COOLANT!!! NORMAL WATER MIX COOLANT WILL BOIL AND ALLOW LOCALIZED HOT SPOTS, WHICH WILL RESULT IN DETONATION RELATED ENGINE DAMAGE!

Click to expand...

Jimmy's back!!!!:beer::beer::beer:

Troy, I don't have the same issues as you boosted guys, but I just run a couple cool laps in between 10 or 15 hot laps.
Wouldn't work for racing of course, but fine for OT.
And real cheap.

Right now I have to do 3 to 4 laps hot for 1 cool lap. I'd love to be able to dig in for 10 laps at a time..

Get that extra 35 pounds off the top of your motor. That'll do it. oke:

The car isn't the best DE machine, true. BUT It is a great time trial machine.. only four laps to do for comp times..

TroyV said:

The car isn't the best DE machine, true. BUT It is a great time trial machine.. only four laps to do for comp times..

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WOW! I would love that! 4 laps would not be a problem at all!

After I get healed up and Dr. approved I am going to look into doing some NASA time trials in my area.

It has been working reasonably well for me this year. I run the crap rubber (Hankook Z211 C50's) for the first day, and then shoe the newer V710's for the two sessions, and TT of the second day. If the TT ends early, there is usually an open session until the track closes for the day. Usually, if I'm up to it, I put the crap rubber back on and get my money's worth.

Wow, and I think I'm working too hard when I just change my wheels twice a weekend!

Wow, the termi's have some severe overheating issues.

Does upgraded radiator do anything for you guys?. I would think a larger/upgraded heat exchanger would do wonders for the S/C.

I do not like the idea of having to do a cooling lap. The subies I have run have had no issues with this.

Again, noob here, just shooting off ideas.

Go~RillaSRT said:

Wow, the termi's have some severe overheating issues.

Does upgraded radiator do anything for you guys?. I would think a larger/upgraded heat exchanger would do wonders for the S/C.

I do not like the idea of having to do a cooling lap. The subies I have run have had no issues with this.

Again, noob here, just shooting off ideas.

Click to expand...

The larger rads by themselves do very little. The main reason for this is that they are thicker and therefore more restrictive to air flow.

Now a larger rad with increased air flow, that's a different story. Still not the ultimate end of heating issues but a good step in the process.

Without increased air flow though almost no difference, they are actually reducing cooling air flow to the rad.

That's why all the road racers you see have fully ducted and contained rad inlets and massive negative pressure inducing hood vents.

All the air gets used for cooling(no leak around) and the volume is enhanced with the negative pressure induced by the hood and fender vents and wider and deeper rad air dams.

Jimmy said it much better then i wouldv'e so i would guess to say he is back to normal?

Interesting. So if you do some hood modification to the termi's already louvered hood to increase this negative pressure, it would help.

I would think tunnelling the rad would not be too bad in these cars.

As a subaru guy, I would think the waterspray idea would work. The way they work on Top mount intercoolers and FMIC is not to spray cold water, but when the water comes in contact w/ the fins, the evaporation pulls heat, therefore cooling the fins. I dont see why this wouldnt be productive on a rad.

What alot of suby guys do is run meth/alcohol/water injection. (i know alot of termi guys use it as well), but in conjuction w/ injecting into the intake path, they will use the same mix sprayed onto the intercooler. Alcohol has a lower evaporation point, so in theory, it will pull heat away from the cooler/rad faster.

Go~RillaSRT said:

Interesting. So if you do some hood modification to the termi's already louvered hood to increase this negative pressure, it would help.

I would think tunnelling the rad would not be too bad in these cars.

As a subaru guy, I would think the waterspray idea would work. The way they work on Top mount intercoolers and FMIC is not to spray cold water, but when the water comes in contact w/ the fins, the evaporation pulls heat, therefore cooling the fins. I dont see why this wouldnt be productive on a rad.

What alot of suby guys do is run meth/alcohol/water injection. (i know alot of termi guys use it as well), but in conjuction w/ injecting into the intake path, they will use the same mix sprayed onto the intercooler. Alcohol has a lower evaporation point, so in theory, it will pull heat away from the cooler/rad faster.

Click to expand...

It's most effective on intercoolers that are air to air due to the low mass of air being easily influenced by the evaporative cooling.

It potentially could help slightly with a water filled H/E or rad but due to the mass of the water, and it's slowness to release it's heat load, I suspect it would take a lot of evaporating water to influence it very much.
At which point it would also pose a visibility and traction issue at large volume releases, which, to me, seems like a potential black flag from the corner workers, who would likely be thinking massive slippery coolant leak.

The whole rub is it not being air to air, and, of course, safety.

I'm still waiting for Carlos to build me a hood. I'm more of a buyer these days.....and less of a fabricator.