Water Temp?

[Chris Bova]

What does your coolant run at? We are running a 2001 R6 with a rear mounted aluminum radiator and a pusher fan (blowing out) from AutoZone. With it idling we seemed to stabilize at about 220F. Seems a bit high to me, with it rear mounted I worry its only gonna get worse when we start driving it. Do any of you need to run an auxilary water pump to get enough flow through the radiator. Does everyone run an OEM thermostat?

Thanks
Chris

[Chris Bova]

What does your coolant run at? We are running a 2001 R6 with a rear mounted aluminum radiator and a pusher fan (blowing out) from AutoZone. With it idling we seemed to stabilize at about 220F. Seems a bit high to me, with it rear mounted I worry its only gonna get worse when we start driving it. Do any of you need to run an auxilary water pump to get enough flow through the radiator. Does everyone run an OEM thermostat?

Thanks
Chris

[BeaverGuy]

I couple weeks ago we ran the car and it got up to 230-250F. Yeah, that was a problem. We are currently trying to remedy that.

I don't know that an auxilary water pump would help much as it is likely the air flow that is the problem. You are running the fan as a pusher, is it feasible to run it as a puller? Also, are you running any kind of fan shroud or is the fan mounted directly to the radiator?
A puller set-up ussually produces more airflow. And if you aren't running a shroud you aren't using the whole radiator.

[DY]

Weird thing: I thought I read in Wollongong's newsletter that they had overheating problems *caused by* their fan shroud. They found that when they removed their shroud, cooling improved. Of course there are other factors, but it was curious reading.

[Eddie Martin]

We have had our cars get to 150C a couple of times for various reasons, not good.

We did take a shroud off and replace it with another shroud to get better cooling. Bad shroud design. But the moral of that story like most things in sae is test, test, test and then test some more.

We normally run at about a max. of 85C - 90C.

Eddie Martin
UOW Racing

[Handles]

as eddie said, however i wouldnt say it was necessarily a bad shorud design, more that it was a bad fan/shroud combination that should have been tested a lot more

i wouldnt say you absolutely need the shroud to stay at a reasonable temperature, but yeah you are missing out on bits of the radiator that could be utilised with a good fan and shroud

are you running a thermostat? what size radiator and fan are you running?? how are you controlling your fan? when that that turn on, or is it always on?

[Frank]

you should stabalize around 180F with an OEM thermostat.. if it wont.. you dont have enough cooling

running a poorly designed shroud (or none) is about the worst thing you can do

[Chris Bova]

We still have the OEM t-stat in there, its 70C if i recall... and we have no shroud on our fan. The system was overlooked and consequently under-designed. I'm not sure of the flow rate of the fan. Right now it comes on at 50 to try and get a jump on it before it gets too hot.

Chris

[Charlie]

I would disagree that if you don't stabilize at thermostatic you are under-cooled. A car that stabilizes at 210 is just fine. But that should be under extreme conditions.

In the FSAE-A endurance we hit 201 peak, stayed around 195 the whole time. As temps go up your cooling system gets more efficient due to temperature delta so its fine to see peaks above thermostatic (but probably not in Detroit!)