61 replies to this topic

[SukiDawg]

Sounds like you have some experience with this kind of thing then! Anyone who cites thermodynamic theory with confidence very well should! I'd be really interested in hearing about your studies of localized nucleate boiling - so I'm assuming you have done direct measurement of cylinder head / exhaust bridge temperature or perhaps delta BHP @ temperature to come to the conclusion that the effect is negligible? For my money, I'll try the Evans NGP-R - avoiding local boiling and being able to run with effectively a 0 pressure system can't be a BAD thing....

That said, I woudln't mind if I could lower the water temp a bit, so any work you guys do on an air / oil system will be watched with great interest I'm sure!

Cheers,

Aric

The work we did was really related to reducing the temperature on the exhaust bridge to control knock (pre-ignition you might call it). With running boosted through a 34mm restrictor, any slight increase in engine combustion efficicieny is really significant to the overall engine performance (as you have a fixed massflow of air to burn - if you can burn it a bit more efficiently its all good). For this reason, you want to run with as close to MBT timing (best igntion advance setting) as you can, and ordinarily on an engine like that it would start to knock before you had reached the best ignition advance. Improvements to the cooling around the combustion chamber (getting rid of hotspots) might enable you to run a little bit more advance before knock occurs, so we did LOADS of work on cooling to see if we could make it any better.

The work on alternative coolants was part of this, and as much about finding if we had a problem as anything. All I can say is that there was little or no difference in the temp of the exhaust bridge across a power test regardless of the coolant used really. We measured the bridge temp by drilling a very small hole into the metal in that area from the outside of the head, and then fitting a small thermocouple down the hole, glued in place with special conductive epoxy stuff. Then ran off full speed sweep W.O.T. power tests with a variety of coolants to see if there was any effect... Engine output stayed consistent as did the metal temp. We also ran with varying coolant jacket pressures as part of the same work (as this would effect boiling point), and even at 4Bar there was not much effect so the conclusion was that we didn't have nucliate bioling in the first place.


Of course not all engines are the same, and whats true for one may not be true for the other, and I can't argue with the fact that it would be nice to have decent cooling with no pressure in the system! Nice failsafe if your cap gets lost or something. There is certainly no harm to be had in using something other than water / ethylene glycol mixture.


Good discussion though...

David

[Monte Busa]

Hi David,

Yes, very good discussion - thank you for the insight into your testing...I always like to lean on people's practical experiences - especially when they are gotten in a scientific manner!

Cheers,

Aric

Good discussion though...

David

[alexcrosse]

Sounds like Prodrive or ricardo work?...

[YIANO]

ill chuck my 2 pence worth in aswell.
having spoken to friends who race bikes, ive been informed that bike engines do indeed run hot compared to car engines.
typical temps of 100 -115 are not uncommon .
ultimately as yamaha triggers the cooling fan via the ecu at about 103 degrees or so if it truly were benificial to run lower temps then yamaha would have designed the system to trigger the fan before it does.
As bike engines obviously run at higher revs then so must they produce more heat,and dont forget its only when they are hot will they rev out !
so id say dont worry about seemingly high temps and try to remember it isnt a car engine ,its a highly stressed unit designed to rev
it has to warm up first ,indeed the speedo wont register any temp until about 45 degrees which is why the engine will die if you give it some throttle before this point.
in any case if you really want to see car like temps from your cooling system ,you should change your rad. radtec will make you one if you send them your rad it will be a motorsport miglia spec and drop your temps by about 15 degrees or so and cost a shade under 300

[1stpromotive1275gt]

ill chuck my 2 pence worth in aswell.
having spoken to friends who race bikes, ive been informed that bike engines do indeed run hot compared to car engines.
typical temps of 100 -115 are not uncommon .
ultimately as yamaha triggers the cooling fan via the ecu at about 103 degrees or so if it truly were benificial to run lower temps then yamaha would have designed the system to trigger the fan before it does.
As bike engines obviously run at higher revs then so must they produce more heat,and dont forget its only when they are hot will they rev out !
so id say dont worry about seemingly high temps and try to remember it isnt a car engine ,its a highly stressed unit designed to rev
it has to warm up first ,indeed the speedo wont register any temp until about 45 degrees which is why the engine will die if you give it some throttle before this point.
in any case if you really want to see car like temps from your cooling system ,you should change your rad. radtec will make you one if you send them your rad it will be a motorsport miglia spec and drop your temps by about 15 degrees or so and cost a shade under 300

Take your point and its welcome, but the car now runs a lot better now ive put this extra rad in and sits around the 80-90 mark on the motorway. this has cost me nothing apart from the cost of the extra silicone hose as I already had the front mounted rad in the garage from when it was running an a serise mpi set up. when you give it some beans yes the temp does go up but before it was consistantly above 100 even when driving carefully and it just got hotter and hotter the more you drove it.
So I dont think im over cooling it and all the bike people ive spoken to have said that the bike engine should run around the 90 degree mark. But everyone you talk too says something differant. The person who builds the other r1 front engine car told me that mine was running a lot hotter than his car aswell when i spoke to him at castle combe last year. So im just going by what ive heard.
Does anyone have an r1 owners manual or haynes manual and if so does it say what the normal running temp is?
Its only by discussing these things that we can all learn ( well I can anyway ) about how these bike engine cars work and are to live with.

[Monte Busa]

All good pts, and I tend to agree with most except that higher reving engines HAVE to run hot. 103C thermal fan switch kick in is a lot different than a temp of (I just looked at my data logging from the track day) of 123C - and this was coming in early in my last session by two laps - this was with a 23C ambient temperature .

The track day in July will likely be 32C, so all things equal I'd be looking at 132C engine temps with 2 laps short of a 20 minute session....there is a limit to how hot these things should be allowed to go - I hope I can figure out something before now and then for a bit of piece of mind...

ill chuck my 2 pence worth in aswell.
having spoken to friends who race bikes, ive been informed that bike engines do indeed run hot compared to car engines.
typical temps of 100 -115 are not uncommon .
ultimately as yamaha triggers the cooling fan via the ecu at about 103 degrees or so if it truly were benificial to run lower temps then yamaha would have designed the system to trigger the fan before it does.
As bike engines obviously run at higher revs then so must they produce more heat,and dont forget its only when they are hot will they rev out !
so id say dont worry about seemingly high temps and try to remember it isnt a car engine ,its a highly stressed unit designed to rev
it has to warm up first ,indeed the speedo wont register any temp until about 45 degrees which is why the engine will die if you give it some throttle before this point.
in any case if you really want to see car like temps from your cooling system ,you should change your rad. radtec will make you one if you send them your rad it will be a motorsport miglia spec and drop your temps by about 15 degrees or so and cost a shade under 300

Take your point and its welcome, but the car now runs a lot better now ive put this extra rad in and sits around the 80-90 mark on the motorway. this has cost me nothing apart from the cost of the extra silicone hose as I already had the front mounted rad in the garage from when it was running an a serise mpi set up. when you give it some beans yes the temp does go up but before it was consistantly above 100 even when driving carefully and it just got hotter and hotter the more you drove it.
So I dont think im over cooling it and all the bike people ive spoken to have said that the bike engine should run around the 90 degree mark. But everyone you talk too says something differant. The person who builds the other r1 front engine car told me that mine was running a lot hotter than his car aswell when i spoke to him at castle combe last year. So im just going by what ive heard.
Does anyone have an r1 owners manual or haynes manual and if so does it say what the normal running temp is?
Its only by discussing these things that we can all learn ( well I can anyway ) about how these bike engine cars work and are to live with.

[1stpromotive1275gt]

[quote name='Monte Busa' date='Jun 22 2009, 10:51 PM' post='1497994']
All good pts, and I tend to agree with most except that higher reving engines HAVE to run hot. 103C thermal fan switch kick in is a lot different than a temp of (I just looked at my data logging from the track day) of 123C - and this was coming in early in my last session by two laps - this was with a 23C ambient temperature .

The track day in July will likely be 32C, so all things equal I'd be looking at 132C engine temps with 2 laps short of a 20 minute session....there is a limit to how hot these things should be allowed to go - I hope I can figure out something before now and then for a bit of piece of mind...


Ill go along with that. peace of mind is what I was aiming for. I personally feel that the fan should be there for times when your sitting in traffic as a last resort to cooling and not always on every 2 mins because the things getting hot. But as ive said before im not familiar with bike engines. Just minis so its all new to me.
As I also do track days in mine, and it seems that when you give them some stick the temp rises the last thing I want to do is worry about the temp going sky high and blowing water out of the overflow onto the track. So thats why I fitted this extra rad. I dont seem to have a problem with it reving when its running at 80 degrees. So would second the opinion that high revving engines dont have to run hot.
Its definatley opened up a bit of a debate hasnt it.
Im glad I dont live over there with you otherwise I would definatley be getting worried with those temps!

[Monte Busa]

So I was browsing some of the Stateside forums I frequent for SCCA Sports Racers, and did a search on water and oil temperatures typical of what the guys who run R1 engines and 1Liter GSXR powerplants accept as normal. Consensus seems to be water temps anywhere between 180 and 220F for water, and 220 to 260 for oil are typical targets. In most of these cars, temps like this can be achieved with ambient temps up to 100F or more. Mind you, these cars usually have much bigger radiators than are in the Pro-mo kit and they always run a separate oil cooler - but watching these things buzz around my local track, they are almost always at full throttle at between 8 and 10K RPM.

I was doing a bit more thinking and am stuck on other than a complete redesign of my cooling system or some fancy ductwork, I may try a water / methanol spray system running off my screen washer jet pump - they sell low pressure mister nozels for planter boxes or similar at the local home improvement store - may be worth a shot, as the system would be essentially free other than some cheap nozzles and spare washer tubing I have in the garage. I'm thinking I'll test it out by lettering the temp of the car get up to 115C or so, then spritz it through the turning fan (I have mine wired on a bypass switch) for a few seconds while driving at a steady state (highway) speed...should show really quickly whether or not it will work.

Cheers,

Aric

[lotusv6seven]

So I was browsing some of the Stateside forums I frequent for SCCA Sports Racers, and did a search on water and oil temperatures typical of what the guys who run R1 engines and 1Liter GSXR powerplants accept as normal. Consensus seems to be water temps anywhere between 180 and 220F for water, and 220 to 260 for oil are typical targets. In most of these cars, temps like this can be achieved with ambient temps up to 100F or more. Mind you, these cars usually have much bigger radiators than are in the Pro-mo kit and they always run a separate oil cooler - but watching these things buzz around my local track, they are almost always at full throttle at between 8 and 10K RPM.

I was doing a bit more thinking and am stuck on other than a complete redesign of my cooling system or some fancy ductwork, I may try a water / methanol spray system running off my screen washer jet pump - they sell low pressure mister nozels for planter boxes or similar at the local home improvement store - may be worth a shot, as the system would be essentially free other than some cheap nozzles and spare washer tubing I have in the garage. I'm thinking I'll test it out by lettering the temp of the car get up to 115C or so, then spritz it through the turning fan (I have mine wired on a bypass switch) for a few seconds while driving at a steady state (highway) speed...should show really quickly whether or not it will work.

Cheers,

Aric

http://img507.images...dandoilrad.jpg/



Here is my air box and oil rad. Temp keeps close to 100ºC on the track. As you can see, fan is located on the other side, sucking out instead of forcing to.
Next trackday on 4th july, 40ºC, will say if system works fine or not.

Edited by lotusv6seven, 23 June 2009 - 07:29 AM.

[Monte Busa]

Where are you pulling the oil feed from the oil rad from?

I agree that a puller fan is best, I coudn't fit one though due to the front subframe support bars being too close to teh back side of the rad.

Here is my air box and oil rad. Temp keeps close to 100ºC on the track. As you can see, fan is located on the other side, sucking out instead of forcing to.
Next trackday on 4th july, 40ºC, will say if system works fine or not.

[Kam]

Does anyone have an r1 owners manual or haynes manual and if so does it say what the normal running temp is?

It doesn't say in the haynes what normal running temp should be as this is dependant on different climates etc. It does say fan cut in is between 102 to 108C, and cut out is 98C.

On my Cbr600 its cut in is 98 to 102C, and cut out is 93 to 97C.

Normal running in traffic this time of year on my 600 its around 95 to 98C, open roads around 86C, motorway goes down to high 70's, but rockets straight upto 108C if sitting in traffic after a blast, highest I've seen mine is 108C and thats in london traffic! My fan kicks in at 102, never kicked in below that.

Yours seems fine but its healthy to worry

[Monte Busa]

So I did some experimentation with the radiator misting and a prototype shroud this week. I'll show some pictures tomorrow or so, but what I found was interesting.

The water mister (fed off my screen washer water pump) lowered the max temps about 3 to 5C or so - and you could totally see the temps falling after you "spritzed" for about 5 seconds, about 30 seconds to a minute later. The downside to this method is that it's a bit messy, and the water bottle runs dry after about 5 to 6 shots...

The cardboard-and-tape protype shroud worked much better than the water mister - and the faster I drove the better it worked! Even though I couldn't get it to contain the entire fan, and my fan is a pusher so it was probably getting choked by at the higher speeds (I tested up to 80MPH), I couldn't get the max temps above 105C no matter how hard I pushed the car - a big improvement from the 120C I saw at the last track day, expecially considering the ambient temps today were 15C hotter than they were on that day. I'm happy with that result so far!

I'm fabricating a sheet metal version tomorrow - will upload piccies as soon as it's done.

Cheers,

Aric

[cosi]

I have been riding bikes and have done many track days for many years and would agree with Kam that the bike shouldn't really go over about 105C on hot day in traffic and as for track days probably about the same to be honest. My opinion is that airflow makes a massive difference and the fact that there is a lot more load on the engine to push around the car might be why you guys are seeing temps above 120C.

Here is a great website
http://www.coolingmist.com

Here is a PDF of some systems available.
http://www.paschalpe...oost_Cooler.pdf

Here is a pic of a mist system. Don't know who makes it though.


This is a link to the aqua mist systems as well
http://www.aquamist.co.uk/cp/cp.html

A product by RHD Japan


More from RHD Japan
http://www.rhdjapan....ozzle-Kit-30523


Here is an article on water spray for intercoolers, it might have some benefit.
http://autospeed.com...27/article.html

Crazy Japs and their water spray.
Jap water spray

Edited by cosi, 28 June 2009 - 10:21 PM.

[Monte Busa]

Nice links - thanks for spending the time to find them! The autospeed articje was the one that got me thinking about water spray...

I'm going to keep my system plumbed in case I need to augment the shroud.

Cheers,

Aric

I have been riding bikes and have done many track days for many years and would agree with Kam that the bike shouldn't really go over about 105C on hot day in traffic and as for track days probably about the same to be honest. My opinion is that airflow makes a massive difference and the fact that there is a lot more load on the engine to push around the car might be why you guys are seeing temps above 120C.

Here is a great website
http://www.coolingmist.com

Here is a PDF of some systems available.
http://www.paschalpe...oost_Cooler.pdf

Here is a pic of a mist system. Don't know who makes it though.


This is a link to the aqua mist systems as well
http://www.aquamist.co.uk/cp/cp.html

A product by RHD Japan


More from RHD Japan
http://www.rhdjapan....ozzle-Kit-30523


Here is an article on water spray for intercoolers, it might have some benefit.
http://autospeed.com...27/article.html

Crazy Japs and their water spray.
Jap water spray

[Monte Busa]

...just realized my wife took all three of the digital camera to Greece with her - doh! No piccies of the shroud until mid-August, damn.