How hot is to hot?
Turbo Mini Forums

I'm taking the mini to Snetterton this weekend for a 20min taster session round the track. I am slightly concerned about engine temps.

Took it out for a blast yesterday which was a 30min journey but certainly not as continuously fast as I'll be going round the track, and I was touching on 100 degrees quite easily and it was taking some time to come back down, averaging around the 95 mark.

At the track I fully expect higher temps but at what point do I really need to think about slowing down/stopping?

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just to add i have a 74 degree undrilled stat

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I think that would depend on wether you are running NA or FI, I run the Race motors at 100 deg C and try to keep them on the good side of that, If the cars are doing a lot of following in an attempt to pass, they can run as high as 110 115, things will start to fail above that in my experience. are you running plain water or coolant if your only running water change it for coolant and that should get you into the 90's

I'm running halfords pre-mix coolant. but as it happens the car was running cooler than it was after i topped it up with some old coolant that was laying around as my fresh stuff was empty.

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what rad have you got on there ........standard ?

no, i've got this 2 core rad from minispeed

http://www.minispeed.co.uk/content/super-c...2-core-radiator

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if you are sure that you are ok in the coolling department....... the problem will lie in retarded timing around 10deg or so you need a good set up

i just cleaned out all the fins in my rad and re-positions the fan into the cowel better. and its gone down by about 8 degrees.

Yeah as above. Maybe change the fan for a 6 blade type??

i've got a plastic fan at the moment, are we saying the 6 blade is better?

and from all these suggestions im guessing you all think im ruuning to hot already.

But is Paul right that while on the track giving it a lot of beans I can feel safe as long as i'm sub 110-115 degrees?

Edited by Simon on 18th Jul, 2011.

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I've been using a Minispares 4 core on my racecar for several races. Never a problem with a mechanical fan.
If your thermostat is 74deg and you get 100 you've got a problem/challenge.

Another thought it's it's gone a little lean, as i notice when mines lean it gets hotter.

Best 1/4 mile 13.2 seconds @116 mph
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yes mat, too lean and ignition retarded to suite that engine, may be
compounding things

the car is fresh off the rolling road at T&M, the fueling is spot on. There is room for further timing advance, Ray said even another 5 degrees over the whole map, but suggested putting a few more miles on the engin (only 800 miles so far) before advancing any further.

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show us your map

If something is worth doing, it's worth doing half of.

Sorry if this is this doesnt come out right gents but i think simon is just wanting to no if he is ok at snet so long as his temps dont go above 110/115

Rather than get into , what fan to use etc and if the rad is up to the job, am sure good old ray has sorted the fueling and ign , maybe simon can look into that if the temps stay high.

rick

exactly, the track day is in 4 days, in that time i'm not going to be changing fans or radiators or my map or fueling as its only just been setup.

i'm sure everyones minis suffer with a bit of overheating, they do as standard! and especially if your driving hard for a solid 20 mins.

so what i want to know is, as the title says, how hot is to hot, at what point do i read the temp gauge and need to stop the car / come in off the track.

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Could just be the sender.

If you know the fueling is OK, then crack on. At the end of the day everything on a mini is cheap, so it's not world-ending if it breaks.

I'd do it without a worry, but keep an eye on it. You can always do a cool-down lap or two.

I would say firstly callibrate the gauge and sensor.

Take the sensor out and plop it in some boiling water and see what the the gauge reads. If you have a single wire sensor you need to run a wire from its body back to earth on the car. If it's two wire or capilary it's easier.

If this look right you might want to look at adding some "water wetter" I got some good results using this.

Years ago, we had a discussion about engine cooling. TD got a new block (everything else the same) and it just got hot, the old block was fine. I don't think it was ever resolved.

Fastest 998 mini in the world? 13.05 1/4 mile 106mph

I've had the stat out this morning and tested that and thats all working fine.

The temp sensor is spot on too, i'm actually using one of these rather than a standard mini one

I'm going to put a small 3mm hole in the stat just in case there is some air in there, I have a heater matrix with the valve always open so wont be drilling any more holes than that.

also going to do a full coolant swap and might try some water wetter too, thanks for that Wil.

Edited by Simon on 20th Jul, 2011.

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well they say actions speak louder than words.

road tested the Millers Extra Cool tonight, I actually made the mix up to 3% rather than 2% on the advice of the motorsport technical guy at Millers, he said it acts as a ludricant for the water pump as well so your better off putting in a little extra than needed.

110ml doesnt look like very much at all for a 3% mix but thats what it is for my 3.5litre system. Thats pure water and the Extra Cool, no coolant at all.

Idle test, idling for 20mins on a 75° thermostat the temprature didnt peak over 77° so I'm very happy, previously idle would have settled around the 82° mark.

Took it out for a good thrashing and predictably got stuck behind traffic, got up to 65mph but couldnt give it much boost, 10mins in and the temp hadnt risen above 88°.

Turned around and managed to give it some beans back. The highest I could get the temp was 90°, that was full boost up to 100mph down a nice little private road. I couldnt keep the boost on for to long as the road wasnt very long but I managed a few blasts the same and it still didnt creep over 90°. In comparisson to the time I made the video of my car prior to the coolant swap I was hitting 100°.

So in my book for roughly the same sort of driving i'm running 10° cooler, which is pretty damn good. The true test will be at Snetterton when I can keep the power on for longer but either way its going to be running cooler than it would have been with 50/50 water & coolant!

Edited by Simon on 21st Jul, 2011.

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