My ducted radiator setup - road racing

[skatershawn]

you didn't fab the duct for the race huh.. so no further info on how well it works?
Im sure it will work like a charm, but i was just hoping to see some true test result!
Keep up the good work, it looks awesome man!

GoodLuck!

 

[agarc023]

Please make some to sell for a little extra cash on the side!

He already thought about it but said that everybodies set up differs too much to make it work.

 

[Talipse96]

I have been thinking of doing duct work but only around the IC and the radiator. I don't know if there is enough room for aluminum around my setup so I was thinking actual duct tape. To seal off any openings there were between the two.

What are you planning on useing, just the weather stripping or the foam you mentioned?

 

[eclipsegsx1736]

you didn't fab the duct for the race huh.. so no further info on how well it works?
Im sure it will work like a charm, but i was just hoping to see some true test result!
Keep up the good work, it looks awesome man!

GoodLuck!

I did in fact finish the functional prototype duct for the track day day as stated in post #43. I'm currently rendering video from the day so when I'm done I'll post a full writeup in this thread!

Beau

 

[92awdgsx]

Thats pretty cool, nice!

 

[eclipsegsx1736]

Last weekend I raced the car at Streets of Willow Springs in Rosamond, CA and the car performed beautifully! I mounted the Toyo R888 race tires on and really got to push the car, it felt amazing. I'm really impressed with the power of the 30R on 91 octane at only 14-16 psi, more than enough for the road course. I usually run at 30 psi on E85 for fun, but this of course is ridiculous for track use.

I drove up with my friend who has a beautiful 2006 Z06 (in the pics below), it was his first track day and he was absolutely thrilled, and is definitely hooked. It's hard for someone to go back to drag racing after experiencing the thrill of driving on a road course.
I brought all kinds of spare parts, tools, fluids etc, and I'm lucky I did. I had a few issues but none related to the radiator ducting, so I was really happy with that. I quickly realised that these brake pads were not up to the task of the power this setup makes. I'll be going with Carbotech pads for the next event, most likely the XP-12 compound, which is a road race/endurance compound NOT for use on the street, but the car rarely sees street duty anymore anyway.

The other issue that popped up was the shifter pivot pin. For some reason I've broke the factory weld a few times, and it happened again at the track. I'm not really sure why, I'm not shifting very aggressively. It's a pretty poor design. Amazingly though, we did a "track fix" and it ended up being even stronger than before.

Prototype test results:

As far as the radiator ducting, it really seemed to do the job! I never saw over 193F coolant temps the whole day except once when it hit 196F while behind another car. For road racing, especially with the ~400bhp the car makes at this boost level, this is incredibly low. Ambient temps were average 50F or so, but I have so much wiggle room on coolant temps that the car will still run plenty cool when racing in the summer.

The track day came up on me really quickly and I really had to rush the ducting project, but I really just wanted to put something together to test the concept. I'm really starting to lean toward doing a fiberglass duct using a high-temp resin.

I changed up the ducting a little bit as you'll notice in the pics. First, I sealed the FMIC to the radiator. All air flowing through the FMIC will flow up and through the radiator. I used aluminum ducting panels and weatherstripping all around to keep it air-tight. Next, I sealed the nose to the FMIC. All air entering the main inlet on the nose will enter the FMIC. I then cut an additional ~2” out of the top of the nose inlet. This area is above the FMIC, and I dedicated it to radiator inlet airflow. I basically created a boxed duct that takes the air entering this area and ducts it directly up to the top half of the radiator (the bottom half is sealed to the FMIC). Finally, I built the radiator exit duct out of sheet steel for rigidity and ducted this out through the hood. Quite honestly, I did a pretty poor job on the radiator exit duct since I only had limited tools at home and ended up having to cut the sheet steel with tin snips.. not fun. Once again though, I just wanted to prove the concept works. I then sealed this duct against the hood and added a small gurney to the front of the exit duct to help pull air out of the duct.

In the video below, I put together some clips from the day with my friend's GoPro HD mounted on the hood of my car. I overlayed data from ECMLink V3 onto the video. For this session, you were only allowed to pass on the front and back straightaways, and only when pointed-by (and of course, only under green, but the guy in the silver Evo must have missed that memo
)

YouTube - Eclipse GSX - Streets of Willow Springs - 1/9/11 GoPro HD

You must be logged in to view this image or video.

You must be logged in to view this image or video.

You must be logged in to view this image or video.

You must be logged in to view this image or video.

You must be logged in to view this image or video.

You must be logged in to view this image or video.

You must be logged in to view this image or video.

You must be logged in to view this image or video.

 

[nek]

Very awesome, Ive thought about ducting air straight from rad to vent a few times, Im not ready for it yet.

First, I sealed the FMIC to the radiator. All air flowing through the FMIC will flow up and through the radiator. [/img]

As for this, I wouldnt recommend that to anyone as a DD.
Very good for racing, not so good for traffic. I tried it

 

[eclipsegsx1736]

Very awesome, Ive thought about ducting air straight from rad to vent a few times, Im not ready for it yet.


As for this, I wouldnt recommend that to anyone as a DD.
Very good for racing, not so good for traffic. I tried it

Thanks! What didn't work about it? In theory, it should improve airflow in every circumstance. I drove the car a few times on the street and in some traffic with this complete ducting setup and it ran very cool.

 

[Ludachris]

Very awesome, Ive thought about ducting air straight from rad to vent a few times, Im not ready for it yet.


As for this, I wouldnt recommend that to anyone as a DD.
Very good for racing, not so good for traffic. I tried it

Why wouldn't it work for a daily driver, even in theory? If you make the cooling system more efficient it should work better in any situation.

 

[Ludachris]

Beau, what did you use for attachment points for the underhood ducting? Seems like there would be some strong force trying to move that piece around, which has made me unsure of how to mount it.

 

[skatershawn]

looks sick..!

glad to see it works! can you make me one.. haha driving in the summer of texas isn't easy on my engine!

 

[eclipsegsx1736]

Beau, what did you use for attachment points for the underhood ducting? Seems like there would be some strong force trying to move that piece around, which has made me unsure of how to mount it.

Since I was running out of time to get everything done for this track day, I ended up throwing on 4 brackets for the duct, 2 that attach to the factory upper radiator bracket mounts, and the other 2 attach to lower spots on the radiator support. I'll try to get a better picture of it. I am most likely going to get this duct made in fiberglass once I get the fitment where I want it. With these 4 brackets though, it's very strong. I can compress the front suspension when I push down on the top of the duct (not much of course, with 800# springs in the front ).

Beau

 

[nek]

When I ducted full fmic to radiator my temps shot up like crazy. Both fans on via dsm link. My theory is that my 3.5 inch core was to big for my fans to pull enough cold air in. That plus my oil cooler and ac(even though it was off) created a system that heated faster then it cooled so temps just continued to increase.
I cant remember who gave me the idea but what I did was instead of ducting full fmic to rad, I only ducted the sides, left the top open (bumper closes the system but more radiator can be utilized this way) and made a scope that pulled air up from under the car.
This is great because at speeds, your pulling cold air in, and when your stopped in traffic, your fans dont need to pull air through your fmic core.


Edit: on a side note, the previous idea where you install rear facing vents (louvers) ontop of your exhaust mani seems like a really good idea for a car that doesnt see rain very often (or if you just dont mind your engine getting dirty). I think those would really help lower your temps even more.

 

[enos1010321]

Last weekend I raced the car at Streets of Willow Springs in Rosamond, CA and the car performed beautifully! I mounted the Toyo R888 race tires on and really got to push the ca

I have been on that course before with a buddy of mine, that track is beautiful! I never did very good, but it is a very fun course!

I love that data feed on the video! That makes the video exciting! I have done some stuff with a go pro before and even tho I was driving the video was very boring, not like the real thing. What post production video editing software did you use to super impose the ECMLink data?

 

[eclipsegsx1736]

I have been on that course before with a buddy of mine, that track is beautiful! I never did very good, but it is a very fun course!

I love that data feed on the video! That makes the video exciting! I have done some stuff with a go pro before and even tho I was driving the video was very boring, not like the real thing. What post production video editing software did you use to super impose the ECMLink data?

For the data overlay, I used a cool little program called FastStone Capture. It allows you to record your entire screen or just a portion of it with a hotkey to start/stop recording, and saves it to a little WMV video file. Unfortunately I accidentally had it only on 10fps capture, but it worked well enough! In the future I'd love to combine this with a Traqmate or something of the sort for lat/long acceleration data.

 

[enos1010321]

Sweet! Thanks! Ill get that software before I do another video.

 

[9!'clipseDOHC]

Awesome project!!

 

[flyineagletsi]

1:32 on your hot lap. Looks like you chased down quite a few cars and could have even lapped a few too. Good job man. Keep it up.

 

[ez@2gnt]

If your Tmax=196 degrees F after this setup, what was your Tmax before the setup?

 

[eclipsegsx1736]

If your Tmax=196 degrees F after this setup, what was your Tmax before the setup?

Like I mentioned, I wasn't able to do testing immediately before this modification. I'd say 100 things that may affect coolant temps have changed on the car since the last track day, not to mention variables in things like ambient temps.

One thing is for sure: this mod can't hurt cooling. The fact that the car was making ~400bhp and coolant temps were in this range is enough evidence for me. I've seen a handful of accounts of 2g's with less power running MUCH hotter even with proper ducting (to a factory location radiator).

The real test will be Buttonwillow and Willow Springs (big track) along with an increase in boost.

 

[RipperXX]

Do post updates when you have them please. My car likes to get real warm in low speed situations, like driving in town etc. or going up a steep winding mountain. I have been thinking i'll do some sort of ducting for a long time now. So i'm interested in your results and execution.

Although I just got a OEM style CF hood, don't really want to cut into that...

 

[Erron S]

Fantastic thread. Very well executed Beau! Looks like you have a winner there, I'm sure it makes a HUGE difference.

 

[Kyle d32a]

This is a great idea man. You did an awesome job and seems like you got some good results. I'm trying to work on some ducting for my car as well to get some more air flow.

 

[turbodsm007]

+1 great job Beau, also being completely honest I really feel by reading over this thread I got smarter. haha...oh Im the guy who put that beautiful motor in beau's car...

 

[ed1380]

subbed. wanting to learn more about this and see any future updates