Quote:
Originally Posted by UNREAL
hi guys
what is the average/ok coolant temperatures? with this kit on a stock pully
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Please clarify: I am assuming you mean intercooler temperatures and not engine temperatures, correct? I'll give you the longest answer possible on both either way. Cliff notes below.
Unless someone hooks up a custom coolant temp sensor for the intercooler coolant, there is no way to know. You could use an infrared gun to measure the different pipes pre and post cooling, but this won't give you anything exact. Most people look at intake air temperature (IAT) for metrics on whether the system is running optimally. In a perfect system, where heat was pulled from the charged air with 100% efficiency, the IAT would match ambient temperature. This is not possible, so the goal is to keep them as close as possible.
The difference between these two measurements will fluctuate a lot depending on many factors such as ambient temperature, boost pressure, fuel source, tune, vehicle speed, boost duty cycle, etc., and therefore, the delta across the core changes significantly. For instance, in high ambient temperatures with a lower boost pressure setting, the difference in ambient air temperature and IAT is not that much, so the potential delta is not that much. Even if someone put in a larger intercooler, there may not be enough difference in temperatures to create a significant delta, so a larger intercooler may not do much, yet it probably won't matter, as the system will probably have adequate IATs. Conversely, in a low ambient temperature situation with high boost pressure, the difference in temps is large, so the potential delta across the cooler is large, even though the cooler is still the same size. A larger cooler may not be necessary. The problem comes with high ambient temperature applications with high boost. The delta could still be significant because of the difference, but the IAT could still be too high, so a larger core is needed. With all that said, the goal for the cooler is to avoid a heat soak situation, where the max delta doesn't do enough to get the coolant to optimal IATs. While the intercooler radiator can increase in size, the charge coolers in the manifold are fixed in size, so they will only have so much capacity at extracting heat from the charged air. If ambient air is high and target boost levels are high then the system could get heat soaked.
In some ways, I don't believe there would be runaway heat soak where IATs dangerously spike because I feel like timing will get pulled before that, which would act to decrease heat production. This would be felt as a drop in power. Without having experienced this myself, I would believe that someone would recognize the situation before timing reached some limit. Regardless, there would be oil temperature spikes before potential engine overheating/failure/preignition, so monitoring oil temps would be good.
Taking a look here. Typically staying 15-20C of ambient might be a good goal.
https://www.hpacademy.com/forum/efi-...erature-limits
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If you are referring to engine coolant then it should be maintained to factory specs. Higher IATs from FI could increase heat buildup in the block, but more significantly, high combustion pressures lead to higher temperatures, which will most definitely heat the block. Maxing out the cooling system on the car in a high duty cycle application would mean the engine/coolant will overheat, but it is likely that the oil will have much higher temps at that point. Monitoring both oil and coolant temps are good, but if you have to pick one, I would monitor oil temps because oil takes longer to heat up and is harder to cool down. Also, oil pressures drop when oil temperatures go up, which is also a critical metric. If your oil temps are fine then your cooling system is likely healthy. Also, if the coolant system is overheating then you can remove heat by improving the cooling system through a larger coolant radiator, but it would be more important to add an oil cooler. By cooling the oil, you are removing heat from the system, which may remove the stress on the coolant. It is a matter of how do you want to increase the thermal capacity of the system in the most efficient and effective way.
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Cliff notes:
Intercooler temps aren't known without a sensor, so you may want to follow IATs, which depend on many factors, but for max power, the goal is to not exceed 15-20 degrees Celsius over ambient temperature.
Engine coolant should be the same as stock. Oil temperatures are more critical and should be managed first.