Driver Cooling Systems

[Tristor]

Howdy,


Anyone using a driver cooling system? What's decent? I see Cool Shirt, MOMO, FAST, and Techniche all make a driver cooling system. Where do you mount the system in your car?


I'm curious what folks opinions are about this sort of stuff. Texas is ridiculously hot and so something like this is quickly becoming necessary for me on track. Right now my in-car temp tends to end up around 110F in the morning and if I do an afternoon session it can get as high as 125F (outside temp is 105F today so lol).

[cjd]

No personal experience, but I saw some anecdotes about just how awesome the Cool Shirt stuff was. Local autocrossers I've known for a while - some for a really long while. So I trust it works well if they say it does.

[FirstWinter]

Cool Shirt is fairly popular from what I've seen. Have you also considered helmets which allow you to funnel in A/C or have an attachment to drink water?

[Tristor]

Originally Posted by FirstWinter

Cool Shirt is fairly popular from what I've seen. Have you also considered helmets which allow you to funnel in A/C or have an attachment to drink water?

My new helmet has an optional top-mount or side-mount air hose attachment, which I can get installed at any time. Looked to me like this is also intended to be fed from a driver cooling system, for instance Cool Shirt makes a system which uses fluid for the undershirt and underpants and air for the helmet to cool. They also have a system which uses liquid to cool your head inside the helmet.


I'm thinking to start maybe getting either the Techniche vest or the Cool Shirt TechCool vest, since these don't require the full in-car system. These are an inexpensive entry point, but seem to only be set up for 30-45 minutes of use. That's fine for now since I'm doing 25-30 minute sessions, but if I start doing longer sessions I'll need a different solution.

[86league]

I've got a cool-shirt shirt with their helmet insert running with a homebuilt cooler. It really does take the edge off on the hot days...

One brand I didn't see you mention was Veskimo. They have a vest that you can zip on/off. One problem with the cool shirts is you need to get one small enough that all of the tubing is pressed up against you. Depending on how you are shaped -- you may have trouble getting it on and off. I can get mine on and off, but the tubes are not exactly tight against me everywhere - I ended up wearing a compression shirt on top of the cool shirt to help the cooling, although even without it - the seat back and harness belts will cover a fair amount of the shirt. The Veskimo vest solves the sizing and removal issue with the zipper and adjustable sides... They were not selling vests only when I purchased due to low stock - they were only selling full systems...

Most of these systems now have "pull to release" safety connectors that will break away with a good tug, but they may not be standard -- keep that in mind. If you need to get out of the car quickly - you probably don't want to have to find your cooling hoses and press the little tab to disconnect it...

Mounting -- I think most mount it in the trunk.