NPR FMIC Eval

[vrinner]

This weekend I finally got to test my new NPR FMIC setup. I had a bunch of other problems but I'm just going to talk about the FMIC issues.

Problems;

At higher boost (18+ boost) I kept blowing off various plumbing hoses for the intercooler. This should easily be solved by welding a small bead around the pipe so the hoses have something to grip on to. I've heard people mention that before but I didn't get around to it yet.

At higher boost (around 18), the car would "stumble" or cut out. I dont know if it's a fuel issue or some other electrical? Any advice? I do have an adjustable fuel pressure regulator (fpr) and the green top injectors. Fuel pressure was measured at about 55psi at the fuel line prior to the fpr.

Car ran a bit hotter than normal. Racing it will normally run between N and o without any fan assistance. Now with the radiator mounted behind the big NPR intercooler, it was running at the "m". I turned on the fan and it dropped back down to between o and r. This was on a cold (60 degrees) day at Willow Springs so when the temps get up over 100 I'm not sure how it will go. I am already planning on putting in two smaller fans to cover more area than my current single medium size fine.

Parts getting hot still. My BOV is mounted just before the bend into the intake (just above the turbo). This piece is plastic and my guess would be prone to failure with the heat from the turbo. Although I didn't have any failures, it still got very hot. To avoid problems, I'm going to put some heat shield around it.

Good things;

Things stayed cool. After a full session on the track, I had no loss of power due to heat saturation of the intercooler or anything else getting too hot. After I pulled in, the inlet side of the intercooler was hot and the outlet side was warm. No fancy temp measuring, just a general sense that its definatly cooling.

Feels like better low end spool up and more gradual. It's hard to tell for sure because it's been a few months, however compared to my daily driver (stock IC), the power band is wider and smoother. Could be a bunch of other things but as far as I can remember, it's definatly a different power band than before. This actually works well for me racing because of the wider boost range. My imagination? Could be. Could be it seems wider because of the BOV not killing the turbo. Thoughts?

Easy to work on other parts of the motor without that freekin' intercooler in the way! Had some other non Intercooler related issues and not having to deal with the old intercooler was nice. For some reason undoing those two hose clamps and removing the IC really got to be a pain to me.

Recomendation;

This is my first FMIC install so I have nothing else to compare it to but to me, it was worth it. This is just one less thing for me to worry about while at the track. I'm sure with a stonger motor and some other tuning, I can run more boost (due to it cutting out at 18+psi, I ran at 16psi no problems).

[Pat_in_L.A.]

Vince, don't bother welding. I have a bead rolling machine. Just find some lame excuse to stop in some weekend or drop them off to me at work some evening.

Still have green tops and a non- PE computer? My guess is that you need more fuel. Brown tops (maybe even 42# injectors for a track car) and an LA3 or a PE should help out a bunch.

Whose chip do you run and what is it supposed to do?

If you are looking for cooling fans, I have some new ones that I'm not using. I may be going to Hamburger Hank's in Fountain Valley next Wednesday evening and can bring them along.

[Gator]

What thermostat are you running in there..? Might wanna consider a 182deg if you dont already.

[vrinner]

UPDATE on NPR Big FMIC

So this weekend I did a race school at the Streets of Willow.

Temps were in the high 70's, low 80's. The "Streets" is a smaller track that you rarley get out of third gear and a few second gear turns. Speeds are slow compared to the big track at Willow.

Problem was that with the FMIC mounted in front of the radiator, I couldn't get enough cooling. The temp guage would red-line after about 5 minutes of very hard running in second and third gear. I put in some extra ducting as well as mounted a 14" fan on the FMIC to pull cold(er) air into the radiator as well as an 18" fan on the radiator. Car would run on the "L" after about 10 minutes then I just took it easy.

I thought about the thermostat however couldn't get one while at the track. I'm seriously considering getting the small NPR intercooler so I can get some air directly to the lower half of the radiator.

So here are the mods...any suggestions on keeping the car cool?

Big NPR FMIC mounted where the radiator normally goes.

AFCO Aluminum radiator (supposed to come from a Ranger). It measures 18" X 18" and is mounted about 3 inches behing the FMIC.

I also replaced the water pump with one from Kragen. Nothing fancy, just a replacment. Could that be the problem?

Attached is an older picture. I have done a few clean up/mounting mods but the basic setup is the same.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

[kiwi]

Check auto parts.....

I run 'purple ice' additionally in my coolant....the stuff works....I noticed a big cooling help with my windsor motor in the '85 GT....

[CP86SVO]

I run Redline's Watter Wetter, which is equivalent to Purple Ice, with great results for open track. I use 2 bottles in my SVO's
cooling system and filled with distilled water only (use should run about 10% antifreeze if your car has air conditioning and/or if you live and drive your SVO in sub zero climates).

Judging from your picture, I'm willing to bet that not very much air is actually going through the radiator, hence the lack of cooling. If the radiator is closer to the intercooler, or you place a shroud between the intercooler and radiator, you may have better results. Also, sealing the front radiator support area to your intercooler could help the intercooler work better as well. Making sure that air cannot go around the intercooler and the radiator, but through the cooling surfaces, is the key.

HTH WS

[vrinner]

Water Wetter

I tried the water wetter and that didn't help either.

So is anyone running the NPR big intercooler in front of the radiator? If so, what did you do to keep it cool? How did you mount the radiator?

Because this car is not street legal, it's not like I can experiment too much. I'd like to try and keep the big NPR but my next event is in a few weeks at Laguna Seca and I really dont want to be stuck in the same situation there.

Thanks!

Vince

[Gator]

Have you tried a 182 thermostat..?

[140cilx]

Vince,

I have a similar setup http://140cilx.stangnet.com/photo4.html

You've got room perhaps to put your fan ibetween your IC and Radiator? or adjust it to do so, I'd add a fan shroud and force the air through the radiator.

My car isn't on the road yet, but when I flip the switch for the fan, I have a hurricane blowing through my Radiator.

& I have a 180 degree thermostat.

[vrinner]

Originally posted by 140cilx
Vince,

I have a similar setup http://140cilx.stangnet.com/photo4.html

You've got room perhaps to put your fan ibetween your IC and Radiator? or adjust it to do so, I'd add a fan shroud and force the air through the radiator.

My car isn't on the road yet, but when I flip the switch for the fan, I have a hurricane blowing through my Radiator.

& I have a 180 degree thermostat.

I'm not sure which thermostat I have but I'll probably just go ahead and replace with a 180.

On the fan thing...I mounted puller fans, one on the back side of the intercooler and one on the back side of the radiator. The one on the radiator was 18" and the FMIC was 14".

Looking at your setup, I would think that you are going to run into the same problem that I had. The heated air from the intercooler gets passed onto the radiator. Now I'm not any sort of aerodymic or heating cooling expert, but I would think that your setup with the shrouding would be worse than mine without. Without the shrouding, it will pull some cool air from around the radiator where yours is getting only air as it passes through the intercooler. I could be way off on this.

I was thinking about angling the radiator a bit more and then shrouding it so that it only pulls air from the bottom of the car. Somone else told me that if I put a rubber air dam on the front spoiler that it would cause a low or high pressure area under the car so that air would be pulled up from there.

If this was a street car, this probably wouldn't be an issue because the intercooler gets time to cool off. But because this car is only used in racing situations, it's constantly under heavy throttle and speed vary.

Thanks!

[140cilx]

Now I'm not any sort of aerodymic or heating cooling expert, but I would think that your setup with the shrouding would be worse than mine without. Without the shrouding, it will pull some cool air from around the radiator where yours is getting only air as it passes through the intercooler. I could be way off on this.

I'll have some real world results in a week or so I hope on the red car.

[turbizzy]

The way you guys have your radiators and intercoolers mounted is very neat however i think due to our no grill and hardly any air ducting situation on the fox is what screws us up. I wonder what Lee Clary would say, have you guys seen his setup? He's got a big FMIC with a smaller radiator angled down below the IC getting air from under the bumper open area or under the car period. I should also mention he has a custom chin spoiler so that prob. helps. At least thats the setup he had a while ago.

Just a thought and not to hijack this thread but someone should design us a Water to air with a heat exchanger mounted below the bumper. I know theres one for the Xr4 somewhere but that would be sick.

One more thing, i know that not having a T-stat at all will prematurely wear rings and such but since its a race car and normally sees alot of hard accel and very small amounts of cool down time but couldn't he just not run a T-stat at all, just let your car warm up before racing? I ran my daily driver w/o a Tstat in Phoenix (110*+) at the drags and raced all night with the temp raising not past the O. I don't recommend not having a Tstat but in his situation maybe right?

[vrinner]

Thermostats

I like the idea of no thermostat but I have a general question about it.

So if I have a 180 degree thermostat, once the car hits 180 it opens up. So if the car is still overheating, going into the 220 and above range, what difference does it make if you have one or not, its still open...right?

[turbizzy]

Well its like i said, i don't want to give you bad advise but w/o a Tstat you would have max flow all of the time cooling all of your coolant. You see, with a Tstat, it is a restriction in your cooling system and until the temp is reached at which it is designed to open it is blocking your coolant Superheating it in the engine/head. Even when your Tstat opens, it is still a restriction since the valve opens about and inch, just barely enough to flow coolant. With it removed your coolant will circulate faster disapating all that heat. Again this should not really be done on a street car since the engine will run cold all the time mostly. On your race car, you would greatly benefit the warmer your engine is that way all the heat energy created in the combustion is not absorbed by the cooler block but rather sent to the turbo to spool it. With a cold engine not reaching operating temp, most of your heat energy created is going to be absorbed by the block/head since heat transfers onto a a surface cooler than the heats temp. Since your running at high RPM your creating alot of heat so it would be ok not to have a Tstat, once your warmed up initially. If an engine runs at cooler temps than it was designed for a long period of time, the rings and other internal parts dont expand as well as they would with that extra heat and thus creating blowby in the cylinders and other problems.

[svobud]

Originally posted by turbizzy
I wonder what Lee Clary would say, have you guys seen his setup? He's got a big FMIC with a smaller radiator angled down below the IC getting air from under the bumper open area or under the car period. I should also mention he has a custom chin spoiler so that prob. helps. At least thats the setup he had a while ago.

Lee hasn't been able to test his car too much since that modification and new engine. Life took over in the form of 'wife' and he hasn't been very active in car stuff since. I'm pretty sure it hasn't been on an open track - especially - with ambient temps in the 90s.

I went with the smaller NPR on my application, but haven't had the chance to really test mine in 'race mode' .. or summertime driving for that matter .. so no comment as far as the cooling trouble factor (if any) goes.

Good luck Vince - hope you get it figured out. My suggestion would be to try a smaller IC .. down and away from the radiator. Another idea would be to use a fiberglass hood .. and 'trim' a little off the lower nose of it to allow more air into the rad area.