gtir water jacket

[pulsarboby]

was reading up on elise and exige engine the other day and noticed they have a huge prob with the water jacket in head and block being too small which causes their known overheating and blown gasket probs at high bhp, thats despite the head and block distortion through their silly 3 part engine thats held together with cocktail sticks as bolts:doh:.

now im thinking that the sr20det has the same problem when under constant abuse on track and this is what could be causing the probs of reliability at constant high rpm, the water simply cant flow fast enough through the restricted waterways.
ive already made some mods to help with coolant temps which have worked to a degree but still not enough to sustain flat out abuse at high power.

im in the process of building another engine for my car but this time im gonna make a few alterations to the block and head to try overcome this problem and give the oil and water galleries a better flow.
il be building this engine over the coming months (with no expense spared) and see if i can actually make one that lasts on track whilst running 360+bhp, if this engine does not work then im bailing out so its kind of last crack at the whip if you like:lol:
if i can get this to work then il be jumping up and down with joy as i genuinely do love these cars and just want one that i can race and enjoy without pulling it to bits every five minutes:lol:

anyone got any views on this (good or bad) kieron or any of you others that go on the sr20 forums!
in other words am i wasting my time and money!!!

 

[mynheers_a_pint]

what previous modifications have you carried out to help with cooling?

Other than the obvious..!

 

[frp]

How long are your races time/distance?
Are you sure its the engine at fault? Ie could this be a by product of something else....mapping, blocked/restricter pipe, a restictive manifold(doubt it)
Just examples bob I'm sure they're fine but have you looked at all the options .

Steve

 

[frp]

What about lower boost or CR or higher octane?
Maybe try tony bardy for some ideas

 

[MarkTurbo]

Bob, i think i remember reading something about the water pump cavitating at high revs (basically just churning the water instead of flowing anything) Might even have been kieron that mentioned it!

Could be something to think about, maybe binning the standard water pump and going electric would help ;-)

 

[fubar andy]

Could be something to think about, maybe binning the standard water pump and going electric would help ;-)

Agreed!

 

[MORF114]

Might sound stupid but how about a electric water pump with a increased water capacity with a kind of dry sump tank in car but filled with water if you know what i mean.

Atleast with the electric water pump you can get up to temp quicker and the car can circulate the water round the engine at idle cooling the engine better than a mechanical pump after your session is over.
Plus more ponies to put to the ground going electric +1bhp lol

 

[riske]

Agreed!

Hes already done this. remember him explaigning this to me... so that idea has been tried for your information;-)

 

[gtirjoey]

has he??? ive never seen a electric pump under his bonnet??
i know its a totally differant stlye engine but afetr going nuts on my scooter tuning the beast, the temps where getting really high, done away with the mechanical pump and installed an electric and now the temp hardly rises ever.
so proof there that an electric pump will push the water round better

get down the breakers vr6 have them as standard mate

 

[PobodY]

It has been tried; so was it successful?

Can't hurt really... it's quite a common tuning trick isn't it; less belts = more power to the flywheel?

 

[pulsarboby]

ok gents some good points there!

with regard to the pump cavitation at the top end of rev range (where cars at for half hour at a time on track) i think thats sorted by the bigger pulley ive fitted to slow the pump down, but this on its own i do not believe to be sufficient.
the electric pump may work but i have a strong feeling that these engines are failing through hot spots being generated in certain parts of the block and head which become more apparent with the more power you run and the time that the car is on full chat (being around 1/2 hr at a time)

ive looked closely at a cut open block and head and examined these waterways and the flow in some parts is quite shocking really and i believe that this is where a majority of the probs lie with melted pistons and damaged ringlands, cracked heads around valve seats etc.
im wondering that if i open these waterways on the face of the head and block face if that may cure the problem as more water will be able to flow which will not be under great pressure (which the electric pump may cause)

basically imagine turning a garden hose tap full on with a narrow bore pipe, eventually the pressure will balloon and burst the pipe or blow the pipe off the tap!!! now do the same with a bigger bore pipe and you will flow more water but under less pressure.
in relation to a car your many water hoses and possibly the head gasket will be the things under pressure by running an electric pump to get the flow needed, so im looking at it from a different prospective of trying to cure the problem itself rather than masking it with add on aids.

at the moment im running a 15mm larger pump pulley and huge 50 odd mm alliminium rad with water wetter also.

the reason my car went boom last time was no fault of the engine itself but was down to my own stupidity at playing with the boost controller at cadwell park and altering the gain settings, this in turn led to massive turbo surge which caused max boost to peak at 1.85 bar when in fact it was only mapped to 1.3 lol
i thought it had just blown h/g but on removal ive detted and melted all 4 pistons and also cracked my ported flowed head (that really hurt) so in retrospect the damage was done by me.
ive (for now) fitted another set of pistons and in process of fitting another head just to get car back in use quickly as possible as the bottom end is still perfect, but it wont last im sure.

this brings me to the whole point of this thread being for when i build the next engine to try and eradicate any cooling issues before its bolted together as ive not really looked into this before untill reading up on the exiges.

with regard to tony bardy....once again its a sprint car so hes not gonna really have these problems!
the only car i know of which is used for circuit racing is steve ferguson but he himself has the same probs and moneys really of no object to him, but even he and his team have not been able to solve the problem as of yet.

 

[fubar andy]

with regard to the pump cavitation at the top end of rev range (where cars at for half hour at a time on track) i think thats sorted by the bigger pulley ive fitted to slow the pump down, but this on its own i do not believe to be sufficient.
the electric pump may work but i have a strong feeling that these engines are failing through hot spots being generated in certain parts of the block and head which become more apparent with the more power you run and the time that the car is on full chat (being around 1/2 hr at a time)

Iirc you have a power FC, what kind of water temps are you seeing when on track?

I still think that an electric pump will be more beneficial to the cooling process than a larger pulley wheel.
Perhaps with the right choice of pump it would flow water around the head/engine at max rev's better than a pulley and there would be no issues of cavitation or zero flow.

However if there are issues with cooling, look at boring out the water ways to allow more water through?

Out of interest, where on your rev range is your peak max bhp? Would it also not be worth backing the rev limit down via the PFC to a safer level to prolong your engine?
If you’ve made peak power at say (example) 6900rpm, is there any point to keep thrashing your engine when the power levels are dropping off?

Hes already done this. remember him explaigning this to me... so that idea has been tried for your information;-)

at the moment im running a 15mm larger pump pulley and huge 50 odd mm alliminium rad with water wetter also.

Shut up, you idiot!

 

[MarkTurbo]

with regard to tony bardy....once again its a sprint car so hes not gonna really have these problems!

Its a rally car not a sprint car so will be subjected to longer periods of hard use, probably 15+ mins at a time! Its a group a car so not really anything special power wise (probably 330bhp tops) but by the time you take into account the amount of boost they run and the antilag i bet it generates a lot more heat than most higher power cars would on say a 20 min track session ;-)

 

[fubar andy]

Its a rally car not a sprint car so will be subjected to longer periods of hard use, probably 15+ mins at a time! Its a group a car so not really anything special power wise (probably 330bhp tops) but by the time you take into account the amount of boost they run and the antilag i bet it generates a lot more heat than most higher power cars would on say a 20 min track session ;-)

Shots of Bardys car from Feb 2009 Blackpool Rally...

 

[MarkTurbo]

Andy, you've seen the car in the flesh? I'd bet that apart from a thicker alloy rad, no thermostat, and a decent size oil cooler there isnt a great deal of difference between that cars cooling system and any of ours!

 

[gtir350]

Isnt it a well know fact that the water flow in the head is rubish and at higher revs just gets water gets stuck in the head due to poor design?

The VE head is ment to be a lot better.

 

[fubar andy]

Andy, you've seen the car in the flesh? I'd bet that apart from a thicker alloy rad, no thermostat, and a decent size oil cooler there isnt a great deal of difference between that cars cooling system and any of ours!

Not massive from a visual perspective, there is an aftermarket alloy rad and custom alloy pipe runs to the engine, but that’s about it.

Even from the image he seems to run a larger water pulley, but within the engine I'm none the wiser.

When we quizzed him at the rally he was not very forthcoming...

 

[pulsarboby]

sorry i was unaware that it was a rally car so i stand corrected marky!
an electric pump may work but if the jackets are not big enough this in itself will cause other probs with potential blowing head gaskets etc, so im looking into this now to try and avoid any potential problem with doing this.

no one knows exactly what tony bardy has done on his engine internals and in a way i dont blame him for being gaurded on the matter, if hes developed a great engine then why share his knowledge with everyone else!!! by doing that hes then opening himself up to his competitors, and why should people like norris, dp, etc etc etc have access to his knowledge (just so they can then build a better engine to sell to the public at hugely inflated prices) so good on him i say

andy.....i dont thrash the engine as theres little point in revving it higher than peak torque which is around 5800 on my car, i rarely take it above 6500 as all your doing is making a lot of noise with little progress.

gtir350....this is what im after, do you have a link to more info on this please? ive just got a sneaky feeling this is where the route of the problem could be.
its all very well opening up the waterway jackets but by doing this in a roundabout way you could actually cause another problem with the jacket then being too close to the liners!!! i need to know how big i can go without causing probs elsewhere, it maybe just a case of a simple burr tool and removing around 1/2mm off the edge of each waterway.

also this time im gonna machine match the combustion chamber in the head to the size of bore width then get matched on all 4 combustion chambers, think this is another problem area as there is always a step in bore size to combustion chamber oe size

 

[darkyGTI-R]

:whip2:Lovely engine shots that's a beast there

 

[vss irvine]

if you look closey at bardys car.,

you'll see the coolant exit point from the head to rad is straight, not like the stupid standard elbow triangle thing!

this has to help.....