Flat or gentle curves is best for aerodynamic drag and downforce. You add louvers to let cooling air escape where needed -- use sparingly. Unfortunately, we usually have to add drag or give up some downforce to cool the car. Note that an air outlet on top of the hood can add downforce while improving cooling -- but still adds drag -- and you have to deal with rain. No free lunches.

 

How's the MSM rad different than the regular?

Thicker?
Tighter fin pitch?
Tighter tube pitch?

 

I don't have a MSM but I do have an NB with a mishimoto radiator and fans. Even after doing what I thought was a pretty good job of ducting and retaining factory under tray I am still seeing higher temps at cruise than I'd like. I might be taking off my front end this weekend and if so I'll take pics.

 

Yes

 

The problem you have is those crap Mishimoto fans. They're terrible.

 

I agree. I had no idea how bad they would be. I just don't have the $$ for your setup Keith.

That said, I still don't understand how my car could be as hot as it is under light throttle at 60mph. I don't want to turn this into a troubleshooting thread for me but there really is nowhere else for air to go but into my radiator.

Edit to fix LOLs.

 

You mean besides around your entire car.

 

Jeremy doesn't post under the name "Keith"

I'd start by going back to stock fans.

 

Chiburbian, Message Maduh, he also got mishimoto rad and fans, had massive overheating issues, kept the rad, went back to stock fans, big improvement.

 

Oveheating at low speeds is a sure sign of crappy fans.

 

Not sure why you'd want a fan on the intercooler? I know with my car, any time I'd be seeing load enough to be putting the intercooler to work, there would be airflow enough to make the intercooler work. The intercooler doesn't really do anything when idling in traffic.

Unless you're just referring to the rad and ac condenser.

 

I'd have one so I can cool the intercooler down while standing still. Example, make a pass at the drag strip, then get in staging lanes and sit. Car only gets airflow when I'm wide open, then I nail the brakes and it can't get air till I do it again. Also the SC seems to dump more heat at idle into the IC then the either of the turbos I ran ever did.

But yeah I'd have at least 1 fan on every heat exchanger because I drag race the car.

 

Ah, ok, that makes sense then to avoid heatsoak in that use case.

 

With the bypass valve open, the blower just compresses the air charge over and over and over. This heat soaks the intercooler hard. If you log IATs I bet you'll see a 100F spike as you go WOT after an extended highway cruise (similar conditions relative to the supercharger).

 

My AITs are sort of ok now that I have a huge 20x12x3 bar/plate IC. ~10-15 over ambient at cruise, but they climb under load more than I like, about 50F increase in 7 seconds. This IC was fine with a turbo, but is struggling with the heat from the SC.

 

FYI, we played with IC sprayers back in 2003. When the car came off the track at Willow Springs, the intercooler was cold to the touch. Quite effective.

That car didn't overheat, either. About 350 hp (radical at the time) with our best rad of the era (probably equivalent to the typical Koyo of today), a huge oil cooler out of an air-cooled Porsche mounted where a headlight should be, a vented hood (prototype for the old FM unit), nose ducting with airdam and splitter, an early reroute, two big Spal fans, no AC and the IC sprayer. Loads of airflow through the heat exchangers.

 

Sealing up the top of the radiator made a big difference for my MSM. Does anyone have any tricks for getting the sides of the radiator sealed up better? Such a pain to get to. I am thinking about cutting some sort of plastic to slide down the sides since metal tape won't stay put in there.

 

Next time I pull my radiator I'm designing something for this. I'll post it in my build thread so keep an eye out.

 

Agreed. I've never found an adhesive product that would stick to an aluminum radiator at track temps. Of course I've not tried very hard, but if someone has a link to something that works, I'd buy a roll.

 

<p>Paging <span>@curly. He has some tape on his radiator that looks like its been there forever.</span></p>