Hot Weather Running

[azjc]

Had my 88 Reynard FC out Saturday at Firebird outside Phoenix AZ - original forecast was for mid 80's F.... actual turned out to be more like low 100's F (about 102 F ambient - no idea what the track temp was - my laser temp sensor overheated & gave an error display!).

Being that this is an English race car and I'd never had it in extreme weather I was quite concerned. So I made a couple of add on "fixes" to try if needed. One stuck out at the inlet so it might scoop more air into the rad's, the other stuck out at the leading edge of the rad outlet with the hope of creating negative pressure to draw air out.

Coolant temp slowly crawled up with each session and finally hitting the about 95 C in the mid afternoon . So we did nothing to aid the cooling. in the race it held at about 100 C till the very end where it hit 105 C (oil still @ 35~40psi). No drop in performance (shifting @ 6600 ~ 6800 rpm), turned my fastest lap at the very end of the race along with my best speed into turn 1. Couldn't check the oil temp... see note about about my temp sensor.

I'm impressed to say the least... other then the Averill side pods there nothing special or non standard to help cool. I don't have a oil cooler (use 10w30 Valvoline Racing Oil), copper rad's (do have bleed tubs from the rad's to the swirl pot) and filtered water mixed with water wetter. I also run a 71 C thermostat in the car, 20 lb cap and did not lose any coolant into the overflow tank.

[azjc]

Had the car out for the first event of the year (for us it's Sept thru May) - even hotter! Last events track had a long straight (about 125mph), this one had a short (105mph)... since it was slow speed I cranked the front wing to 6 deg, other event it was 2. Car ran HOT!!!

At the suggestion of a forum member that came out to help (Marshall) I flattened out the front wing to 0 deg, figuring that the higher angle was causing flow problems with the air inlet to the radiators it worked. Before I could get maybe 4 hard laps in before hitting 110 C, now I could run a whole 15+ min session & only hit about 105 C at the end. Also took off the lower side engine covers just to help remove any external engine temp build up.

Did it change the handling much... not that I could tell. I ended up adding a bit more front anti-roll bar and the car was just as stable as before in the one high speed sweeper (about 90 mph), lap times about the same.