Fuel Coolers / Cooling For Track Work

[CameronBNR32]

I've been testing the car temps over the last couple of days and I've got everything sorted apart from one..

Is any one running any form of fuel cooling? after some time of driving "fast", I can hear the fuel pumps once coming to a stop abit louder than before, and feeling the surge tank and fuel lines in the boot they are warm/hot.

I have a fairly large capacity surge tank, but it has twin fuel pumps inside that heat the fuel up aswell..

I'm either thinking of:

1. switching one of fuel pumps off so it's not heating the fuel while working and pumping fuel to the front to be not used and back to the surge tank, and only on again when its needed (via boost sensor/solenoid/trigger)

or

2. installing a kind of fluid cooler in the return line in the form of:

a. An alloy coil in a canister, filled with "propylene glycol" i think its called?...

b. In the return line from engine.

c. In the boot, fan due to no air flow.

I'm probably steering towards c more as probably work the best...

Has anybody had any experience running fuel coolers at the track in any form of motorsport? or fuel temps arnt really that much of an issue?

Edited November 9, 2008 by CameronBNR32

[BezerkR32]

i can see where your coming from but i cant see it being an issue unless you are doing some serious endurance work. do you overflow your surge back to the main tank?

I've been testing the car temps over the last couple of days and I've got everything sorted apart from one..

Is any one running any form of fuel cooling? after some time of driving "fast", I can hear the fuel pumps once coming to a stop abit louder than before, and feeling the surge tank and fuel lines in the boot they are warm/hot.

I have a fairly large capacity surge tank, but it has twin fuel pumps inside that heat the fuel up aswell..

I'm either thinking of:

1. switching one of fuel pumps off so it's not heating the fuel while working and pumping fuel to the front to be not used and back to the surge tank, and only on again when its needed (via boost sensor/solenoid/trigger)

or

2. installing a kind of fluid cooler in the return line in the form of:

a. An alloy coil in a canister, filled with "propylene glycol" i think its called?...

b. In the return line from engine.

c. In the boot, fan due to no air flow.

I'm probably steering towards c more as probably work the best...

Has anybody had any experience running fuel coolers at the track in any form of motorsport? or fuel temps arnt really that much of an issue?

[CameronBNR32]

i can see where your coming from but i cant see it being an issue unless you are doing some serious endurance work. do you overflow your surge back to the main tank?

Yeah I run a single -6 line from the surge tank back into the tank.

I'm probably just being paranoid with the temps

[Beer Baron]

well the thing is with two decent pumps running with good power supply they will be pumping out the whole tank fairly rapidly and the fuel will certainly heat up if you are doing street drivnig and just sort of crusing around. on the track it can happen too if you run with just the minimum fuel on board that you need for your 10 lap session etc. so the fuel cooler is not a bad idea imo.

[ellie]

well the thing is with two decent pumps running with good power supply they will be pumping out the whole tank fairly rapidly and the fuel will certainly heat up if you are doing street drivnig and just sort of crusing around. on the track it can happen too if you run with just the minimum fuel on board that you need for your 10 lap session etc. so the fuel cooler is not a bad idea imo.

+ he lives in brisbane = farken hot. And It can only be an improvement. I would put an oil cooler type heat exchanger into the return line and possibly mount it Z tune style on the rear carrier?

[GOT04]

whats the car doing exactly?

im guessing its in one of the 5 lap dashes at QR?

[BezerkR32]

the other way is to run different fuel, i am planning on running a Ethanol based fuel so fuel temp will not be an issue.

[CameronBNR32]

It still is a street car, but also want to do the sprints, time attack and topgear events.

I am currently just running bp ultimate with a 15% toluene mix, but I am looking into other fuels, a friend told me yesterday with one of his old high hp cars switched to running the e85, and it gained a nice ammount of hp from it.

[gibbau]

is e85 available in brisbane?

[Russco]

I would put an oil cooler type heat exchanger into the return line and possibly mount it Z tune style on the rear carrier?

X 2 - done this myself, but mounted it externally so it gets airflow (make sure it's mounted within your chassis rails for safety + on return line), worked a treat. Unless you've raced at QR in summer you may not appreciate how hot it can get up here.........36 degrees yesterday.

Only enthanol fuel up here is 10% mix, unfortunately no E85 for some time yet according to United.

Edited December 5, 2008 by slapper

[R31Nismoid]

Is the car reasonably modified? Ie - its therefore going to munch the gas.

If this is so, your going to eat up a tank of fuel that fast that its really not going to become a problem unless your running around with a low amount of fuel.

You'd be better off in some logging of the temps first and seeing if there is a need for it particularly.

Side note - are there any figures relating to fuel temp increase and degradation?

Because i cant see much more reason being combustion isnt really going to be affected by a few degree's of initial fuel injection temp

[2rismo]

The pumps heating the fuel is one way to look at it but the other way says that the fuel cools the pumps. Fuel pumps that don't run as hot for sustained amounts of time will last longer and be less likely to fail. Cooler fuel will cool the intake charge to a greater degree. Fuel at the correct temperature wont adversely affect fuel pressure.

As has been stated, if you run with a full tank of fuel on a normal street car with a standard fuel system, you might not experience the problem but if you're returning straight to your surge tank, the same fuel might be going around and around and making the problem much worse.

If you're confident that your lift pump from the main tank to the surge tank can more than supply the engine's requirements (i.e. the surge tank has to overflow to the main tank most of the time) then I'd just change my return line to feed the main tank.

Data logging temps helps though and it will probably be too hard to guess at it.

[CameronBNR32]

thanks guys, alot of great advice.

Car is reasonably modified ~500hp atw for now.

I believe the twin pumps in the surge tank are doing most of the heating of the fuel, as 2rismo said, I am looking at it from a 'preventative maintenance' point of view with longevity of the fuel pumps.

I do run the return line straight back into the surge tank, I'll have to dig out the flow figures I worked out on the setup. its just basically a single 044 in tank supplying 2 x 044's in the surge tank.

I've done abit of reading on fuel temps going into the motor, seems there isn’t a one side positive and negative on it.

one side say, cooler fuel = cooler intake charge / less pinging etc when on the other side argue warmer fuel temps = more atomized fuel/better burn/combustion.

there is a place under the car I was thinking of putting it in, directly under the drivers side rear passenger's foot well, could run some form of duct up to it.

[2rismo]

Just run a little fan on it. No need for a duct that will pick up debris and make your car lower than it needs to be.