Since you have figured out a cooling system that obviously works, can you review how you're doing it? I'm at the point where I need to design the cooling system for my LS swap stock car, and I might as well stand on the shoulder of giants that already know what works
Dusterbd13-michael said:Since you have figured out a cooling system that obviously works, can you review how you're doing it? I'm at the point where I need to design the cooling system for my LS swap stock car, and I might as well stand on the shoulder of giants that already know what works
Yea, will do!
So... For Michael and any other crazies out there that might be considering something like this... here is what my cooling system consists of.... its very similar to what i ran very successfully for ~ 3years, but now even more simple and now effective after shifting the cylinder head steam lines to the water pump's hot side..
RED - cylinder head steam lines (1/4" heater hose):
OE-type hard lines that tie the heads together, one on the front end, one on the rear.
"T" at the rear high point with a 1/4" NPT bleed valve, coming off the rear steam line.
"T" at the front to tie the front and rear together.
3/8" NPT to hose barb to tie line into hot side of water pump.
1/2" NPT plug for cold side of water pump.
WATERPUMP:
OE-type corvette style pump.
heater hose bungs removed - crush them in a vice and pound an awl/screwdriver between the housing and mangled bung, twist and remove. Drill and tap for NPT.
160deg stat
BLUE - coolant return from radiator:
1.25" silicone hose. sleeved in 1.5" PVC segments to prevent hose collapse and protection in the frame rails
water pump straight out fitting and silicone elbow/reducer
ORANGE - coolant discharge to radiator:
1.25" silicone hose. sleeved in 1.5" PVC segments to prevent hose collapse and protection in the frame rails
BLUE - coolant return from radiator:
bung is located on bottom corner of radiator
ORANGE - coolant discharge to radiator:
bung is located in the upper corner, opposite side of radiator
RADIATOR:
be cool universal fit, appx 26" X 16"
OE corvette dual electric fans
radiator cap housing plugged with squeeze plug
threaded bung, beleive its 3/4" NPT to pressurized expansion tank (systems high point) with ~20lb cap
Thank you sir!!
Saturday was my club's 6th event for the year. It was norht florida in july warm...
The kart felt the best it has since the little concrete wall mishap. As always a tad pushy, but very driveable, stupid fun and challenging for the pointy end of the 80 car field.
Ended up second, raw time, behind my buddy's R1 powered LoCost7, again.
Put together a side-by-side video of our best runs. He is about a 1/2 second quicker overall and although he is ahead most of the video, i seem to pull ahead or catch up in the higher speed bits. Which, based on the power and presumed better high speed grip of the kart, makes sense.
Kept an eye on the water temp gauge while in grid... never went past ~200deg and held steady, no fluctuating. Overall, the kart operated flawlessly. So. back to working on the nut behind the wheel.
In reply to Go_Gators (Forum Supporter) :
outstanding! i'm glad the plumbing re-route took care of the overheating issue.
Thanks!
Nice photo of the kart and my buddy's LoCost7 getting ready for our heat... in the heat...
appreciate Chris at CG Drones taking the photo!
The front looks so mean with the aero!
buzzboy said:The front looks so mean with the aero!
appreciate it. yea, this arrangement of pre-bent exhaust tube and splitter adornments is def more aggressive looking!
Man,
I wished I'd read this post earlier.
I've seen this before.
Its really common on many newer cars, especially in Florida.
The thermostat needs some sort of signal from the coolant jacket as to the temperature of the water in the engine, so that it can begin to open on time, from cold.
Imagine the engine making a lot of heat, and warming up the coolant in the heads and block.
How does the thermostat "see" that?
Back in the day, the thermostat was generally closer to the engine block and there was a dedicated "by-pass" hose for the purpose of running engine coolant through the thermostat housing and back to the block.
Fast forward to now, and many thermostats are "divorced" from the engine block, and they have no way to get the first indication that the thermostat needs to open with out a "by-pass" type of a hot coolant source. That makes it all the more important. To add insult to injury, the by-pass function is rarely a stand alone mechanism any longer. It is usually plumbed into some other sort of circulation system that falls victim to being abandoned in an engine swap scenario.
The second way this commonly happens is when the by-pass signal is run through the heater circuit. In Florida, many times the heater is never used and eventually the core or the valve clogs, blocking the bypass signal completely.
I have fixed a bunch of Hondas, Suzukis and the like that had been diagnosed a blow head gaskets, etc... by just connecting the heater hoses together. Same with Cadillac v8's where the super long 1/4" bypass tube clogs... the list goes on.
In reply to a_florida_man :
Appreciate it, but i dont know that i would have beleived this failure mode without witnessing it myself! lol
Got the kart out on sunday. Did a ~60 mile round trip down the east coastline to St Augustine at sunrise. It was fantastic. I need to make time to do that sorta trip more often.
Cool shot by @roy_sprague of the ole kart taking off into the darkness at our annual night event.
It has a been a while.... reckon life happens.
Finally got back out there and had a great day with CFR at The FIR. AUtocross and Track SPrint.
The Track Sprint was a near full lap of the FIRM’s road course, but from a standing start on the long stretch. So, it kicks off with ~1/8 mile drag race. Placed well in both events, 8th raw on the autocross, which considering how tight and technical the course setup was, is pretty decent. 5th overall at the Track Sprint being bested by a modified Porsche GT3, C6GS racecar, a well prepped C5Z06 and a C8z51, who only got me a couple tenths. Good company for my 25 year old garbage on much less and much older 200TW tires.
Since the start was a 1/8 mile drag race on FIRM’s unprepped asphalt it was a good test of the Kart’s straight line acceleration. something that hasn’t really been tested since the little wreck. Once I got into 1st gear a bit, it hooked fantastically! Full throttle! Drastically different than that night in Gainesville. Side by side video shows the dramatic difference:
In both sessions I progressively got quicker. My last Track Sprint run was my fastest. I must have bumped the in car camera upward when I got in or buckled. The view is almost entirely of the rear view mirror. Miraculously, though, the 25 year old GM parts self corrected during the run….. resulting in a great uncluttered view of the track with minimal distractions…
The Gainesville strip always seems to be a total skating rink on anything but drag slicks, you can easily get a better launch on any ordinary pavement like the neighboring autocross pad or a random street.
The straight-line speed of the LS1-Kart is really impressive, the speed you reached before turn 1 is about the same as my Toyobaru gets up to after exiting the previous turn at full speed:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKNfGWQYzkg
Lol at the mirror flying off for ya! Glad it didn't smack/crack the windshield!
I think it was nice of GM to install the analog G meter, standard!
DRONE vs KART VIDEO !!
now that the headline is done, i will ramble a bit...
Bit more than 4 months since my last post.... Geesh. The karts been fine. And, really, so have i. Its just been one thing after another keeping me away from it.
Our autox season got off to a late start due to the attrition of sites.... become a national problem... probably not a very notable national problem, but one regardless.
I ran on the 'getting old' RT660s and they still feel great to me. Raw time came in at 11th of 104. There was some seriously nice porsche investments ahead of me... but also an STR miata, so it clearly wasnt my best effort! lol
I did manage to put a massive 0.020sec on the R1 powered LoCost piloted by a more talented driver who beat me every event last year, so that made me grin. It also amazes me how two wildly different platforms with only really one thing in common (unsuitable as a daily driver) can routinely run equivalent times.
As an added bonus, Chris of CG Drones was onsite and put a nice video together of one of his drones chasing the kart.
Its definitely a view i am not used to seeing!
For reference and pure enjoyment here is Nelson's R1 LoCost video, also shot by CG Drones.
Event 2 for Jax Solo was sunday at our new site, FSCJ North Campus, criminal justice training center. The event sold out at 60 drivers and went pretty smooth for our first time on new ground. And it is new ground, fresh asphalt with a concrete skid pad. The combo of surfaces added an element of challenge to course for sure. The site is somewhat small,, more of a conventional autocross setup with tighter elements and lower speeds. Like most power cars, i only used 1st gear. Looks like the top speed i recorded was 46mph. Even at those speeds (low) the course was entertaining and challenging.
I raw timed into 13th place. Not great. i was 1.7secs behind the fast time of the day. I ran on my RT660s and noticed they are date stamped from late 2021. Judging from how they dont really pick up debris much even at temperature, I think i have cycled them beyond a competitive condition.
Video is my best run, though i was pretty darn consistent posting a couple 40.1 sec runs and a few others within a second of that. Put lots of greats shots by Turtleshark Shooter in the video too.
Next event is back at FSCJ on May 11.
Event 2 for Jax Solo was sunday at our new site, FSCJ North Campus, criminal justice training center. The event sold out at 60 drivers and went pretty smooth for our first time on new ground. And it is new ground, fresh asphalt with a concrete skid pad. The combo of surfaces added an element of challenge to course for sure. The site is somewhat small,, more of a conventional autocross setup with tighter elements and lower speeds. Like most power cars, i only used 1st gear. Looks like the top speed i recorded was 46mph. Even at those speeds (low) the course was entertaining and challenging.
I raw timed into 13th place. Not great. i was 1.7secs behind the fast time of the day. I ran on my RT660s and noticed they are date stamped from late 2021. Judging from how they dont really pick up debris much even at temperature, I think i have cycled them beyond a competitive condition.
Video is my best run, though i was pretty darn consistent posting a couple 40.1 sec runs and a few others within a second of that. Put lots of greats shots by Turtleshark Shooter in the video too.
Next event is back at FSCJ on May 11.
Few photos by Turtleshark Shooter:
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