Curious if this is an "absolute necessity" for track car?
It's a 1.6, has tons of recent maintenance and seems to run great.
I'm gathering up all my parts this winter and doing my prep this winter, just wanted to know if this is considered essential.
The PO installed one on my car for track days and said it would hold 185 all session long.
I think I may have air in the system now, because the temp seems to be flapping around a bit recently.
Stock, not really, but it certainly wouldn't hurt. Especially if you want to up the power in the future.
Concentrate on the rest of the car first. For example, a factory plastic radiator is a time bomb on a track car by this point. The reroute really works to make the cooling system more efficient, but it shouldn't be used to compensate for other problems.
Stock radiator, but only about 15k miles on it according to records.
That's good to know though. That money nearly buys bushings/sways.
Duke wrote:The PO installed one on my car for track days and said it would hold 185 all session long.
I think I may have air in the system now, because the temp seems to be flapping around a bit recently.
Which reroute kit? If it's the M-Tuned you'll need to drill a ~1/16" hole in the thermostat or temps will flop all over the place with no pilot flow. Fall/winter conditions make it worse too. Not sure if/when they started supplying them pre-drilled but there's only one way to check.
Well, I believe it is a homebrew kit, but it does normally exhibit the "temp gauge looks scary for a minute or two until the thermostat opens" behaviour on cold startup. Normally it's pretty stable after that first opening, but lately it's been edging higher than I like during use and then suddenly dropping lower than the set point. I will look into the thermostat, though, and drill a small bypass hole if it doesn't have one.
Thanks.
Yep, I wouldn't worry about it a bit. The driving school I worked at a few summers back had a fleet of 7 NAs, and every one of them had bone stock cooling systems. Those things were beaten harder than a rented mule, regardless of whether it was 30F out, or 115F out. Never had one overheat on track.
Even with the turbo and full Florida heat it usually takes at least 20 minutes of flogging to start cooking the car. For a naturally aspirated 1.6 (That's a N/A-NA to you) you should not have much trouble with track work.
I never had an overheating problem with a Miata with a stock radiator on the track. In fact, I ran a modified thermostat like the Spec Miata guys do for a while, and the car wouldn't even warm up to a reasonable operating temperature, so I went back to a stock one.
On the flip side, I've seen 1.6 Miatas have trouble staying cool on the street. I'm not sure what it is, but their cooling systems are a bit weaker than the 1.8 ones, stock. It's not a huge problem and a car with a cooling system in good nick without any restrictions in the mouth of the car should be fine.
My cars were 1.8s, so that may have been a factor. Plus, I wasn't running nose to tail the whole time.
The first session of the year usually comes in late-March here. So temps usually only getting up into the 50-60s, so that should be a good initial test.
Like I said, just wanted to make sure it wasn't one of those things that was crucial.
