Ariel.Club Forum

His Atom will over heat , for sure if he pushes it on the track.
we had a trackday in France the 14 and 15 July with Atom 2 300 , Atom 3 300, Atom 3 350 "R" and Atom 4 350.
The 14 July till 28°c, all was good for all Atoms but when temp continues going up till 35°, only the Atom 4 were not able to do two consecutive track laps. Each time water temp was going up to more than 105°c so with half turbo pressure and an engine potential problem and this problem starts when it was 28°c outside.

No wings, ‘just’ 320bhp, I suspect lots of cool down laps, finding shade and hydration. I may just take it as an opportunity to take folks out for passenger laps, take it easy and enjoy introducing people to the Atom world.

anx10us wrote: ↑Sun Jul 17, 2022 6:31 pm No wings, ‘just’ 320bhp, I suspect lots of cool down laps, finding shade and hydration. I may just take it as an opportunity to take folks out for passenger laps, take it easy and enjoy introducing people to the Atom world.

Do you have the high performance track/hot country cooling package (high performance, higher flowing radiator, electric water pump and a lower temperature thermostat)? I just added this to my build to try to reducing overheating, mine will be 320 bhp and no aero.

The latest Atom 4 i have imported 4 months ago has all the cooling package and overheat just a little bit later than other ones about 30/31°c instead of 28°c ...

PhilM wrote: ↑Sun Jul 17, 2022 7:45 pm

anx10us wrote: ↑Sun Jul 17, 2022 6:31 pm No wings, ‘just’ 320bhp, I suspect lots of cool down laps, finding shade and hydration. I may just take it as an opportunity to take folks out for passenger laps, take it easy and enjoy introducing people to the Atom world.

Do you have the high performance track/hot country cooling package (high performance, higher flowing radiator, electric water pump and a lower temperature thermostat)? I just added this to my build to try to reducing overheating, mine will be 320 bhp and no aero.

Is all this gathered in the the high performance intercooler and radiator option? (As your summary seems like 5 things and I want all the cooling in my build)

Monza wrote: ↑Sun Jul 17, 2022 7:50 pm The latest Atom 4 i have imported 4 months ago has all the cooling package and overheat just a little bit later than other ones about 30/31°c instead of 28°c ...

Thanks for the info, were they fitted with aero and 350 upgrade?

speedmachine wrote: ↑Sun Jul 17, 2022 8:32 pm

PhilM wrote: ↑Sun Jul 17, 2022 7:45 pm

anx10us wrote: ↑Sun Jul 17, 2022 6:31 pm No wings, ‘just’ 320bhp, I suspect lots of cool down laps, finding shade and hydration. I may just take it as an opportunity to take folks out for passenger laps, take it easy and enjoy introducing people to the Atom world.

Do you have the high performance track/hot country cooling package (high performance, higher flowing radiator, electric water pump and a lower temperature thermostat)? I just added this to my build to try to reducing overheating, mine will be 320 bhp and no aero.

Is all this gathered in the the high performance intercooler and radiator option? (As your summary seems like 5 things and I want all the cooling in my build)

The items listed in my post above are what you get with the High Performance Track/Hot Country Cooling Package. The High Performance Sports Core Turbo Intercooler is a different item, I haven't included that in my build, as I don't believe it will have much effect on engine coolant temperatures.

[mention]PhilM[/mention] yes 350 hp with aero, but even in boost 2 position and no frontwing, it overheats, as written.

As anyone tried flushing the coolant and replacing with non antifreeze one for the summer ?
Using Sikolene Pro CCA Ultra (or Mocool) with distilled water is supposedly up to 20% better on heat transfer

alanoo wrote: ↑Mon Jul 18, 2022 7:44 am As anyone tried flushing the coolant and replacing with non antifreeze one for the summer ?
Using Sikolene Pro CCA Ultra (or Mocool) with distilled water is supposedly up to 20% better on heat transfer

I think that Yorkshire has done this.
I used to use a waterless coolant (Powercool 180) on a couple of different cars and it certainly worked well. I suspect that ceramic coating the exhaust will also help heat soak although Tom had previously told me he didn't think that it would.

If I was running wings, I'd definitely go waterless coolant as it's relatively cheap and easy to do.

Cheers,
Stu

waterless are supposed to be less efficient, but deal better with air locks and boiling point, in a way that you can run safely high temperatures (120+) with it.
But that would need mapping changes in safety maps to make sense

There's no question that Atom 4 coolant temps can be a real problem on track, but it only seems to be once they reach 100degC that performance starts to be impacted. This issue has been highlighted previously, notably by Simon Hart, and he did a lot of work to try to get the temps down, but sold his car before all the work he'd done could be properly evaluated in terms of it's effectiveness.

Latterly, in conjunction with a couple Atom 4 owners and the invaluable services of Corten Miller Motorsport, I've been associated with steps to adopt some of what Simon did/suggested together with some additional measures, several of which are ongoing. Currently we feel the main issue is that the radiator simply isn't seeing sufficient airflow due to the relatively small cross-section area of the 4's nose cone opening. More on efforts to overcome this will be posted as and when further progress is made.

I have changed all my coolant to VP Race ready coolant (the blue one not purple) but until i have finished my tune i can't really report any facts. I know my car ran up to 108 degrees at Donnington Park so waiting to see if any change before i alter anything else. Bob Smith came up with an idea re more air into the front which i have also made in aluminium to divert air that went under the nose (front wing fitted) into the radiator but wanted to fit that after i have some data on water temps without it (but on the same day).
My last Atom 3.5R had 2 radiators but as there are no fixing points for something similar on the Atom 4 it may take a little more work but my gut feeling is more radiator volume is needed. I do have a zircotec downpipe and link pipe and downpipe/intake blankets too.

FYI I saw on one of the Facebook posts that Steve at the factory has got someone assigned to look at the cooling issues now so it'll be interesting to see what they come up with.

Spoke to Steve at the factory Tuesday re update on cooling and he explained that they have someone working on it as before and its working progress, so hopefully more news soon

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