The curious case of the Atom 4 Cooling

[Monza]

On the Atom 2, 3 and 3.5, but that's not the subject discussed here, the fan and the optional electrical pump are driven by the water temp sensor only (both starting together at about 92-95°c).

[robfitz]

On my Elise with a K20 on ITBs we replaced the mechanical water pump with a BMW efficient dynamics electric one. Even with a separate controller we ran too cool until we put a thermostat and a bypass loop back in.

I have the uprated cooling on the Atom with the EWP and I think it just keeps the flow moving when the mechanical pump would be slowing down.

Isn’t there a risk that the opening and the radiator are just too small for the amount of cooling that is needed?

[Yorkshire]

Although before that I think we are going to try to route more air directly at the radiator.

Based on Bob Smiths original idea's i have made this as a first attempt although i'm waiting till on track so i can log temps before then fit and try.

Photo's of intake and air catcher i made.

[salvechris]

Don´t know if this getting on top of the "may be too small cooling intake"
but if you look behind the radiator, it is very hot there. even the fuse box is for my feeling to hot.
May be it is not just getting more air into the radiator but also to get the hot air after the radiator better managend to not build-up heat???

[robfitz]

I think that sounds plausible - there is no obvious clean exit pathway for the hot air.

[mynamesnotbob]

Don´t know if this getting on top of the "may be too small cooling intake"
but if you look behind the radiator, it is very hot there. even the fuse box is for my feeling to hot.
May be it is not just getting more air into the radiator but also to get the hot air after the radiator better managend to not build-up heat???

Agree with that, touch the relays even after a short drive and they are toasty, I though there was an issue at first - it seems to have a dead spot.

My car is the ex Simon car mentioned earlier, it came with plenty of gold stuff, some of which needed reapplying and also added the turbo jacket - alas I can't verify if there is a massive improvement as I haven't done any track work, only N. Wales road trips, which although fast paced will never see the amount of load you see on track engine wise

Anyway, much like Jasons the car has:

Fuel tank done (no pics at the moment)

Airbox, negligible gain, but not pointless:



Airbox to turbo (runs over turbo)



Airbox to Turbo with Coolant lines also wrapped to avoid heat soak:



Intercooler cool side to intake manifold





Funk turbo jacket added:



DEI heatsheld added in replacement of the OE Ali sheet item:



The exhaust is also lagged from downpipe with a jacket, and the DEI material over decat back to the sports exhaust, you can see the lagging here, I'm just not at home to take pics of the rest of it, but the whole exhaust after the turbo is shielded



I have an oil cooler sitting there ready to go on, but for my driving its just not needed - temps barely move, but again I am not a track monster and haven't had the chance to get on track. It may be needed on track perhaps, but for the road I don't want to introduce more connections in the oil circuit for the sake of it.

I would look to intercooler next if there was still an issue to reduce the IAT's as I believe the intercooler could do with some work. I would hope there would be real improvement in the work that was done before the car, but I couldn't tell you if this was due to IAT reduction or coolant reduction prevented it pulling timing.

The logging done at the time was logging the water temp and IAT (but focusing very heavily on water) and matching that to speed - thats correlation not causation, so really would need logging from the ECU to tell you what measure was pulling the timing. I suspect without the engine entering limp mode via coolant trigger, it was infact the IAT's - looking at the logs Simon posted the biggest improvements after the goldification process was indeed to the IAT's rather than coolant.

But again, its guesstimating at best without logging on the ECU to see root cause

Only other thing to add the heat soak measured with an IR probe was something like 50% down on the turbo heatshield and surrounding pipework, on an unshielded 350 4 vs mine all lagged and covered, so its doing something

[speedmachine]

[mention]mynamesnotbob[/mention] the last sentence, by shielded turbo, you mean the funk jacket for the turbo or that and all the gold stuff together?
I think such a jacket should make a big difference, had one on my big turbo scooby and it made ALL the difference for the heatsoak, night and day difference

[mynamesnotbob]

@mynamesnotbob the last sentence, by shielded turbo, you mean the funk jacket for the turbo or that and all the gold stuff together?
I think such a jacket should make a big difference, had one on my big turbo scooby and it made ALL the difference for the heatsoak, night and day difference

The Turbo Jacket and DEI Heatshield (this stuff https://www.designengineering.com/form- ... d-21-x-48/) in place of the Ali factory item - one you could taste a marshmallow off, the other (mine) you can virtually touch - both after a flat out run

The DEI is on the exhaust running under the sump, so has a beneficial effect on oil temp (I'd imagine).

The gold stuff is all useful and helps, but until you get the hot side of the turbo acting as a massive radiant heat pump, its a loosing battle - but again thats my opinion and until you are running probes in there and monitoring downstream effects, its correlation not causation

[Yorkshire]

My Atom has the full downpipe, under engine pipe and link pipe to silencer zircotec coated, i also have PTP blankets on the downpipe and intake pipe. PRL didn't want me to fit a turbo blanket to my turbo as i have there PRL P600 turbo fitted and it can over time cook the bearings (there words not mine). I'm not a big lover of all the gold tape / covers but needs must. I can see the logic of this on the intercooler pipe that runs behind the turbo so i have ordered that the same goes with the protective tape on the fuel tank for cooler fuel. I'm hoping this will all help.
My tuner wants me to ditch the intercooler and fit an air to water one but with no where to house radiators i'm stuck. Will tune as is now and if doesn't work will look at possibility of side pods like my 3.5R then have space for oil coolers / radiators / possibly more engine cooling depending what result i have from current mods and any future suggestions that come up on this forum. Cheers Stuart

[Curves Junkie]

Don´t know if this getting on top of the "may be too small cooling intake"
but if you look behind the radiator, it is very hot there. even the fuse box is for my feeling to hot.
May be it is not just getting more air into the radiator but also to get the hot air after the radiator better managend to not build-up heat???

Chris, good thinking.
You need to reduce the heat buildup behind the radiator but also get the airstream forced into the radiator at higher pressure.
These measures have significantly increased the efficiency of my car.

You won't be able to avoid logging coolant temp, engine oil temp and intake temp.
Otherwise you will never find where the problem is.
Everything else is fishing in the dark.

[plip1953]

The electric pump on the Atom 4 was not fitted on the earlier Atom 4.
The ECU is in charge of it (if you don't have it on your Atom 4 and want to fit one, the ECU sofware has to be updated).
The electrical pump is a part of the cooling upgrade option : different radiator, electrical pump and lower temp calorstat.
If my memory is good, but not 100% sure here, the electrical pump is starting before the radiator fan or at least, at the same time, so well before 100°c.

I'm assuming (but don't know) that the fan won't be active when roadspeed is above a certain level

If it helps: At least referring to the Atom 3 I could confirm, that once started the fan is running independent from the road speed.

My latest information is that both the rad fan and electric pump (where fitted) kick in together and run whenever coolant temps are higher than 82degC.

And whilst it clearly makes sense to run the electric pump whenever the thermostat is fully open, but I'm surprised that the electric fan supposedly cuts in at such a low temperature. I would have expected at more like 90degC and then cut off when temps fall back to the mid 80s?

I also understand that the fuse for the electric pump has a tendency to blow, so checking before any kind of track action would seem like a good idea.

[plip1953]

ABOVE POST EDITED HERE

My latest information is that both the rad fan and electric pump (where fitted) kick in together and run whenever coolant temps are higher than 84degC.

And whilst it clearly makes sense to run the electric pump whenever the thermostat is fully open, but I'm surprised that the electric fan supposedly cuts in at such a low temperature. I would have expected at more like 90degC and then cut off when temps fall back to the mid 80s?

I also understand that the fuse for the electric pump has a tendency to blow, so checking before any kind of track action would seem like a good idea.

[Mrlizard]

my coolant runs at 96deg just cruising about, doesnt seem to get noticeably higher when pushing it a 'little' but surprised to see people running in the 80's...

[plip1953]

my coolant runs at 96deg just cruising about, doesnt seem to get noticeably higher when pushing it a 'little' but surprised to see people running in the 80's...

Anything in the 90s does seem rather high when simply cruising around.

I've just looked at a recent log of temps over a 13miles fairly spirited pleasure run on rural B roads and the coolant temp varied between 79 and a max of 86degC.

Do you have the uprated cooling package?

[HenryJS]

an FYI - 90s temperatures cruising around is totally normal... that is a temperature that is across the board of manufacturers. Cars run alot hotter these days!