does your car run better Hot or cold.

[Froyd79]

obviously icing the intake on a drag setup is good but for daily driven 12 to 13 second cars do you let your car cool or just run it at normal operating temps. Trying to guage if im wasting time trying to keep it cool at the track. In my experience my car ran better at normal temps than if I let my fans on and let it cool for extended periods of time. Any info guys!

 

[CanadianTSi]

I just keep my hood up in the staging lanes until I'm just about to run.

 

[highpsi93tsi]

Definetly better when hot (you know how they run when cold......sAD) First few times at the track Id be running both fans, hood open, popping the hood on the return road..It dont mean shit. Heat=detonation. These cars dont detonate unless much boost and shitty gas. Run it hot. A stable temp is better for consistency as well. If you had a dry sump, then cooling that would make sence but blowing cold air on the block doesnt do much else than screw with the maf/IATS VS oil temp. Run it the way its meant to be run, ice down the intake and upper IC pipe. Cooling down is for cars w Carburators. Not cars with ECUs and actual operating temps.

 

[Froyd79]

the running it hot scenario seemed to happen to happen to me alot. At least now I know it is common. Thanks P:

 

[green92gsx]

You want your water temp to be up to 180* for full advance from the ecu by the time you stage. You have to time it right,you don't want to go up and stage at 200* with your fans blowing either.
I rest for 30-45min between each pass. This gives enough time for the clutch to cool also.

 

[diambo4life]

You want your water temp to be up to 180* for full advance from the ecu by the time you stage. You have to time it right,you don't want to go up and stage at 200* with your fans blowing either.
I rest for 30-45min between each pass. This gives enough time for the clutch to cool also.

What he ^^^^ says. My car always runs quickest on my very first run and when the car has cooled off for a considerable amount of time. I also like doing 30-45min breaks if the track is not too busy. It's good for the clutch as well although I have produced very good consistent back to back 60's (low 1.7s) on the ACT 2600 without any slipping.

When I say back to back runs, I mean literally driving back to stage the car after a run. Yeah, the track was pretty slow that day.

 

[1LE]

Mine runs a whole let better if it's at full operating temperature. Our local track is never busy so I was able to crank off 10 runs in about an hour the couple of times I've gone out.

 

[diambo4life]

I was able to crank off 10 runs in about an hour

You will never get decent times without giving ample cool down before runs. After your third run, you probably can not even put your hand on the intake manifold due to the heat it's dissipating and let's not forget the greatest killer of clutches is heat.

Why do you think turbo cars run fastest when the weather is cooler? Same concept. Lower IAT.

It takes less than 5 minutes for a car to get to operating temperature. No need to do that to your car. Just my opinion.

 

[bad71camaro]

Mine runs a whole let better if it's at full operating temperature. Our local track is never busy so I was able to crank off 10 runs in about an hour the couple of times I've gone out.

That must be nice your lucky to get 2 runs in a 6hr period at out track