Can ya’ll help school me cooler placement and weight distribution?

[honeybadger]

Howdy!

While I have the car down some work, I am looking At making some modifications to my diff and trans cooling systems. So far I’ve been thinking about two general approaches:

1. Leave the trans cooler where it is (in front of the passenger tire) and move the diff cooler to where the engine cooler used to be (in front of the driver front tire). This would be simplest and much of the work is already done. Plus, adding a big diffuser in the rear would be easier as well. Cons are the added weight up front and remove even more weight from the rear. I’d estimate the car is probably around 56-44 right based on others’ I’ve seen

2. Second option is to move both cooler to the back of the car Under the spare tire well. I was thinking of a pair of small setrab coolers with fans on them laid against the bottom of the car would probably be sufficient. This would help move some weight backwards and educe drag upfront, but it would be more complicated with the fans and a bit more limited with the diffuser size/placement. Getting enough airflow miget be challenging as well.

What are your thoughts? Are the complications worth working towards a 50-50 distribution and reduced drag? Is there an easier way to do it?

 

[bob]

IMO the radiator location is pretty decently protected. I never like coolers out front that can get hit and end my race or weekend. Many put coolers under the headlight area wack antoher car and are done for the weekend. 100% put diff coolers by the diff. It the trans cooler can go in the back that's better too. Sometimes you need a big trans cooler depending on car or racing DCT's as an example and you need a big cooler out in from by radiator. For racecars you want robustness. Think about the routing of lines and where you put untested things. Boris Said got burnt in the LG motorsports vette because a fuel line got moved onto hot exhaust due to minor race contact. Those kinds of things should never happen. OEM's engineer where things should go for many reasons. Then we go and convert cars to racing with very little thought other than does it fit. There is more to it than that.

 

[honeybadger]

IMO the radiator location is pretty decently protected. I never like coolers out front that can get hit and end my race or weekend. Many put coolers under the headlight area wack antoher car and are done for the weekend. 100% put diff coolers by the diff. It the trans cooler can go in the back that's better too. Sometimes you need a big trans cooler depending on car or racing DCT's as an example and you need a big cooler out in from by radiator. For racecars you want robustness. Think about the routing of lines and where you put untested things. Boris Said got burnt in the LG motorsports vette because a fuel line got moved onto hot exhaust due to minor race contact. Those kinds of things should never happen. OEM's engineer where things should go for many reasons. Then we go and convert cars to racing with very little thought other than does it fit. There is more to it than that.

Thanks, bob! This is some good insight...especially about how vulnerable the cooler is up front in front of the wheels. Have you seen any good examples of getting airflow to coolers in the rear without relying 100% on fans?

 

[bob]

Thanks, bob! This is some good insight...especially about how vulnerable the cooler is up front in front of the wheels. Have you seen any good examples of getting airflow to coolers in the rear without relying 100% on fans?

Well I'm a newbie to the S550 chassis. I took the trans cooler and repurposed it to be a diff cooler and put it without fan at the end of the spare tire well. By chance I found out the gt350 diff cooler is right there and no fan and about the smae size as the trans cooler I repurposed. I don't race in texas heat unless traveling to cota. I avoid summer racing in general so I have not challenged my diff in high ambient temps. I'm SCCA T2 racing the S550 GT A10 and so that's why I needed giant cooler for the trans and repurposed the factory one. Racecar development is constant so we'll see if I need more diff cooling in the future. So far 5 races I'm OK when on my 1st trackday shakedown I got the overtemp diff warning in my 1st 3 laps with 300miles on my odometer.