Mach 1 Track Build & Dark Horse Overheating + Trans Failures – Need Proven Cooling Setup

[Ring_Mach1]

@Ring_Mach1 your pics don't appear to show any true hood venting?

Race Louvers - Ford Mustang Hood Louvers & Fender Vents

Wind tunnel tested hybrid hood vents and heat extractors - Mustang hood louvers provide maximum cooling and downforce.

racelouvers.com

https://racelouvers.com/content/Race-Louvers-GT350-GT4-Wind-Tunnel-Data.pdf

Welcome!

Yes, I still don't have any hood vents. That's probably something I really need to address next.

Have you looked at the cooling modifications on the GT4 Dark Horse R cars? They have the largest Setrab oil cooler, an aftermarket radiator, and large holes drilled through the fan shroud to let air pass through the shroud at speed.

There are aftermarket transmission fluid coolers, too.

I see stevebd already mentioned venting the hood - if you get that air into the coolers and radiator, you need some way to let it out, or you will be restricting air flow.

I'm currently installing the largest ProLine Setrab oil cooler available. Hopefully it'll be enough. With the stock Mach 1 oil cooler, I've seen engine oil temperatures as high as 158°C (316.4°F).

Did you get this installed yet?

I recently installed a CANchecked display. I'm reading engine oil temperature from a sandwich plate, and for the TR-3160 transmission I installed a temperature sensor in the drain plug. The transmission stays between 80-90°C (176-194°F), which I think is perfectly fine. The engine oil, however, gets far too hot, as mentioned above. I also upgraded to the Ford Performance water pump.

I think my next priority should definitely be adding hood vents. But first, I'm really curious to see how much of a difference the new oil cooler will make.
One more thing: I'm also monitoring coolant temperature, cylinder head temperature, and differential temperature through the OBD data.
I've heard that the coolant temperature shown over OBD is actually a calculated value rather than being measured directly. Is that correct?
I'm also planning to switch the differential over to 75W-140 gear oil for the next track events.

Thanks again for all the replies and the great feedback. It's really interesting to see how everyone approaches these issues and what setups people are running.
Here in Germany, there are actually very few people who seriously dive into this level of track preparation and data analysis on these cars, so it's been incredibly helpful to hear from people with real experience. I really appreciate everyone taking the time to share their knowledge.

best Tim

 

[Junkyard Dog]

Yes, I still don't have any hood vents. That's probably something I really need to address next.

I'm currently installing the largest ProLine Setrab oil cooler available. Hopefully it'll be enough. With the stock Mach 1 oil cooler, I've seen engine oil temperatures as high as 158°C (316.4°F).

I recently installed a CANchecked display. I'm reading engine oil temperature from a sandwich plate, and for the TR-3160 transmission I installed a temperature sensor in the drain plug. The transmission stays between 80-90°C (176-194°F), which I think is perfectly fine. The engine oil, however, gets far too hot, as mentioned above. I also upgraded to the Ford Performance water pump.

I think my next priority should definitely be adding hood vents. But first, I'm really curious to see how much of a difference the new oil cooler will make.
One more thing: I'm also monitoring coolant temperature, cylinder head temperature, and differential temperature through the OBD data.
I've heard that the coolant temperature shown over OBD is actually a calculated value rather than being measured directly. Is that correct?
I'm also planning to switch the differential over to 75W-140 gear oil for the next track events.

Thanks again for all the replies and the great feedback. It's really interesting to see how everyone approaches these issues and what setups people are running.
Here in Germany, there are actually very few people who seriously dive into this level of track preparation and data analysis on these cars, so it's been incredibly helpful to hear from people with real experience. I really appreciate everyone taking the time to share their knowledge.

best Tim

View attachment 111020

Just curious whether you have video from your cars at Nurburgring? I am sure plenty of us would want to watch.

 

[Ring_Mach1]

Just curious whether you have video from your cars at Nurburgring? I am sure plenty of us would want to watch.

here one onboard viedo. and you can find a bit more at my insta @Ring_Mach1

 

[Gunslinger55]

Interesting thread. For what it’s worth i track my dark horse in arizona desert and recently was at chuckwalla when ambient temps were over 105 F. I tracked pretty hard 2 days 8 sessions and never had a temp issue with factory setup. Even with AC on. I do agree more cooling more better. As a pilot i do like real guages better than computed values for temp and pressure……Probably worth putting in mechanical guages for all the important stuff….

Interested to hear what the dark horse R radiator is

 

[Gunslinger55]

here one onboard viedo. and you can find a bit more at my insta @Ring_Mach1

Awesome! Looks like the Mach 1 working pretty good to me! Love interior car setup what cage is that? The minivan with rooftop tent on the ring was priceless

What is the display bar above the tach? a brake indicator? Cool video and data what system is that?

Thanks for the video great day on the track in the rain!

 

[Ring_Mach1]

Interesting thread. For what it’s worth i track my dark horse in arizona desert and recently was at chuckwalla when ambient temps were over 105 F. I tracked pretty hard 2 days 8 sessions and never had a temp issue with factory setup. Even with AC on. I do agree more cooling more better. As a pilot i do like real guages better than computed values for temp and pressure……Probably worth putting in mechanical guages for all the important stuff….

Interested to hear what the dark horse R radiator is

That's impressive. Once the ambient temperature reaches around 22°C (72°F), I can get my Dark Horse up to 140°C (284°F) oil temperature pretty quickly.

That said, those are still the calculated values from the factory system. I really need to install proper sensors. I actually thought Ford had finally added a dedicated oil temperature sensor to the Dark Horse, but it turns out I was mistaken.

My Mach 1 does have a real oil temperature sensor, and it gets brutally hot on track.

Awesome! Looks like the Mach 1 working pretty good to me! Love interior car setup what cage is that? The minivan with rooftop tent on the ring was priceless

What is the display bar above the tach? a brake indicator? Cool video and data what system is that?

Thanks for the video great day on the track in the rain!

Yeah, the Mach 1 is running really well and is incredibly fast through the corners—but it suffers from serious overheating. I've seen oil temperatures as high as 158°C (316°F) on track.

I'm currently installing a much larger oil cooler, so I'm hoping that will finally solve the issue.

The roll cage is from AST (Spain).

Touristenfahrten at the Nürburgring are both a blessing and a curse. You can drive as much as you want, which is amazing, but every now and then the track gets a little insane.

The display you're referring to is the shift light indicator. You can configure it in the Mustang's Pony menu. I set mine a bit below the maximum useful RPM because I've already destroyed far too many transmissions. I'm hoping the earlier shift light will remind me to shift a little sooner and be a bit kinder to the gearbox.

For the video, I used three GoPros, which I synchronized in post-production.

 

[ArizonaBOSS]

For the S650, Mishimoto does not make a 52mm radiator. 42mm is the thickest core, and not really an upgrade over the stock Dark Horse radiator.

Now that I know that there is a PWR dual pass radiator that fits without fabrication, I am going to find out which one. Maybe it is the 55mm version, but I will look further.

PWR is as good as it gets. Anyone looking for things other than this for serious track use should not only compare the physical size of the radiator but also the fin/tube density of PWR compared to whatever you are looking at. On the S197 the C&R/PWR radiator had 25% more tube density than the Ford Racing piece overall, in addition to a significantly larger surface area--so you are getting a lot more liquid exposed to cooling surface area with that combo. Not sure how the others stack up but do your homework!

 

[Mad Hatter]

You have the better tremec transmission but in may case I went through some five MT82 trannies at the track. My solution was biting the Bullitt and getting a Calimer 3 box with billit gears. They have one for your Mach1 as well.

Stage 3 TR-3160 Rebuild - Calimer Transmissions

Our TR-3160 rebuild package pricing does not include any damaged parts that we may find inside your transmission. If your transmission has damaged internal parts that we need to complete your build, we will contact you upon tear down to invoice for those parts, but no additional labor will be...

calimertransmissions.com

Oddly enough, my gearbox temperatures dropped significantly just with the swap to the stage 3.

 

[TeeLew]

Hi from Germany,

Long story short:
As soon as I push the cars properly on track, I’m clearly running into thermal limits.
What I’m looking for is real-world input on:
Effective cooling solutions (engine, oil, transmission, differential)
Track-proven setups that actually hold up under hard use
Typical temperature ranges for comparable builds
Recommendations for proper monitoring and sensor setups
I’m not looking for theoretical ideas, but for solutions that actually work under real track conditions.
Any input is highly appreciated.

I don't know if anyone has made the A10 transmission work well for track duty. It's going to take a fair amount of coolers and venting to get things under control.

 

[Mad Hatter]

Ahh, good point, I just assumed that it was a manual.... If its the 10spd then good luck!!

 

[Gunslinger55]

That's impressive. Once the ambient temperature reaches around 22°C (72°F), I can get my Dark Horse up to 140°C (284°F) oil temperature pretty quickly.

That said, those are still the calculated values from the factory system. I really need to install proper sensors. I actually thought Ford had finally added a dedicated oil temperature sensor to the Dark Horse, but it turns out I was mistaken.

My Mach 1 does have a real oil temperature sensor, and it gets brutally hot on track.

Yeah, the Mach 1 is running really well and is incredibly fast through the corners—but it suffers from serious overheating. I've seen oil temperatures as high as 158°C (316°F) on track.

I'm currently installing a much larger oil cooler, so I'm hoping that will finally solve the issue.

The roll cage is from AST (Spain).

Touristenfahrten at the Nürburgring are both a blessing and a curse. You can drive as much as you want, which is amazing, but every now and then the track gets a little insane.

The display you're referring to is the shift light indicator. You can configure it in the Mustang's Pony menu. I set mine a bit below the maximum useful RPM because I've already destroyed far too many transmissions. I'm hoping the earlier shift light will remind me to shift a little sooner and be a bit kinder to the gearbox.

For the video, I used three GoPros, which I synchronized in post-production.

Interesting. I’ll have to investigate all this further and see what the solution is. Mechanical analog guages are my preference

 

[Gunslinger55]

He’s got one manual and one auto it sounds like

 

[Ring_Mach1]

hm? NO! i have two MT with tr3160... never had automatic. ;-)

 

[bnight]

That's impressive. Once the ambient temperature reaches around 22°C (72°F), I can get my Dark Horse up to 140°C (284°F) oil temperature pretty quickly.

What CHTs correspond to that numbers 140C is a lot for oil ? Overall if your Coyote is going over 118C CHT you might run into problems.

 

[Gunslinger55]

I think the trans confusing stems from you stating you run mercon as your trans fluid. That’s auto trans fluid which i think is strange in a manual. That’s why i was confused. Or do tremecs require auto trans fluid i haven’t changed mine out yet.

 

[Ring_Mach1]

What CHTs correspond to that numbers 140C is a lot for oil ? Overall if your Coyote is going over 118C CHT you might run into problems.

Was in range of 108-115
But i had at 2 weeks ago a benchmark run… power seems still be okay

I think the trans confusing stems from you stating you run mercon as your trans fluid. That’s auto trans fluid which i think is strange in a manual. That’s why i was confused. Or do tremecs require auto trans fluid i haven’t changed mine out yet.

Yes, the Tremec requires Mercon ATF. It’s basically as thin as water, so I change the fluid very frequently. I’ve never tried a different oil.

 

[665.0coupe]

I think the trans confusing stems from you stating you run mercon as your trans fluid. That’s auto trans fluid which i think is strange in a manual. That’s why i was confused. Or do tremecs require auto trans fluid i haven’t changed mine out yet.

They have been using ATF in manuals since at least the T5/Fox body days.

 

[Junkyard Dog]

I think the trans confusing stems from you stating you run mercon as your trans fluid. That’s auto trans fluid which i think is strange in a manual. That’s why i was confused. Or do tremecs require auto trans fluid i haven’t changed mine out yet.

Gunslinger55, Mercon is what Ford puts in the Tremec.

Tremec Fluid

Does anyone know what fluid Ford is putting in these gearboxes at the factory? I think they are coming to Ford dry because they have to hook up the cooler lines.

www.mustang7g.com

 

[bnight]

Was in range of 108-115
But i had at 2 weeks ago a benchmark run… power seems still be okay

Yes, the Tremec requires Mercon ATF. It’s basically as thin as water, so I change the fluid very frequently. I’ve never tried a different oil.

Why not run Motul DCTF like the other mare mortals out there ? In the 108-115C CHT I wouldn't worry too much I think the highest I have seen on mine was 118C or so CHT. And my oil is dark but fine in the 3000 km changes I do.

 

[steveespo]

Why not run Motul DCTF like the other mare mortals out there ? In the 108-115C CHT I wouldn't worry too much I think the highest I have seen on mine was 118C or so CHT. And my oil is dark but fine in the 3000 km changes I do.

Because it is not compatible with the syncronizers in the 3160. Mercon LV is the correct fluid for GT350/Bullit/Mach 1 and Dark Horse 3160 transmissions.