ZL1 OEM Heat Soak & Heat Exchangers

[TrekGTO]

Originally Posted by mlee

I'm re-reading this thread after some conversations I had at the fest on heat soak and intercoolers. Seems both of you guys I've quoted are right in line with what was discussed. Intercooler may not be needed as much as I originally thought. The reservoir under the SC is where the heat is and in a 1/4 mile run IATs will rise a certain amount no mater what HX you have. Also, it blocks other coolers making oil temps etc run hotter.

I'm thinking about just doing a reservoir and leave the HX out. Just get some another .5 gal of volume flowing.

Any thoughts?

The reservoir is always a good idea, best of all it gives you a fill cap. Also if you do power upgrades in the future the reservoir is never outdated. They are a bit expensive but consider its a limited production item. We offer a 2 piece reservoir upgrade for the CTS V that is very popular with or without the Super Chiller.

[white ZL1]

Originally Posted by mlee

I'm re-reading this thread after some conversations I had at the fest on heat soak and intercoolers. Seems both of you guys I've quoted are right in line with what was discussed. Intercooler may not be needed as much as I originally thought. The reservoir under the SC is where the heat is and in a 1/4 mile run IATs will rise a certain amount no mater what HX you have. Also, it blocks other coolers making oil temps etc run hotter.

I'm thinking about just doing a reservoir and leave the HX out. Just get some another .5 gal of volume flowing.

Any thoughts?

Mike,

I just spent the last few hours reading as many posts about heat exchangers and reservoirs as I could. Just doing some planning for this winter.
KDi posted some rather interesting data about IAT2 temps using only their heat exchanger.

Originally Posted by KD Innovations

It's 95 degrees here today so I decided it would be a good day to get some additional data on the New Era intake and KDi HX too see how they are performing in the heat.

Driving around at 10 mph and up, IAT1's registered 95 degrees. That means with that intake designed to be directly in the airflow, IAT1 temps were the same as ambient! It's doesn't get any better.
Idling at stop lights they picked up 10 degrees as expected and as soon as the car start moving, they dropped immediately back to ambient.

IAT2's were ambient +5 in the same conditions. The intercooler seeing 5 degrees over ambient with a 9.1/2.5 pulley combo on a 95 degrees day is more than excellent. The HX is doing a fantastic job. Idling at lights the IAT2's did not increase at all. They stayed steady at 5 degrees over ambient.

I did a 1/4 mile pull and IAT2's increased 27 degrees. I let off at 135 mph and IAT2's dropped right back down within a few seconds.

I am very impressed with how the car can be idled at a light on a 95 degree day to get some heat soak into it and perform like this. It really shows the cooling performance of these to mods. This ZL1 has a cam, headers, upper and lower pulley, ported blower and ported heads so it is making a lot of power and staying far cooler than stock!

- Keith

There were also some other posts where Keith said that ECT temps were unaffected by his hx.

That said, depending on what air intake I end up running I might do as you're thinking and just run a reservoir with the stock hx and see what happens. I datalog the shit out my cars, so I'll have some good data to look back on to see whether or not the reservoir by itself is working well enough. But I'm not expecting it to.

[mlee]

Originally Posted by white 2SS/RS

Mike,

I just spent the last few hours reading as many posts about heat exchangers and reservoirs as I could. Just doing some planning for this winter.
KDi posted some rather interesting data about IAT2 temps using only their heat exchanger.



There were also some other posts where Keith said that ECT temps were unaffected by his hx.

That said, depending on what air intake I end up running I might do as you're thinking and just run a reservoir with the stock hx and see what happens. I datalog the shit out my cars, so I'll have some good data to look back on to see whether or not the reservoir by itself is working well enough. But I'm not expecting it to.

Thanks for the info, I know I'll be doing an ADM CAI, and still looking around for a reservoir. Sort of leaning toward the D3 reservoir, but will definitely need to do some logging and see how it goes.

[mlee]

Originally Posted by TrekGTO

The reservoir is always a good idea, best of all it gives you a fill cap. Also if you do power upgrades in the future the reservoir is never outdated. They are a bit expensive but consider its a limited production item. We offer a 2 piece reservoir upgrade for the CTS V that is very popular with or without the Super Chiller.

Do you have a reservoir for the ZL1?

[jessrayo]

I know some of you guys have been reading this thread that started on a Heat soak topic and I have about 3 more hours of road course track time and fifteen 1/4 mile passes on my car since the last post. All of these were performed in ambient temps between 95 and 106. I have the LPE reservoir and a Ron Davis heat exchanger in my grill. In the quarter mile I had no issues with timing retard or fluid boiling but it is over in 12 seconds and by the time I coast up the return road and stage again the fluids in the car are cooled to levels that don't affect timing.

First for road course driving, my girlfriend never boiled the intercooler fluid in a complete 30 minute session and she was going fast enough to pass 2 spec miatas and a stock boxster. On the other hand, I was unable to sustain more than about 10 minutes of maximum driving without retarded timing due to excess intake air temps. Eventually enough supercharger coolant boils over that the pump dries up and then all engine temps skyrocket in about another 2 minutes. I did this about 5 times with no apparent damage to the pump, LPE reservoir is bubbled and neck of filler cap is no longer round. Probably no longer holds the 4 or 5 lbs of pressure it was designed to take. It works for drag racing but not for road racing in 100+ degree Texas heat.

I wish the chiller would be an easy fix but I don't think it will work and here is why. In the afternoon when the temp got up to 106 I left the car idling and cooled the inside of the car with the A/C on max and then entered the track with the windows up and A/C on max in the car. After about 2 laps it got so hot in the car I had to open the windows because the A/C only comes on when I'm braking, I'm almost always above 85% throttle and that kicks off the A/C. And secondly, heat is heat, it has to go somewhere and any heat removed by the A/C system ends up in the condenser right in front of the radiator so basically if you take heat out of the intake coolant you put some of it back into the radiator. For now that would be okay, but what if the engine water starts to boil like it did in my CTS-V?

My current plan is swapping in the LS9 blower with the adapter Lingenfelter just completed and shipped (it has a larger heat exchanger under the blower). ADM is replacing the LPE reservoir with a trunk mounted unit surrounding the battery, aprox 3 gallon capacity. Maybe a larger pressure cap on the system. Andy talked to the engineers at Lingenfelter and they told him that they know of nobody trying to push so much horsepower for such an extended period of time in such extreme heat as I'm doing so I'm kind of the test mule.

[BaylorCamaro]

Originally Posted by mlee

Thanks for the info, I know I'll be doing an ADM CAI, and still looking around for a reservoir. Sort of leaning toward the D3 reservoir, but will definitely need to do some logging and see how it goes.

Attachment 544768

I'll let you test this stuff out, hurry up please.

Originally Posted by jessrayo

I know some of you guys have been reading this thread that started on a Heat soak topic and I have about 3 more hours of road course track time and fifteen 1/4 mile passes on my car since the last post. All of these were performed in ambient temps between 95 and 106. I have the LPE reservoir and a Ron Davis heat exchanger in my grill. In the quarter mile I had no issues with timing retard or fluid boiling but it is over in 12 seconds and by the time I coast up the return road and stage again the fluids in the car are cooled to levels that don't affect timing.

First for road course driving, my girlfriend never boiled the intercooler fluid in a complete 30 minute session and she was going fast enough to pass 2 spec miatas and a stock boxster. On the other hand, I was unable to sustain more than about 10 minutes of maximum driving without retarded timing due to excess intake air temps. Eventually enough supercharger coolant boils over that the pump dries up and then all engine temps skyrocket in about another 2 minutes. I did this about 5 times with no apparent damage to the pump, LPE reservoir is bubbled and neck of filler cap is no longer round. Probably no longer holds the 4 or 5 lbs of pressure it was designed to take. It works for drag racing but not for road racing in 100+ degree Texas heat.

I wish the chiller would be an easy fix but I don't think it will work and here is why. In the afternoon when the temp got up to 106 I left the car idling and cooled the inside of the car with the A/C on max and then entered the track with the windows up and A/C on max in the car. After about 2 laps it got so hot in the car I had to open the windows because the A/C only comes on when I'm braking, I'm almost always above 85% throttle and that kicks off the A/C. And secondly, heat is heat, it has to go somewhere and any heat removed by the A/C system ends up in the condenser right in front of the radiator so basically if you take heat out of the intake coolant you put some of it back into the radiator. For now that would be okay, but what if the engine water starts to boil like it did in my CTS-V?

My current plan is swapping in the LS9 blower with the adapter Lingenfelter just completed and shipped (it has a larger heat exchanger under the blower). ADM is replacing the LPE reservoir with a trunk mounted unit surrounding the battery, aprox 3 gallon capacity. Maybe a larger pressure cap on the system. Andy talked to the engineers at Lingenfelter and they told him that they know of nobody trying to push so much horsepower for such an extended period of time in such extreme heat as I'm doing so I'm kind of the test mule.

I'm very interested to see your results. I don't really plan to do too much drag racing in my Z, the 1/4 just doesn't do it for me anymore. Road racing/courses/etc is way more fun and like you mentioned you have much longer sustained speed so I would like to see what you come up with.

[TrekGTO]

Originally Posted by mlee

Do you have a reservoir for the ZL1?

I like the plastic reservoirs from Roto Fab, I think Lingenfelter also sell them. They have a little more insulation from heat than aluminum. Also the plastic doesn't sweat as bad as aluminum if you go with a Super Chiller.

[jessrayo]

Originally Posted by TrekGTO

I like the plastic reservoirs from Roto Fab, I think Lingenfelter also sell them. They have a little more insulation from heat than aluminum. Also the plastic doesn't sweat as bad as aluminum if you go with a Super Chiller.

From the sound of this you are putting the reservoir in line right after the chiller, this does not make sense to me. If I had my choice I would put the chiller directly before the supercharger to get the coldest water possible into the supercharger. If you cool it and then dump it in the reservoir it will just have time to absorb more heat from the other stuff under the hood. I really would like to see a plumbing diagram for this system. Does your system use the stock pump in front of the grill mounted heat exchanger or do you use another pump? I have heard others say the grill mounted heat exchanger is bypassed, is this true with your system?

If I can figure out a way to make this thing help I will try it. But right now I'm pretty skeptical.

[BattleScarredSoldier]

Originally Posted by mlee

Thanks for the info, I know I'll be doing an ADM CAI, and still looking around for a reservoir. Sort of leaning toward the D3 reservoir, but will definitely need to do some logging and see how it goes.

Attachment 544768

Did you end up going with just the reservoir or doing the hx?

[mlee]

Originally Posted by BattleScarredSoldier

Did you end up going with just the reservoir or doing the hx?

I did the D3 Reservoir and a Ron Davis HeatX. Very happy with the setup and IATs are pretty much under control now.

[BattleScarredSoldier]

Originally Posted by mlee

I did the D3 Reservoir and a Ron Davis HeatX. Very happy with the setup and IATs are pretty much under control now.

Thanks!! Im going to go ahead and order those today. I pretty much always take your advice Mike, whether its on this forum, H town Camaro Club, or on fb, thanks for always giving good feedback and input. Hopefully, whenever they let me come home, I will catch up to you around Houston.

[hammdo]

mlee, did you also upgrade your radiator? Whats your coolant mix (for the intercooler/hx)? I'm running 65% distilled, 35% straight dexcool with water-wetter for intercooler and radiator...

-Don

[KaBoom1701]

I'm thinking of doing the D3 reservoir myself....just wish they weren't so expensive...

[BattleScarredSoldier]

Lol yeah those D3 reservoirs are expensive, i just ordered one this weekend. Still deciding which hx to go with though.