My 131 abarth (never ending) story - 2017 season updates

[miro-1980]

OH NO ,

There is no clutch slipping during the run at all. !

M

[Guy Croft]

THANKS TO MIRO FOR CALLING TO CLARIFY - FOR THOSE LIKE ME WHO GOT CONFUSED - THE HELIX CLUTCH MERELY STARTED TO SLIP AND THE REPLACEMENT LOCALLY SOURCED REPLACEMENT BLEW UP

THE HELIX UNIT IS ON ITS WAY TO ME AND I SHALL RAISE IT WITH THE MANUFACTURER AND BRIEF MIRO ON THE OUTCOME.

THE LIKELY CAUSE IS SIMPLY THAT IT WAS NOT UP TO THE JOB OF REPEATED STANDING STARTS AND WE WILL TRY A CERAMETALLIC 4 BLADE SPRUNG UNIT.

G

[miro-1980]

Guy ,

To exemplify how diligent |I ma in following your advice , suggestion and recommendation ( not to exclude directions) let me report that I just received from bonnet. We will start installing tomorrow.

Now is this quick enough ?

( Do I get a cookie ?)

Miro

[Guy Croft]

only if you have cookies enabled..

Joking apart we discussed some important points re installation and I propose to write something about this for general guidance.

G

[miro-1980]

Guy ,

I will do that over the weekend addressing air flow and temp issues

By the way I read the relevant chapter of your book again and will follow your guidance/instructions on this.

With the light bonnet it from Tomek It will be much easier to install the rear facing vent. It will also have a better ventilation through the side vents .
Installation of undercover will also decrease high pressure from the bottom to improve ventilation of the under bonnet area.

Will look ab the car again today to see possibilities of cooling and venting the brakes whee arches area and trying to vent out hot air from exhaust and the radiator away from the engine bay.

Miro

PS Tomek delivered the bonnet actually in few hours .

M

[TomLouwrier]

hi guys,

Can an oil-water heat exchanger help here?
They've become very popular, almost every car has one now. Most are of a laminar design. These are 3 from VAG, all very well known and easy to get.

VW / Audi / Porsche oil-water heat exchangers, also known as oil coolers.

10161oil_cooler2-med.JPG (31.45 KiB) Viewed 12334 times

I know these are very efficient in exchanging heat, but so far I've found no real data on the absolute value of their effectiveness. It would depend on size and position in the water circuit of course.
You do link control of water and oil temperatures, which I like. They can be bulky, being sandwiched between block and oil filter.
Depending on where you fit them in the bypass circuit or in the main return pipe, they also speed up heating up the oil (which is not really relevant for a dedicated race/rally engine). There are more trade offs to the way you plumb them in.

I'll start a separate thread on this, so we can discuss pro's, con's and trade-offs more in general, apart from this specific case.

regards
Tom

[Guy Croft]

Discuss by all means but on a new thread.

The systems I sell (Mocal/Laminova) have all been track tested by me on competition engines which means I can lay out and recommend lubrication circuits with a high degree of certainty - however as for these OE types discussion will be meaningless without similar evaluation.

I want to point out that whilst using an oil-water heat exchanger solves the problem of heat rejection thru a conventional oil cooler (located in the airstream) removing the oil heat via the cooling system means more work for the radiator and mostly the problem of heat rejection of both circuits (and associated excessive engine temperature-related problems) is poorly tackled by owners, eg: I recently had a call from the owner of a standard 16v Golf GTi used for club circuit race - he wanted a 22 row x 230mm oil cooler (because he could not get the oil temp below 110 deg C). He already had a 16 row - In the course of discussion with me it became clear he had never considered that the root cause of the problem was the heat could not escape from the engine bay.

G

[TomLouwrier]

hi Guy,

OK, new discussion in a separate thread later today as promised.

Of course you are right when stating that the heat taken from the oil will have then to be dispersed by the water radiator. It won't just disappear, it has to go somewhere. But I feel it's easier to set up cool air flow through just one (large, water-)radiator and let both oil and water temperatures be governed by one thermostat.

The ones in the picture are examples, there are many more around.
Both Mocal and Laminova have similar heat exchangers, designed for competition. These are remotely mounted, whereas the VW units are sandwiched under the oil filter like an adaptor plate for a remote oil filter and/or cooler.
It's just that I'm a bit of a magpie for OEM partsbins, and I like the compact and clean install of these. All you need is two water hoses and tee them in just before and after the interior heater (if that is still there).

regards
Tom

[Guy Croft]

uh-oh! You would not use the coolant thermostat to control the oil temp.

The heat exchanger should be rigged with an external stat to monitor oil temp which should be ideally 85 deg C whereas the coolant should be much cooler - 74-5 deg C.

There are graphs somewhere on the site I think done by me, I proved out the optimums some years ago on dyno test of the NHRA 2 liter.

G

[TomLouwrier]

Taking the discussion here
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2549

This thread is about Miro's car, don't want to hijack it.

regards
Tom

[miro-1980]

Thanks Tom,

I appreciate it .

Incidentally I am working on venting the underhood area( or underbonnet as they say in UK).

The light hood from Walezy arrived on one day !

light bonnet small .jpg (44.89 KiB) Viewed 12202 times

We tried a dry fit and decided not to hinge it but put it on four safety clips . This will not endanger the hood/bonnet from being damaged by wind flipping it over and make sure it is held securely to the rest of the body. Fits very well !!!

The selection of rear facing hood vents is not enormous to say the least , w have selected something a bit out of Abarth style ( made for Impreza)

capture #364.jpg (64.68 KiB) Viewed 12202 times

But it is nicely shaped and first of all will fit on the right side of the bonnet ( it is relatively small 190 x 220 mm) has a well shaped air outlet. The outlet is at 90 deg to the bonnet , thus the air pressure from above the bonnet will not clog the vent allowing hot air to escape from under bonnet freely. It was also the only such small well constructed vent we could find. We will paint it red ( car color ) or black - depending what will look better (probably red) .

We are also planning to vent the wheel arches by putting something lite that ...

side vent .jpg (50.36 KiB) Viewed 12202 times

( the black area will be cut and covered by a black net to keep the stones from flying out and hitting the doors or the rear fender)

The actual vents may be different , as we bought few ones and will select the best fit, but this i9s the general idea.

I will also use aluminum plates to cover off as much area under the engine as possible , to decrease the flow of air from under the engine to under hood area , which causes the high pressure under the bonnet not allowing the air to escape from under the hood.

The expectation is to decrease the under bonnet temperature and consequently the lower coolant temperature from current 85 deg C to 75 deg C.

Will keep the readers posted by photos of out work

Miro

PS:

We are also installing an extinguisher system with activation pull handles , external pull handle for the kill switch and the anti fire system, hauling hooks , etc.

in my next posy few pictures from the lest event ...

M

[miro-1980]

Few pictures from the last event....

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in full speed 1 .jpg (39.71 KiB) Viewed 12194 times

on a curve 1 .jpg (43.73 KiB) Viewed 12194 times

cooling off .jpg (67.34 KiB) Viewed 12194 times

Yours truly with Chis Duran the pilot !

just before start.jpg (74.35 KiB) Viewed 12194 times

Paraphrasing words of Makku Allen describing how he trains before Monte Carlo on his Mini. "I was trying to spin the 131 around all day long , but failed ..."

Please look at this, to see how some of my friends managed to become grass hoppers during the race ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxH_IgQlY1U&hd=1

M

[Guy Croft]

Frog 1 * has nicked your seat Miro

G


* French Connection

[miro-1980]

only if you have cookies enabled..

Joking apart we discussed some important points re installation and I propose to write something about this for general guidance.

G

We will be doing it tomorrow. I will take pictures so I can write a short piece how we did it step by step.

Miro

[miro-1980]

Frog 1 * has nicked your seat Miro
G
* French Connection

Guy , I am compromised - you have discovered my true identity.

Now, I will have to go to NY and race my 131 abarth under the NY subway.

M