Separate header tank for SC - Anyone done this?
 

Hi there

I was chatting with a Jaguar tuning specialist and he was explaining to me that though the intercoolers / chargecooler / pump are more than capable for a stock F-type or one with minor modifications, in racing they found a serious leap in continuous power by separating the engine and supercharger cooling from each other.

He said the pump and intercoolers are more than capable, the problem is Jaguar use the one reservoir for both engine and supercharger.

He was explaining to me if you split the two systems you get around a 30 degree drop in SC temperature as the eaton spins so fast it does generate a lot of heat and upgrading the intercooler / chargecooler though it does help is not really the problem and the problem is the shared cooling system.

He was explaining that finding a space under the hood for a separate header tank, some new or modification of hose routing would be a great way to keep the SC/IAT much cooler and would certainly gain plenty of power especially on a tuned car.


As such I wondered if anyone had ventured down the route of dedicated SC cooling for their F-Type yet?

It does make sense as when you fit a super charger to the Mustang, they have their own coolant system which is not shared with engine cooling to keep the SC cooler.

The only talk I heard was about upgrading the separate radiator for the intercooler, but I never even went so far as to look at the system diagrams.

Yeah the specialist I was talking to said the separate header tank route would give far greater gains in temperatures which can yield quite a lot of horsepower particular when racing due to how much cooler the SC would run if on its own dedicated cooling loop so to speak.

I shall probably investigate further with him at somepoint, but he said even on a stock car it would give quite a nice gain as the ECU would never in theory pull timing due to high IAT and other temperature sensors reading high as they'd all be reading much lower.

One of the things I expected to do when I got the car was to log operating parameters through the OBD port. I have a ScanGauge that I've used in the past to watch parameters, plus a bluetooth adapter, but both have the problem that the ECU never shuts off the connection when turn the car off. Thus, I don't have any solid data of my own.

I first used the ScanGauge on my 9-2x, and got a 14F IAT drop by fitting an intake snorkel from a turbo model, instead of drawing air from in the engine comaprtment. I was also able to confirm that the intercooler (air/air) was inadequately sized on my C30. Multiple pulls showed the IAT climbing, matching the "butt dyno" readings of reduced power. There were several upgraded ones available, so I remedied that.

The F wants to keep her secrets, or at least make them more difficult to suss out.

This is a great idea! Perhaps having the reservoir in the trunk area would be better?

We do need logging data to confirm how effective any of this works though.

Getting rid of the symposer would free up a little under-hood space ;^)

Might be too much strain on the pump and a lot of hosing to route, if done right you can probably use the stock hoses or literally need a couple of u-bends and a little extra hose length.

The guy I spoke to said you'd only need a header tank, Mishimoto do quite a few in various sizes and maybe some extra hosing.

Though he has not 100% looked into it for the F-type the standard pump is more than upto the job, but it was just a passing conversation as I was asking him about if he knew any ways to get substantial more power without mapping and he said the biggest gains would come from substantially reducing the IAT temperatures so the stock ECU tables won't retard spark as much and if they were low enough even advance the spark to maintain maximum power and torque.

Here is the XKR they did the dedicated SC cooling on, car keeps peak performance even after several laps of the ring.

He also said for SC whine, cone filters behind the bumper 100% give more whine, which they were also running on this XKR, you can hear the SC whine in the video, though its hard over all the tyre roar:



They mainly specialise in suspension and handling setups, I spoke to them about lowering my SVR and he immediate said do not do lowering springs as they simply lower the car too much and are not optimal for a car of such weight he KW HAS setup is very good though for an SVR he would advise custom springs or a dedicated coilover setup if track driving is a priority. He did say the KW HAS stuff is very good quality, allows you to lower the car without going to the point where you upset balance or handling and on the plus side they save around 5lbs a spring in weight, so around 20-25lbs weight reduction.


But it sounds like a dedicated cooling circuit for the SC could be a very good modification, end of the day making things run cooler is never a bad thing and by separating the engine and SC, they will both in turn run cooler and thus keep the ECU happier when stock and even more so tuned to keep you creating peak power and torque at all times, even during hard track sessions.

Not quite the same:



But you can see how Dodge take it a step further by using the AC to further cool charge and intake temps to get even more timing advance.

I have a dual-pullied V6 with the Eventuri intake and VAP sports cats, along with a water-meth injection kit that I run with pure water and no extra tuning beyond what VAP made for my dual-pullied setup (essentially the same system as you're proposing).

Unfortunately, I have not been able to dyno it as all the tuners in Dubai are too busy to rent out dyno time! As soon as I can, I will post my results here. My initial butt dyno says that it's not as effective at stemming the heat soak as you're imagining (or what I had imagined).

+1 pictures and a description of how you went about doing it would be cool, did you plug into the headlight washer tubing to spray the rads?

Don't really have many pictures of the setup, can ask my tuner to take some when I next drop the car off with him. I'm using the windshield washer tank though and my tuner has done a really good job of hiding the pump so you cannot see anything inside the boot.

Not tuned for it as I haven't been able to get any dyno time! I would first like to observe how much additional power the car is putting down - if it's significant, unlikely that I'll tune for it as heat is clearly an issue and vice-versa.

It's programmed to spray water directly into the intake pre-supercharger when the throttle is buried (at around 4000 rpm). Will provide details on the installation once I've got some details from my tuner.

Subscribed very interesting discussion . Thanks Guys. :)

Also another benefit of running dedicated cooling circuit for the SC would then mean you could also run a killer chiller system:



Which can give serious gains in horsepower ensuring the ECU does not rob you of around 50HP due to charge and IAT temps.

I doubt you could run a killer chiller on our cars with how the stock coolant system is setup as unlike the supercharger the engine has to run at optimal temperature and running a killer chiller could prevent engine reaching optimal temperature.

My 2006 and 2007 Saleen S281SC Mustang ran a similar "separated" setup from the factory. I then upgraded the factory Saleen heat exchanger to the upgraded AFCO system (as did most other owners). It kept the temps down on track to the point of me never feeling any heatsoak or loss of power:

http://cdn1.bigcommerce.com/server41...0.1200.jpg?c=2

https://www.svtperformance.com/forum...49-jpg.380144/

I'm sure that sourcing a factory Saleen HE Pump would be cheap, an AFCO HE is only $500, and then you would just have to figure out plumbing. I'm nowhere near needing to take on a project like this though..

^^^ Pictures with the front bumper installed?

A near 40c reduction in IAT from changing the intercooler? Is that on a V6 or V8, was it stock?

Its just one pull back to back dyno, its a v6 not stock. I need to log it in the real world to confirm how it works

Look forward to your results, also log your spark advance, though unless you logged such parameters stock its hard to compare so we will just have to go from your butt dyno. :icon_mrgreen:

How much? what are the specs on it?

I can tell you without a doubt, we need a bigger inter cooler or separated system on a V8 with both pulleys, catless down pipes, and a tune. When driving around town, the stock cooling system is fine. When trying to keep up with a modded C7Z on the highway or drag strip pulls, the coolant gets so hot my F-type studders and goes into limp mode.

mine also :(

Also been speaking with the guys who run the F-Type GT4 race cars and the SC is on its own dedicated cooling circuit with dedicated header tank.

As such I do believe I am 100% onto something here and I have asked them for more information or if they would be willing to offer a solution for road going cars (David Appleby Engineering).


In short I firmly believe a larger intercooler, dedicated cooling circuit for the SC would vastly improve the SC cooling and the engine would still rearch its targetted thermostat temperature without issue but at the same time the SC would be cooler and the IAT's would be lower resulting in less chance of ECU robbing power or going into cat protection and when these cars do that you talking as much as 80HP reduction, were all modding our cars here but facts are in hot situations our cars don't make stock figures.

While the coolant is shared, the electric pump works in such a way that it ONLY uses the same coolant for the intercooler without mixing it with the block nor the main radiator. You can verify this by inserting a joint with a probe at the iltel port for the intercooler (either banks) on top of the upper intake manifold shell... However, if you modify the air intake baffles (below the main grille) you will see a temp drop of 10-15 degrees at 95mph

I've already modified the air intake snorkels by extending them right to the front grill opening to catch more cold air. :)

But surely as the SC and engine share the same reservoir then the engine has heated up all the coolant in the system and as such the SC will always be running hotter than it could be. Unless when the car is on it no longer accesses the coolant in the reservoir and just keeps running its loop?

These cars in sustained use or in drag racing heat soak badly and pull power, its evident in the GT4 they recognise this issue and separated the SC and engine cooling to give better cooling?

I suggest you test the coolant supply line temperature (the inlet is the one towards the car cabin). Don't forget that the intercooler flow is managed by an electric pump. The modification needed is the upper deflector on the auxiliary cooler. I am unsure of what you are talking about with a "snorkel".

Usually I would agree that having fully separated flows would be ideal but considering the fact that the impact is minor and of course it was designed to keep the maintenance to a minimum (single fill point) for the average owner. The gain is minor and not worth the money. A racing team has a budget and techs with plenty of time to spare while seeking every possible gain no matter how small.

By snorkel I mean the two air intake tubes in the front of the car behind the grill, I assumed this is what you were also talking about when you modified to lower IAT as well?

If you talking about something different can you give some more details please. :)

Gibbo, you know the invictus British GT guys? That's sick! I just found out about them being in The British GT last week. Glad to see the racing info/tech already starting to hit the streets for the F-type, maybe JLR will step up and do some factory cars with the success of the Invictus team.

Back on topic, I was under the impression our tvs1900 was at the cooling capacity they are capable of internally, making additional or aftermarket intercoolers almost pointless? But that's all internet rederic I don't know enough about the math to confirm...?

If you look at the air intake below the main one, look into it carefully. On the upper side you will see a diverter made of black plastic, this leaves a rather small area that is then pushed down to force the air to cross the intercooler radiator. That is a limiting factor. Modify that and raise it by 10 mm or so but beware that it tends to collect a LOT of debree from the road on top of the intercooler radiator.

I almost forgot, the front edge of that is curved DOWN towards the front, you can use a heat gun to mold it upwards also

We must watch different races.... they have 0 (ZERO) points and did not do well at all sadly.

There is NO supercharger that cools air... compressing air generates heat.

Do you mean the lower half of the front grill opening?

Also is this another bumper off job?

Yes indeed. Sorry, I know it's a pain in the butt to get that bumper cover off every time. Just beware of the fact that you need to keep it clean afterwards

That's my understanding of the system as well. On the XF, there is only a small hose that connects the main cooling circuit with the supercharger cooling circuit. It's just there to allow for a common header tank/fill point and little or no fluid passes between the systems. I suspect heat radiated from the main radiator to the charge air radiator while stationary combined with engine heat conducted into the charge air coolers in what causes the problem when drag racing. If the intake charge temperature is getting too high when driving then it's a sizing/capacity issue, probably exasperated by the higher state of tune.

Thanks for the correction, yes 2 races in they arnt doin that hot but again 2 races in, in the rain. Still stands, plenty of info to gather from them. Do we have any other F-type teams we can gather data from on this scale? Plenty of track time from members here, but no full time (100%} race cars I know off?

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Again thanks for the correction, I'll edit it to include "setup" so all are clear we don't mean the actual supercharger doing the cooling. I assumed most understood this.