Hey guys. You probably thought I was full of it, but I'm going to follow through as planned with the car although I'm frustrated as hell with it at this point(coolant hose and suspension issues).

Anyhow, I drove 1 hour 20 minutes in bumper to bumper traffic to Irwindale speedway last night. Temp was 99* upon my arrival. Track temp (on the asphalt) was 110*. Obviously a horrible day to go drag racing with a f/i car. The car was as heat soaked as possible.

I went through tech and immediately ran the car with zero cool off period. It ran a 8.89 @ 81 which roughly equates to a 13.7-13.8. The 60 was a 2.08 and I left off idle and rolled into the throttle.

I let the car cool down for a half hour with the hood open, but it really didn't cool down much at all because it was so hot out. The temps were still about 98* and the intercoolers were hot to the touch. I removed the plastic engine cover to let more air flow around the engine.

My second run I ran a late model bmw m3 e46. It looked heavily modified on the exterior but I'm not sure what changes he had or hadn't done to the endgine. I ran him pretty much even. I ran 80.98 mph and he ran 81.09 mph. My 60 skipped because I spun and my et dropped to a 9.11.

My third run was after a 1 hour cool down period. The intercoolers were still very, very hot to the touch. Temps were still about 96-97*. The car picked up a 1/2 mph to 81.5 and I beat down on a 99 mustang by a 1/2 second in et. I ran a 8.80.

My final run after another 1/2 hour cool down ran idential numbers. I called it a night and went and grabbed dinner with friends.

I was hoping to trap at about 87-89 mph. I was talking to a guy with a C63 and he was trapping about 89 when he had been there other times in cooler weather. The heat was clearly killing my performance and the ecu was pulling timing. Now that I have a baseline in the worst possible conditions, I'm going to add the alcohol injection kit and go back in hot weather and beat on this car some more.

I think I should definately be able to recoup some of the power lost by adding the alky kit. I talked to a guy with a gto with a magnussen and he said that the heat doesn't even bother his car because he has the alky kit on there. My other car has always trapped consistent regardless of weather with the alky kit on there, so hopefully it'll work on this too.

Anyhow, stay tuned and we'll see what we can get out of this thing!

 

Not bad times at all for a full weight four door sedan in the worst possible racing conditions.

What kind of hp are you putting out on your STR? And what do you weigh in race trim?

 

It's 100 degrees in NY; causing my STR to run waydown on power. A "bog" results if smashing the pedal from a stop through a 1st to 2nd shift. "Feathering" (gradual depression of gas pedal) gives better results. She's way more powerful when it's cool...like day and night. Gotta cool this lady down somehow if i'm going to have a s/c/ port/polish/pulley. I'm convinced Jaguar seriosly factory detuned the ECU on the STR. Looking forward to a dyno tune, etc.

 

I think STR guys really need to consider alky injection when beginning their projects. It's relatively inexpensive, and will cure a lot of headaches.

 

The heat soak on any eaton just kills performance. I usually throw a towel on top of mine and then set a bag of ice on the towel to cool it down on my Stang. Runs much better and much more consistently.

 

dcook, I heard of iceing down at the strip. We need something that we can use to cool down while regualr driving.

 

I'll leave the obvious out to avoid heat in the first place ;-)

Next having the car just sit for cooling will not help at all; the radiated engine heat will be absorbed by the intercooler system, making/keeping that hot.

Here are some things I would try (without having to go to ice/killer chiller/alky):

1) You could make the intercooler radiator slightly larger (would not go thicker, its airflow that is needed) as there is some room on the top to go higher. There it will have somewhat extra airflow, especially when there is no airflow (no/low car speed) and the engine fan is running.
2) Control the engine fan. Besides the coolant temp, this fan is also controlled if you use the airco. I have also put the biggest possible intercooler radiator in front and make use of the engine fans. When I am dynoing my car and need to cool down between the runs, I’ll leave the engine running, and turn on the airco as then it puts the fans on max. This cools then the intercooler circuit. I have just bought this device:
http://autospeed.com/cms/article.html?&A=0589 (Use it as Intercooler Fan Control)
Herewith I want to control the standard engine fan (without having the need to use the airco ;-), but only when the intercooler temps are up by lets ay 20 degrees above ambient. This way you don’t have the fan turned on all the time, only when it needs to be. I believe I can make this to work on the XKR/XJR cars, but am not sure if you could do this on the Stype. As long as that one is controlled via a relay, and has hardwired fan speed connections, it should work.
3) Modify the bumper beam. Maybe if you could modify this so the air is spread over a larger area it would give better cooling. This in combination with closing gaps in the front bumper area so all air pressure can only go thru the radiators might also help again.
4) Modify the underside (/ tray) of the car. Have no idea actually, just a wild thought, but the more air can be drawn thru the radiators the better, and maybe if you could make some sort of spoiler that would help getting air out of the engine bay easier/quicker, would help of course.

Hope this helps.

 

Easy way to beat the heat? I used to pack the intake with ice when I went to Irwindale. A couple of bags packed around the intercooler until right before I ran meant a one second improvement.....

 

avos, you'll have to be careful because the S-Type has a PWM output from the PCM to the fan control module, which then drives the engine fan (again by PWM).

There will be a software command to turn the engine fans on low and another for high, I think you'll find. It'll currently be sent from the ACCM to the PCM. Why not figure out what it is and then instead of using the a/c just send the command yourself?

Anyone got an IDS? Can it send such command(s) to control the fan? (I reckon it can.)

(Maybe WDS or NGS or whatever can also do it.)

If so, it can't be that hard to find out what it sends (or to figure it out from the ACCM for that matter).

 

@Jagv8,
I was already careful I think:“As long as that one is controlled via a relay, and has hardwired fan speed connections, it should work.”

So if it is pwm controlled it will not work as suggested obviously. I is not hard to find out what commands are send on the can bus, you just need (relatively) expensive equipment (not possible via the IDS/WDS...).
Let us know if you find something, but I am afraid CAN devices to send messages are usually not cheap, but it would be great to have.
Maybe one could take control from the fan input (the PWM), so have the original control pass thru, and add contorl for the intercooler fan input (from the device mentioned).

 

Cheapest CAN device that springs to mind: elm327 about $20

You only need to borrow (use) an IDS/etc and use the elm to see what is sent by it. You'll need some extra wiring to let you connect both. Or just use the elm to see what the ACCM sends (but you may need to wire the elm to the other side of the ICM which is a gateway, from what JTIS says, so it might not copy the ACCM message packets across to the DLC).

 

The IDS/WDS is of no use, they do not have the function to read all signals on the CAN bus, they only communicate via the CAN bus with the different computers on board from where they get their info, that is a difference.

You need hardware/software to read all the signals on the CAN bus, I have found something that looked good enough but that would cost about $400 iirc.

Do you actually know/have software that can work with the ELM hardware so you can read every signal on the CAN bus?

Depending than on what you can learn from the signals send, you can make a device that can either substitute (or alter) the signal, again not cheap, unless you know something that can ?

 

IDS/WDS are of use: you monitor bus traffic using an elm and then get IDS/WDS to command the fan on. The command sent will show up on the elm.

You want to read CAN data packets, not the actual signals. The elm will read packets, just issue an ATMA. (With a filter if too much traffic.) It's covered in the elm data sheet free from their web site. You don't need any extra software to find the commands sent - Windows hyperterminal will do - but a higher speed data logger would be useful.

You seem to be focusing on signals but it's data packets that matter. The elm will send them with ease once you know what it is you need to send.

If you knew now that AB CD EF GH were the right bytes to send, you could go into hyperterminal and just get the elm to send them. Your fan would run as commanded. No other software or hardware needed. Forget the $400 etc stuff.

 

To add to this, say you wanted a cheap device to do essentially all the above (when you knew the data to send), you could use a Microchip PIC, such as PIC18F2480, with a CAN transceiver MCP2551. Cost about $20. The PIC is a full computer all on one chip, including RAM, flash ROM, I/O ports, etc.

(They're what are inside the elm327.)

 

This is what I found and thought to be useful to analyze the signals (that translate into data packets):
http://www.peak-system.com/Product-Details.49+M5daf9e08d26.0.html?&L=1&tx_commerce_pi 1[catUid]=11&tx_commerce_pi1[showUid]=4

As there is a lot of traffic on the bus, something like this would be helpful to analyze properly.

Will have a look on the ELM device and see what you can do with.

Can you tell me how you can use the IDS/WDS? I have never seen any menu item that could show the signals on the bus, as I have the IDS I would be thankful to know how.

 

If you want an expensive Rolls-Royce type of device. Not needed, though.

Please stop referring to "bus signals". You don't want to look at voltages, bit timings and the like. You want to look at a much higher layer i.e. at data packets.

On the IDS/etc you appear to have misread what I put. You don't use it to look at any signals or data packets. You tell it to turn the fan on. You use an elm to watch the data packets as you tell the IDS to turn the fan on. The elm will show what the IDS sent.

I have never even seen an IDS but the earlier stuff could command actuators so I would be more than surprised if IDS can't. I've used an elm to put the fan on high on a Ford I used to have, similar to the way I understand WDS could do. I don't know what data bytes to send for the S-Type.

 

Not necessarily a RR, a Jag will already do ;-)
To stand correct, I need it even at a higher level than just data packets, I need to know what the content of the data packets mean of course, that is why certain tools can be very useful, especially these tools.
Please bear in mind that this is not my business, I merely have given ideas on what can be done so others (maybe like you) could make something. However if I would have good tools for a low price I may go ahead, but there are still many other things that consume my time when it comes to our cars, so certainly not this year.
Actually you seem to be further in this; it would be great if you could contribute on that level as an enthusiast.
I am not sure how the fan control works on the stype, as obviously the ECU will determine at which speed (contrary to the fan setup on my car it is either low or high) the FAN should run based on some input. So there could be a command to be send to the ECU to demand a certain action that would be great to find, however the ECU will be also probably get commands from the A/C, so you would need to check for a longer period to see what all influences the ECU to control the FAN speed. Unfortunately the fan control module is not attached to the CAN bus, so it has to be done via the ECU.

 

I don't have access to any dealer-type tool so not likely to be me.

 

Would that be the only reason? If so I could arrange something.

 

hmm, tempting!!

Are you in a hurry (I'd rather finish some other things I'm doing)?