New guy in Austin
 

Hello all first post to this site. Just got my Z less than a week ago and am loving it! Never have had a car like this before (fast) let alone something that can handle like this thing does. So I found TWS as I was looking for a driving school that might be able to help me safely find out what this car can do.

I was one of those annoying kids with the Prelude, no exhaust, and was most certainly raising hell zipping around town along with the rest of my rice burner buddies. Well now that I've gotten to be a big boy I'd like to have those same experiences but now having the proper tool (the Z) and place to facilitate it.

And for my questions...
I am wondering how ever how much wear does this cause to your car? As far as pushing your car beyond or too close to its mechanical limits is this something that is advised by the instructors? Are there and times for the lower level drivers to come out during the week? How long does one typically stay in the lower, non-solo levels?

2011 370Z GM Touring/ Sport no mods.

There are spots still open in green for January

I guess I was a ricer too.

http://www.the370z.com/members/dr_-a...mpionships.jpg

^ :)

Yeah sign up for that Driver's Edge, Jan 25/26, there's still spots in green. How much wear you put on the car is up to how deep you get into the hobby. The first weekend in Green won't be that bad. Just be aware that if you leave the car bone-stock (which isn't a bad idea the first time out), and you get to push it around a little hard in the green group, you might get into issues with rising oil temps and brake pad fade. As long as you keep an eye (on the oil temp gauge and how the brakes feel) and maybe take it easy for the final couple laps of a session when they're getting too hot, it'll be fine. The instructors at Driver's Edge are all nice people, and there's multiple classroom sessions for green as well - they'll walk you through everything else you need to know.

If you're unsure about the state of the car (I assume a 2011 was bought used), you might want to at least replace the brake fluid with some RBF600, maybe do an oil change if the oil in it isn't very fresh - and be sure to download the tech inspection form and get a good local shop to go over the car and sign it off.

Hey DR_

I'm also in TX (Dallas) and planning on doing driver's edge and a few events in 2014. I'm looking at oil coolers now and based on your experience if you were me starting from scratch, would you go with a 34 row or a 25 row? I should note that I'm a novice so probably won't be pushing it too terribly hard, but it's something I'd like to do 3-4 times a year each year.

Based on the above it looks like you got pretty high temps even with a 25, so I thought it was worth asking if the 34 would make more sense. Thanks in advance for your help!

^ FYI - The 25 or 34 options listed with most of the kits are usually Series-6, unless whoever's selling the kit tells you otherwise. The 25 row on DR_'s (and mine) is a Series-9, which is wider. The major difference for oil cooling in our two setups at that time was airflow - his was mostly sitting in a stock bumper setup; mine had the grill fins cut out and replaced with metal mesh, and had some aluminum sheet used as an upper mount blocking off a lot of the over-the-top flow, forcing more air through the cooler, and a trans cooler sitting next to it so that there wasn't any easy bypass for the air in that direction either. Others have gone further with basically building a "box" extending forward from the oil cooler so that air that enters its frontal area is forced to go through instead of around.

I think, given the shape of the bumper area, the 25-row series-9 is better than the 34-row series-6, but even a 25-row series 6 helps a lot.

That's really good info, thanks! Glad I didn't buy yet - I'll be sure to ask if it's a series 6 or series 9. I'm not sure if I'm willing to cut and mess with bumper pieces, but I guess if it needs it then I'll do what I have to. This brings me to an additional question:

How tall is your 25 row series-9 in relation to the bumper? Are there any rows that are being blocked because of height or does it sit ok? I'm worried that a good bit of the 34 row will get blocked by the stock bumper and hence won't really do a whole lot better than the 25. As mentioned I'm not too keen on cutting the bumper, but I'd be ok with making some sort of box or sheet to direct more air to it.

IMO the 25 wide is the way to go. It has the same BTU as the standard 34 but as you mentioned because the top of the 34 is blocked the 25 wide does a better job. Honestly though unless you have a good amount of experience and are pushing the car really hard, this setup will be overkill. If your car is a daily driver there is the downside that it takes longer for the oil to heat up. It also will over cool the oil when you aren't driving it hard, even with a thermostat on it. You will also need to put a block off plate over it during the cooler months.

That's good to hear. I had a sneaking suspicion the 25 would be plenty, but in another thread I started specific to this topic several gave me the "bigger is better" answer and recommended the 34. However... sounds like the 25 wide would be perfect for my application. I'm planning to log some track time starting in 2014 (maybe 3-4 times per year) and I'm a novice so it won't be pushed to the absolute limit.

The only reason I'm adding the cooler is to try the track this year and I want to make sure that I do everything right so my car (and I) are safe. During regular driving I've never had a temp issue (stays pegged on 220 on 100+ degree days, never higher).

My car is a DD, so when you say "longer to heat up" what kind of time are we talking? I do a lot of very short trips because everything is close to my house < 5 mins. How well does the car heat up with the cooler completely blocked? Is it comparable to stock or does it still take a fair bit of time to warm up? Sounds like I'd probably be ok to keep the cooler blocked off all the time except for track days because of all of my short trips.

Drivers Edge
 

Did my first Drivers Edge event this weekend at MSR. While I've previously done a few one day events in my Z32, the instruction I got with DE and 2 day format was by far much better. The 3.1 course was likewise much more challenging than the TMS infield and roval or the MSR 1.7 courses I previously ran.

My car ran flawlessly through the weekend. I wasn't trying to be the fastest guy there, but pushed it hard. The track mods included the Z1 34 row oil cooler, SS brake lines, StopTech brake pads, and RBF600. It was a cold weekend so oil temp stayed in 150-170 range. I will attest to the need to have block-off plate for daily driving. With it installed, it takes 10-15 min to reach 160 on cold mornings and stays in 165-170 range after warm-up. Without, it barely comes off the 140 peg even after 20 min (outside air temp 30-40 deg).

Finally, I filled the tank before 1st session each day, but did not refill in between because I was only down to 3/4. I experienced no fuel starvation issues.

In summary this event gave me a new standard for 'a good weekend' and can't wait to get back to MSR in March.

^ Yeah Driver's Edge is a really nice group/system/event/whatever, we're lucky to have them around here in TX. I still haven't been up to MSR in Cresson, but I may start branching out to there sometime in 2014, if I can't get my fill at TWS and MSR-Houston :)

Glad you had a good weekend!

Question for you tho.

You say without a block off plate in place you don't get much above 140 on oil temp.. this is with a thermostatic sandwich plate for the cooler?

If so, your thermostat may be stuck open. You should at least be able to get it up into the 160 range in normal driving with the thermostat. Especially on the track man, I don't care how good your cooler is or how cold it is outside, you should be able to hover right at your t-stat opening threshold (180 is the most common temp), not this 150-170 stuff.


For me personally, I have an enormous cooler, but it is physically touching my radiator, so it has the benefit of being able to sap heat from the radiator in low speed daily driving type stuff to get the oil up to a reasonable temp (like when it was in the 30's a few weeks ago and I drove the damned thing to work, oil temps got up to 160 no problem but never went above that). This is of course with the thermostatic sandwich plate.

All that said, if you are not running a thermostatic plate, that would explain all of this a lot better and I'd highly recommend you swap one in for the health of your engine.

:tup:


Sorry for going so far off topic there DR.

I am running the thermostatic plate. It may have gotten to 180 or so during track sessions as I wasn't paying close attention to it; but was certainly running on the cooler side. For certain though driving from North of TMS in Ft Worth down to Cresson, it never reached 180.

What's the best way to test the thermostatic plate to make sure it's closing? Actually if I understand correctly, it never closes completely, just reduces flow right?

Well, as you push it more it will become a necessity, but you *could* do your first weekend without it safely. It just means you'll have to back off the revs halfway through your sessions and not push as hard. Either way you're not gonna destroy the car, you're just going to lose some hard driving time. By the time you get to caring about the difference in the various larger sizes, the cost of switching out to a different Setrab core will be pretty marginal compared to everything else you're throwing at this hobby :)

Yeah short-tripping in the cooler months, you'll need the blockoff plate and you'll still need a little warmup time. Who knows in your particular situation and the weather variance, but you can expect something like 3-ish minutes idling in the driveway, then just take it easy on the throttle for the first 10 minutes or so on the road and by then the gauge should be up around 160 and climbing. Having an oil pressure gauge installed makes it easier - I use that during the warmup driving to know how hard I can push the revs/throttle as it warms (basically aim for staying under ~80-90 psi, at the ~100psi mark it opens the pressure bypass).

On those 5 minute trips if you're starting from dead-overnight-cold, you're probably looking at 2-3 minutes idle and then just staying light on the throttle for the whole trip. It's not ideal, but it is what it is. If you've already driven the car in the past couple of hours, it retains a fair amount of heat in the block though and warmup goes much faster. In the hot months it's really not much of an issue at all, and you might partially or completely unblock it on the street even.

I wouldn't worry that much about the thermo - even with it, if I didn't have a blockoff I'd often hover at 150-160 on the highway in cold weather. I'd guess your on-track temps probably spiked up to 200 or more but you didn't notice. It would be difficult to cool this car's oil enough to maintain 180 in a track session, even in the bitter cold you've had up in that area lately :)

And yeah, by default the thermo plate is fully open in all senses. At temp it should close off the bypass and force oil through the cooler only (not the bypass).

The Mocal units (supposedly) flow 5% as a baseline and then around 180 begin to open up to something close to 100%.

The reason for the 5% always going out is so that your coolers stay purged of air and doesn't have oil sit in there for long periods of time. The downside to that is, if the thermal load isn't particularly high at a given time, the cooler can cool that 5% of bypass down significantly which will lower overall system temp.

If you weren't sitting at ~180-190 on the track, IMO there is something wrong.

As far as testing, the way I have always seen to test these things is to boil them in water. Use a meat thermometer to keep track of the water temp as it comes up and around 180 you should see the thermostat begin to open up.

If you take the thing off and can see that it isn't completely closed (or almost completely closed) then I'd say you've got a stuck plate for sure. You can find a good quality thermostatic plate for our cars cheap on the net (well under $100) so if it were me, I might just replace it and test for effect, if you don't fancy the idea of boiling a thermostatic plate (my wife would have a fit).