"Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)" (rduncan5678)
09/06/2019 at 23:54 • Filed to: None
5
11|
"Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)" (rduncan5678)
09/06/2019 at 23:54 • Filed to: None | 5
| 11 |
I made this purchase over a month ago but finally got around to installing it today. Was a bit of an invasive mod since it required a cutting tool for some hacking but overall it wasn’t too bad nor is any of my hackery visible. Between swapping the radiator and changing out an injector, I spent about 4 hours total from the time I started getting out my tools to when I was cleaned up and going for a test drive. I was concerned about the injector replacement since there were a ton of connections and bolts to remove and put back in. But thankfully everything worked perfectly on the first start.
The key feature of the new radiator is the crossflow action which should result in much better engine coolant temperatures on track. Coolant reroute is still probably in my future if I want to safely track on 100+ days but I’d rather avoid those for my own comfort anyways.
As for my hacking, I didn’t make it super pretty and it was very much a “measure once, cut 4 times” kind of deal. Thankfully I have another stock set of fans from the other car should I want to remove the part and return to stock some day. But it doesn’t have an effect on how the fans operate and I didn’t have to mess with anything else to get it to fit so I was happy.
The purple injector is the one that I pulled out of this Miata, the other three are from the old Miata. I found it peculiar that they were purple, probably aftermarket replacement parts of some sort. We shall see if this solves my CEL, there aren’t currently any active or pending codes. But with the intermittent nature of it, I’ll have to wait and see. Should it go away, I’ll still probably send these away for cleaning but I don’t want to bother if it’s something else at fault.
Will have to do some testing soon on the new cooling system! So far it seems to work, just driving along without a hill, I was regularly seeing 185-190 as opposed to 195-200 before. And going spiritedly uphill for a half hour in the canyons as the outside Temps raced to 100F, I never saw over 210 even when I was trying to just cruise at 5k rpms up hill to stress it out. Then immediately upon relaxing and going level, it would drop down below 200 and any downhill was seeing 185 again. Will post the data recording comparison soon since I have both on the same route.
sony1492
> Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)
09/07/2019 at 06:08 |
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Looks good!
Fyi bogging a motor will create more heat then a steady high rpm
AestheticsInMotion
> Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)
09/07/2019 at 09:58 |
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It's a good radiator.
mXxxxXm24 /O/ /O/
> Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)
09/07/2019 at 10:17 |
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Well done! I hope the injector replacement solves your issue. What size is the new radiator?
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Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)
> mXxxxXm24 /O/ /O/
09/07/2019 at 10:44 |
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I'm not entirely sure what size it is, but the intent is not just to be overly thick but instead the coolant is able to flow through the radiator more times and get cooled more efficiently. At a certain point getting too thick is actually detrimental to cooling and just adds weight. The main advantage of the aftermarket rads is just being aluminum but for the most part, the standard replacements are just fine. A coolant reroute would do far more to help me but I really do not want to have to replace my Headgasket and do all of that.
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Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)
> AestheticsInMotion
09/07/2019 at 10:47 |
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I kind of want to remove the AC just to be able to see the rad now from the outside lol. It’s not like I ever use it and it’s just extra weight! It also leaks as evidenced by the strong refrigerant smell the one time I ran it for a while. But it still works like a champ when I have turned it on just to test out the fan.
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AestheticsInMotion
> Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)
09/07/2019 at 10:48 |
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I say go for it.
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mXxxxXm24 /O/ /O/
> Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)
09/07/2019 at 12:02 |
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Yeah, but I made the mistake of going with an oem type replacement the first time . Soon after a heater core hose blew on the highway hours from home and it pretty much killed the radiator, though I chiseled down the “teeth” and limped around on it for a while. All a luminum would have been fine. This time I went with a Koyo and retained the stock cap for now. If I need anymore cooling I’ll go with a Koyo cap, but not sure it’s best for a daily, because as I understand it just lowers operating temperature . And yeah I def want to do a reroute in the future. D eleting the a/c allows for much better cooling and it saved like 40lbs+
daender
> Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)
09/08/2019 at 18:05 |
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I’m probably going to need that radiator now after the Oppo Dragon meet! Turns out my Miata doesn’t like hard driving in the hot summer weather! I was either running the heat full-blast to cool the car with the heater core or leaving the AC on (turning on the secondary fan). I saw this post last night and I was thinking about on the 6 -hour drive home! Good to know that I’ll have to trim the stock fans if I want to retain them and their function because I’m not about to ditch AC after riding home semi-comfortable in my Miata!
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Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)
> daender
09/08/2019 at 18:36 |
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Idk how you’re willing to drive a Miata with the AC robbing power. I guess on the highway you get used to it once you are just cruising, but I’ve just found the power cut to be so obtrusive that I’d rather just be hot. At least then I have some top down breeze. But yeah the install wasn’t too bad, and with some proper measuring and cutting its just a mild modification. Are you looking at the Temps via an obd scanner? Is your needle moving? It’s pretty normal for these cars to run hot under heavy loads (215-220) but that’s well within spec from Mazda. But if you are seeing 230-240 the needle should move and you are in danger and something is probably broken really. Cooling reroute is the be all end all to fix cooling woes but this rad should definitely do the trick as well.
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daender
> Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)
09/08/2019 at 19:26 |
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I had a friend follow a guide on the Miata.net forums to solder-in a resistor to reduce or almost remove the 60*F dead-zone on the temperature gauge to make it more linear. Now the needle moves faster when warming up and it actually goes beyond 11 o’clock if it starts to get too hot without the engine going nuclear. I wasn’t able to pull precise temps but I just need to know that if the needle is at 1 o’clock then I need to start cooling it down.
I use my car for daily driving in the hot humid summers of SC, I’d be a fool to delete it and show up to work sweaty or come home from a hard day exhausted from driving in the sun and heat.
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Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)
> daender
09/08/2019 at 19:36 |
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I think I have grown too accustomed to the dry heat here in Socal already lol. Because even with it being around 100, it’s just kinda warm but plenty bearable when moving and not too much sweat. But usually in the low 90s, it’s downright pleasant on average days and being down at the ocean for work most of the day, it doesn’t get above 75 midsummer.
I'd be curious what those numbers actually are though since if you are running ~210 then there is actually no need to be concerned, assuming it goes down when backing off every once in a while. My issue was heat soaking as well. Did an autocross and just couldn't get below 215 even after sitting a bit. Took a solid 15-20 minutes of fan at idle to finally cool down below 200. Granted it was hot lapping 7 runs with less than 1-2 min in between each, but I'd like to be able to handle that with cooling off in between. I can already see the difference on canyons where it drops super fast on the data sheet.