Can a Mk2 rev3 Turbo handle regular trackday abuse?

[Chown]

Hi all,

Anybody have any experience of running a turbo on regular trackdays?

I'm just a bit worried about reliability of several 10-15 minute sessions of constant full throttle, max revs kind of abuse and then drive home?

I did have an Aw11 and that just lapped it up, not sure a turbo would be as good?

Thanks

[dazzz]

You'll wear out parts faster than normal road use but as long as you have regular maint you should be good to go. Parts will need replacing and inspecting though on a regular basis.

I think the driving style will make the most difference.

[Chown]

I had seen a couple of turbo's boiling over at the track side. Poor maintenance do you think then ? Heat soak?

Is the rev 3 known to be any better than earlier versions do you know?

[afennell]

Can’t see any reason why they would boil over. mine was fine.

Maybe the coolant was old and / or the radiator had seen better days.

[afennell]

rev3 is your best bet,

rev1-2 could boil over if the head gastket was on its way.

[2barGee]

I did loads of track days running 350bhp on a stock bottom end and mine never boiled over. I did crack a ringland on the way 2 the ring but I knew that would happen at some point. But I'd done 12 track days & 2 ring trips b4 that happened & I had no problems!!!

So a stock motor on track will be fine as long as you used decent oil etc.

I run a big charge cooler set up & always add octane booster 2 b extra safe!!!!

[tonigmr2]

Pretty sure Patrick ran a fairly standard MR2 turbo throughout a whole season of racing in the SuperGTs last year....

[Rogue]

Pretty sure Patrick ran a fairly standard MR2 turbo throughout a whole season of racing in the SuperGTs last year....

Standard-ish anyway....

I ran the first race with a vanilla 3SGTE which held out fine until a few minutes before the end of the second race when one of the coolant lines to the turbo burst. This briefly set fire to the coolant.

After that we had already scheduled a built engine with forged internals to be installed anyway, so that engine went in and the old one was added to the rebuild queue. We just prefer to put people out on circuit with stronger engines just in case.

One thing I will tell you is that we don't recommend the Fiat radiators that seem to be ubiquitous amongst ST205 chargecooler conversions. They're fine for road use where you're not constantly on boost, but for track use it is our opinion that they significantly stall the airflow to the coolant radiator.

Heat management is everything on a turbo car.

[hkwc104]

Patrick, what rad would you recommend to go with an st205 chargecooler on a car (rev3) that will occassionally see track use (2-3 times a year tops)?

[Rogue]

Patrick, what rad would you recommend to go with an st205 chargecooler on a car (rev3) that will occassionally see track use (2-3 times a year tops)?

The budget option is to fit a ST205 pre-rad if you can find one in good condition. Otherwise we use the Radtec item from our Revision6 kit.

[nevolution]

Sorry to revive an old topic but...

a few weeks ago at Donington I managed to pop a rad cap after a little over 15 mins. This appeared to be the stock Jap cap from 1990... and was replaced a few days later. Nothing serious as the engine was shut down right away (the temp gage was showing about 3/4 at that point). Just required another 3 heat cycles to get all of the air out... Compression test on the motor still shows much better than 10% across the board and the motor runs great (as it did before).

Aside from the old cap, I had increased the boost without doing anything else to the car. Since then I knocked the boost back down and replaced the rad cap and haven't had any more issues, including my trip to the Ring.

I would recommend making sure you have a good rad cap and leave the boost at either stock or just a few psi above that if you're going to track it and you shouldn't have any problems. Boost is nice, but extra HP and pushing a small turbo will create a lot more heat. Completely different story if you've upgraded the IC, IC fan, turbo, etc... I'm really just commenting on the stock set-up with increased boost. However, make sure your rad cap is current... cheap insurance.

[JJ]

Theres another solution since the stock turbo pretty much gasses all the fluid going around it when constantly caining it...

http://www.evanscooling.uk.com/

Waterless coolant

Since the coolant starts to boil, the coolant undergoes high pressure ( cap lifting, blown hoses etc.. )

Evans 4LIFE Waterless Coolants have a boiling point above 180°C at atmospheric pressure and will not boil over.

I too have experienced the Cinq rad causing engine coolant problems when 20 mins+ spirited driving when using a Ct-series turbo ( excess heat created from the turbo! )... I have the Cinq rad on another... on a Borg Warner setup ( oil cooled only ) and no problems.

[Rob B]

http://www.evanscooling.uk.com/

Waterless coolant

Since the coolant starts to boil, the coolant undergoes high pressure ( cap lifting, blown hoses etc.. )

Evans 4LIFE Waterless Coolants have a boiling point above 180°C at atmospheric pressure and will not boil over.

I've just got four bottles of this from Fensport....£240

I hope it works

[Quigonjay]

http://www.evanscooling.uk.com/

Waterless coolant

Since the coolant starts to boil, the coolant undergoes high pressure ( cap lifting, blown hoses etc.. )

Evans 4LIFE Waterless Coolants have a boiling point above 180°C at atmospheric pressure and will not boil over.

I've just got four bottles of this from Fensport....£240

I hope it works

read the website but i'm still left with the question?
what is it?
still a liquid, just one with no water content?

[ashley]

Pretty much- it's a coolant with a boiling point of ~180c that you do not dilute with water before using. By illiminating water from the mix you don't get any localised boiling of the coolant, and the negative consequences they go to lengths to describe

I'm tempted to stick it in my turbo...

[Andy Jones]

I did loads of track days running 350bhp on a stock bottom end and mine never boiled over. I did crack a ringland on the way 2 the ring but I knew that would happen at some point. But I'd done 12 track days & 2 ring trips b4 that happened & I had no problems!!!

So a stock motor on track will be fine as long as you used decent oil etc.

I run a big charge cooler set up & always add octane booster 2 b extra safe!!!!

Did you ever have a problem with oil temps?

I'm looking at retiring mine from day to day use and using more for track days but oil temps are my biggest concern.

After 3 laps of Anglesey (was a bloody hot day) mine was getting near 110 on low boost and decided to come in so it could cool down.

Ste saw 120 on 1 lap of the ring with the AVC-R off.

[toxo]

I too had a crap old leaky rad cap. Definitely should be replaced every few years IMO.

I take it that Evans stuff is the NPG+ style coolant used here? http://www.mrtwo.net/mr2modproject/serv ... flush1.htm

And results (incl boiling points) here: http://www.mrtwo.net/mr2modproject/mod/ ... probes.htm