CTR Overheating?

Found this

Still using the stock grille, I would have thought that would be one of the first things to go.

if your referring to the TCR car, that's a fake grille. the mesh are not even real.
iirc the radiator on the car is on the bottom where the IC is originally and the IC is V mounted

When I was 100% stock, I attended a track day in Oct 2017 and the ambient temp was between 59 and 68F. The needle did move up higher than normal, but not over 75%. I just had to back off for about half a lap in each 20-25min session and it's all good and I could do it all day long.

The following year in the summer of 2018, I took the car to another track but the ambient temp was between 85-95F. By that time, I had KTuner stage 1, aftermarket grille and Injen Intercooler, along with an unwrapped PLM downpipe with no heat shield. I experienced massive overheating. Couldn't even do one full hot lap. without the ECT reaching 266F +. I flashed the car back to the stock tune, along with all windows open and heater on full blast, and I was able to get one hot lap in followed by one cool down lap. I could feel the car losing power by the middle of each hot lap as the ECT started to get higher.

I haven't done any track days with the CTR since then. However, my car now have the following cooling mods:

• Injen intercooler
• Koyo radiator
• USR side-mount oil cooler with custom cut-out to vent the heat
• P2R intake thermal spacer
• PTP turbo blanket
• PLM downpipe with ceramic coating and heat wrap
• Aftermarket grille
• High Temperature Heat Resistant Kapton Tape by the downpipe/front pipe area

Hopefully next time I go out, the car would last longer before I have to slow down...

Interested in more updates from people about this.

Lol I just did another track day with ambient temperature below 15 degree Celsius. Coolant temp still went up after 15min and I had to back off.

iforyou1109 said:

Lol I just did another track day with ambient temperature below 15 degree Celsius. Coolant temp still went up after 15min and I had to back off.

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Did you refresh back to stock and try that? What fuel?

Sorry was my short post as I was just busy.

I was running Chevron 94 fuel (I'm in Canada if that matters). The ambient temperature range was between 8 to 15 Degree Celsius.

My car for the whole track day was running the Hondata 91 octane tune for IC/DP. I also had Hondata traction control enabled.

There were 4 sessions and I didn't experience any engine overheating issue for the first two sessions. There was traffic throughout the day but I did get a few clean laps in consecutively for my 2nd session. I also had brake fade as my brake fluid was old.

I bled my brake fluid and pushed harder for my third session. It was cut short as I had fuel starvation (less than 1/4 tank of gas left). Even though it was short, the day was getting warmer and the coolant gauge started to creep up. I no longer had brake fade issue though,

In my last session, after a few laps being stuck behind traffic, I had a several laps with clean air. But the overheating started to be more of an issue. I had to do one hot lap followed by one cool down lap.

I guess my next mod will be vented hood.

I think other people reported that the vented hood didn't help at all.

Hmm, that sucks.

On another note, my friend suggests that perhaps the turbo blanket is not helping engine cooling. The turbo blanket keeps the heat in the system to make the turbo more efficient. But trapping the heat inside also means more load for the cooling system.

Others also suggested the ACT Sensor mod will help. But I'm not sure if it helps in my case since it's ECT that is getting high.

It would be nice to see what actual engine temp is when the gauge reads higher then midway, the reasone why i say this is because my gauge read mid way at only 168F. that leads me to wonder what the temp at 3/4 would be. it may not be as high as folks are thinking it is. it may be around 210F which is high, but I wouldnt say its dangerously high

jimalan1989 said:

It would be nice to see what actual engine temp is when the gauge reads higher then midway, the reasone why i say this is because my gauge read mid way at only 168F. that leads me to wonder what the temp at 3/4 would be. it may not be as high as folks are thinking it is. it may be around 210F which is high, but I wouldnt say its dangerously high

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I think those with an ODBII reader may be able to get the coolant tem in a digital format, it would be useful to know that info, I would imagine 100% gauge = 120c.