Cooling down the Engine Bay

ViksMSP · Jul 10, 2004

To All MSP Owners:

As all of you might have already realized, our engine bay is very WARM after normal driving conditions, this WARM engine bay does many bad things to your performance, for one, us with hard pipes end up with hotter air then with stock plastic pipes, cause our metal pipes get so stinking hot. Over all i just hate having a really WARM engine may so do all of you.

So this thread should be dedicated to new ideas on how to cool this thing down.
So far I have wrapped my hardpipes with some heat resistant tape, so that works for now.
Do any of you know if there's some kind of paint or spray on stuff for the manifold?
The thing that really sucks is that all that heat is lost energy, there should be a way to trap it, use it, and blah blah.

So the goal is for me not to get burned next time i try to get a screw driver from under the intake.

Let the idea's roll.

mspeed101 · Jul 11, 2004

vented hood for starters, it will release alot of the heat from the engine bay

ViksMSP · Jul 11, 2004

mspeed101 said:
vented hood for starters, it will release alot of the heat from the engine bay

I was thinking of that, but that's quiet expansive, and you're just throwing away all that energy.
there should be some heat exchanger of some kind or something simple that we can do to trap the heat.
Let's get some wild ideas going.

mspeed101 · Jul 11, 2004

Why would you want to trap the heat? Personally I would want it out of the engine bay unless you know something I dont!

ViksMSP · Jul 11, 2004

mspeed101 said:
Why would you want to trap the heat? Personally I would want it out of the engine bay unless you know something I dont!

I'm just going by a theory that heat is energy. if you think about it this way. it takes allot of energy to heat up water, but we are throwing that energy away.
in a virtual world, i guess you could take all that heat and use it to heat up water which in turn would become steam, then use the steam and power a turbine which would turn a generator which would power a extra electrical motors for the rear two wheels.
You see where i'm going with this? but that's in my mind world, in reality, if the engine is getting so hot it's wasting horsepower. if the exhaust is loosing all that heat it wastes the power to turn the turbo. There has to be a way to keep it in there.

Rism · Jul 11, 2004

ViksMSP said:
I'm just going by a theory that heat is energy. if you think about it this way. it takes allot of energy to heat up water, but we are throwing that energy away.
in a virtual world, i guess you could take all that heat and use it to heat up water which in turn would become steam, then use the steam and power a turbine which would turn a generator which would power a extra electrical motors for the rear two wheels.
You see where i'm going with this? but that's in my mind world, in reality, if the engine is getting so hot it's wasting horsepower. if the exhaust is loosing all that heat it wastes the power to turn the turbo. There has to be a way to keep it in there.

ummmmmmmm you are insane and your concept is waaaaaaaaaaaaay off.(mj)

ViksMSP · Jul 11, 2004

Rism said:
ummmmmmmm you are insane and your concept is waaaaaaaaaaaaay off.(mj)

I get a little nuts when i get burned by pretty much every part under the hood, i tried to pull the hardpipe off once i grabed it i realized it was stinking hot, so to catch my self from falling i landed my hand onto a engin cover, soon after that i was holding on the radiator and then into the restroom to get som anti burn gel.
I want something in return for this. MORE HP. Call me crazy but i know there's simple ways like changin your thermostat, if i new what part number it was i'd order one, or what better coolant? or some spray insulation stuff or something, I know you people have more info then this.

mspeed101 · Jul 11, 2004

Rism said:
ummmmmmmm you are insane and your concept is waaaaaaaaaaaaay off.(mj)

(lol) I was thinking the same thing

starflare21 · Jul 11, 2004

he's not crazy. his concept he's mainly thinking towards the exhaust side of things. gas that's hotter will move faster then a slower, colder and denser one. getting that exhaust out as fast as possible is what you want to do. wrapping the downpipe up helps to keep the heat inside to help this effect, while also keeping the temps low in the engine bay. wrapping the hardpipes will also be beneficial as the pipes don't get as hot and it could also serve as keeping the pipes cool. just think of it as a similiar reason why carpenters use insulation in houses. make sure you still have your heatshields still in place as this also affects engine bay temps. they're there for a reason. another alternative is to send out your exhaust manifold and downpipe to get coated.

as for the engine bay being warm, of course it'll be. a normal thing especially for turbocharged cars. this is the reason why a lot of heatshields are employed to prolong surrounding components.

505zoom · Jul 11, 2004

Get ceramic coating on your hardpipes, intake, exhaust manifold, and DP/s-pipe. Get a aftermarket FMIC. Get a aftermarket radiator with slimfans. Then get a vented hood.

You will see better gains from reducing the power loss created by the heat than you ever will by using the heat for energy. Ceramic coating the exhaust manifold and s-pipe does two things to help. 1, it keeps the heat energy working towards spining the turbine... and 2, it will heat up the intake air/engine bay less.

The FMIC is so you can get a larger radiator, and the radiator is obvious how it will help.

Run a low mixture of antifreeze, get a higher pressure radiator cap, and get a thermostat that opens at a lower temp. The higher power slimfans will also make a difference.

The vented hood is also one of the best things you can do. I can actually see the heat pouring out of there when I am at a stoplight or in a drive thru.

All of these will reduce the underhood temps to a safer level. You will also free up a lot of lost hp if you do everything I mentioned above.

Wiggles422 · Jul 11, 2004

Like they said get everything coated and if a vented hood is too much $$ just take out the rear weatherstripping. It's amazing how much that helped out. (I know that isn't what you're looking for, but it'll help someone)

MPNick · Jul 11, 2004

505zoom said:
Get ceramic coating on your hardpipes, intake, exhaust manifold, and DP/s-pipe. Get a aftermarket FMIC. Get a aftermarket radiator with slimfans. Then get a vented hood.

You will see better gains from reducing the power loss created by the heat than you ever will by using the heat for energy. Ceramic coating the exhaust manifold and s-pipe does two things to help. 1, it keeps the heat energy working towards spining the turbine... and 2, it will heat up the intake air/engine bay less.

The FMIC is so you can get a larger radiator, and the radiator is obvious how it will help. Run a low mixture of antifreeze, get a higher pressure radiator cap, and get a thermostat that opens at a lower temp. The higher power slimfans will also make a difference.

The vented hood is also one of the best things you can do. I can actually see the heat pouring out of there when I am at a stoplight or in a drive thru.

All of these will reduce the underhood temps to a safer level. You will also free up a lot of lost hp if you do everything I mentioned above.

Coatings that keep heat out seem to work better then coatings that keep heat in. Coated exhaust manifolds and turbo housing tend to crack.

505zoom · Jul 11, 2004

MPNick said:
Coatings that keep heat out seem to work better then coatings that keep heat in. Coated exhaust manifolds and turbo housing tend to crack.

Good point, that is something to consider for sure.

03MSP · Jul 11, 2004

So removing the weatherstripping isn't bad if it rains right? I feel like a dumbass asking this, but there are a lot of electronical things back there

orangezoom · Jul 11, 2004

I use Ice in my trunk and it cools the piping going to the turbo.
ICE

Black Majik MSP · Jul 11, 2004

There are tons of different things to try:

Water Wetter
aftermarket radiator
lower temp thermostat
remove rear weatherstripping
FMIC
EVO hood
coolant bypass mod
heat wrap plastic pipes
upgrade to hardpipes or Samco IC pipes
get hardpipes thermal coated
DGM AutoEXE grille (lets in more air I think)
IC spray (water, CO2, or N2O)
fender vent
wheel well vent (called TT fender vent on VWvortex)
custom scoop or vent for hood or fender

Here are some of the threads that I recently posted in about these ideas:
http://www.msprotege.com/forum/showthread.php?t=72531
http://www.msprotege.com/forum/showthread.php?t=71991
Water Wetter (just search, there are like 5)

speedhawaii · Jul 12, 2004

we have a turbo...thats why it would be a lil more hot. listen to 505. ICE is great haha...not

MazdaSpeeder00 · Jul 12, 2004

I was curious about the weather stripping thing too. Will it be harmful in anyway to remove it? Also i was curious if removing the license plate will really make that much of a difference with the FMIC?

starflare21 · Jul 12, 2004

MazdaSpeeder00 said:
I was curious about the weather stripping thing too. Will it be harmful in anyway to remove it? Also i was curious if removing the license plate will really make that much of a difference with the FMIC?

if you live in an area where it rains or snows a lot i personally wouldn't do the mod. it's there for a reason, mazda didn't just put it there for decoration. removing the license plate should make a difference in temps because for the most part that's a fairly sizeable area that it impedes direct air flow but some states do require you to have a front license plate so it's your choice if you want to run the risk.

Black Majik MSP · Jul 12, 2004

orangezoom said:
I use Ice in my trunk and it cools the piping going to the turbo.
ICE

I have to check out your air to liquid IC setup sometime.

Cooling down the Engine Bay

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