F/I for Road Course/Road Course

[Kyle55]

F/I for Road Course

I haven't seen this subject covered that much unless i missed in the Search. Question is what is most effective F/I for the road course such as Nurburgring. Anybody who is F/I and competing in road course have u run into any issues .Can u have a reliable track car for road course that is F/I. Almost all the turbo and Supercharger threads are based on drag racing setups. What cooling changes would have to be made comparing drag to road course setup. Anybody running a cpr single, hellion twin, paxton, or whipple etc for the road course.

 

[five.slow]

If you can beat heat soak positive displacement blowers would be the best bet. Turbos would be the worst, nothing like getting into boost 1/2 way through a turn and blowing the tires off. I'd say roush or vmp.

 

[TheVikingRL]

The most effective F/I for a road course is no F/I, just leave it N/A. For track day duty these cars make more than enough power NA. There is a good reason why F/I setups are geared towards drag racing. Why would you want to introduce more heat soak, stress, failure points, etc. If there is a weakness, 20 minutes on a road course will usually find it. Keep it simple and it will usually last longer with less headaches.

If you are definitely going the F/I route then linear boost is better, as was mentioned. And you need to get the heat of out of the engine, particularly the oil. A big air to oil cooler, proper airflow, etc.

 

[Bgoins]

The most effective F/I for a road course is no F/I, just leave it N/A. For track day duty these cars make more than enough power NA. There is a good reason why F/I setups are geared towards drag racing.

Not so sure about this. Some of the best handling new cars in the world are forced induction, and many are turbos. However I think if you want big power out of a Coyote with the intention of racing on a road course I'd stick with a PD or Centrifugal supercharger, and a giant intercooler

 

[CPRsm]

Your biggest enemy is going to be heat in the cylinder and proper octane.
Personally I think a turbo can be a good thing depending on the kit itself. We have the largest most effect Intercoolers on the market. And we can setup a turbo to spool when you want. Don't want it coming out of the corner and hitting too hard. We've done it before for guys doing roll racing at airports where top end is everything and spool is ensured by other means. We'd pick a turbine and then you can try different housings and boost controller settings to suite your needs. If you have a stick you can get pretty trick and do boost by gear as well. Something you can't do with any other power adder

 

[TheVikingRL]

Not so sure about this. Some of the best handling new cars in the world are forced induction, and many are turbos. However I think if you want big power out of a Coyote with the intention of racing on a road course I'd stick with a PD or Centrifugal supercharger, and a giant intercooler

That's as much political as anything with the drive for smaller, more fuel efficient engines. Even if it's just for show. And most of those cars have huge price tags and engineering budgets. If you want a (relatively) cheap, reliable track car, nothing beats NA IMO. How many successful FI cars can you find over the years in NASA, American Iron, etc?

 

[noldevin]

If you plan on being competitive, NA is the only way to go. These cars have plenty of power and most FI is going to overpower the chassis. Cooling will be an issue, and so will traction.

You definitely don't want PD, because they heatsoak and give a little too much torque for this IMO. I wouldn't do turbo because they tend to spike in and be non linear (a boost controller could probably fix this, but that just adds another thing to go wrong). A turbo would also get red hot if it was in boost for 20 minutes.

For a lighter duty track car (HPDE, open track or maybe time trial), you could probably get away with a centrifugal setup, as they generate less heat and less torque, and a nice linear power band. You'll likely need extra cooling in the form of a larger than usual intercooler, radiator, and probably an external oil cooler.
Your brakes will need work to keep up with the extra speed you'll be generating. I don't know if you can fit brake cooling ducts with the intercooler piping.

As for the cars that came with factory boost, well, they were designed with boost in mind. They generally have smaller engines, lower compression, and cooling set up for boost. Either that, or they're super expensive supercars.

 

[Bgoins]

That's as much political as anything with the drive for smaller, more fuel efficient engines. Even if it's just for show. And most of those cars have huge price tags and engineering budgets. If you want a (relatively) cheap, reliable track car, nothing beats NA IMO. How many successful FI cars can you find over the years in NASA, American Iron, etc?

Agree for the most part but for our cars making big power NA is not cheap

Really if you're interested in a cheap track toy I'd pick up a used fox body that's already set up for the track. Freshen up the 302 and have fun.

If the OP isn't satisfied with the power levels of his NA setup I think a VMP supercharger with large intercooler would be great on the track.

 

[FocusSTGuy]

Stay N/A and lighten the car. I am not sure how many people have experience with HPDE, open track, or NASA events, but having a low 400rwhp car even at mid 3500lbs with driver is scary fast. Yes you won't be doing 200 million mile per hour in a straight line but then again thats not the point of running at the track. Also note that going north of 600rwhp for a track car is significantly harder to drive at the edge even when running slicks for the average driver. Most people will be slower in a 600rwhp car then a 400rwhp car from shear bravery standpoint.

Do the suspension right, do your brakes right, lighten the car (especially get very light rims and reduce unsprung weight at all costs), stay N/A with cams, LT's, Boss manifold, upgrade the cooling for everything and call it a day in my opinion.

EDIT: Don't forget a large front splitter and larger rear wing. Got to get you some of that good good downforce.

 

[TheVikingRL]

1984 1/2 Mustang SVO - 2.5L Stroker, Ported Stock Head, Boport Stage 3 Cam, Garret T3/T4 Turbo @ 25PSI, Stinger FMIC, McLeaod Twin Disk

Nice SVO:thumbsup:

 

[FocusSTGuy]

Nice SVO:thumbsup:

thanks! :burnout:

 

[Need 04 Wine]

Your biggest enemy is going to be heat in the cylinder and proper octane.
Personally I think a turbo can be a good thing depending on the kit itself. We have the largest most effect Intercoolers on the market. And we can setup a turbo to spool when you want. Don't want it coming out of the corner and hitting too hard. We've done it before for guys doing roll racing at airports where top end is everything and spool is ensured by other means. We'd pick a turbine and then you can try different housings and boost controller settings to suite your needs. If you have a stick you can get pretty trick and do boost by gear as well. Something you can't do with any other power adder

Sounds like this guy is looking for a test car...

 

[HooperWest]

N/A FTW!

[video=youtube;WWy-TPRoV6M]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWy-TPRoV6M[/video]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWy-TPRoV6M

I just found a rare PSP 400HP Road Race engine and dropped it in my FOX.

I decided to keep the FOX N/A due to all of the heat issues I have had to deal with @ the Track with my blown GT500 over the years.

 

[J_Roc]

I'm at a point where I'm either going to supercharge my 2014 5.0 or get a new car. I want the extra power for tooling around fun

I still want to occasionally hit up auto-x or the road course. I know the power wouldn't be needed for these events, but I also don't think I need two different performance cars.

Heat has been my main concern here, as most have already mentioned. The VMP Stage 2 with 85mm or 90mm pulley and the upgraded intercooler may just be the ticket. Although, I assume that I would still need to short shift for sessions in the middle of the Summer to help with heat.

 

[MKMotorsport]

My vote was N/A. Most drivers (myself included probably!) cannot make effective use of ALL of even the stock power on a road course, all the time. Spend some time at a real road course (not the parking lot SCCA cone dodging events) watching guys spank the daylights out of "muscle cars" all day long in Miata's, Honda S2000's, and Lotus Elise's (all sporting maybe 250 whp), if that. I live 30 minutes from HPR (High Plains Raceway), and am casually shopping some F/I kits. Now if one of the turbo guys wants to offer me a smoking deal to use my car as a test bed for future road course duty development, I'm all ears :thumbsup:

 

[Kyle55]

I agree in most situations N/A will be best. I do wonder about courses like laguna seca and the Nurburgring though in which high hp cars like the 918 spyder, c7 z06 and koenigseg one do very well. It would be awesome to see a turbo or supercharged 5.0 to see what time it could get on one of those courses.

 

[Thalilbear02]

Once the wife finally Ok's the last remaining few thousand for cooling mods and extra bits here and there, I'll be happy to update you guys once I get some more track time into this car. It's been really delayed thanks to needing to move and buy a second house, but hopefully soon we'll be all wrapped up and good to go.

 

[Otroo]

Good topic I was kind of wondering about this myself. In my case we have a local SCCA run here one weekend a month and the drag strip is open most weekends so I was trying to find a decent balance between the two. I thought about turbo's and figured for the road course just turn down the amount of boost so I don't get any power spikes when I was not expecting it. I don't know though because I am not to familiar with power adders.

 

[Heuristic]

Staying NA is your best option. Odds are you aren't fully utilizing what you currently have, so adding gobs of power isn't ideal. However, if you must, the best option will be something that can maintain it's power for the 20 to 30 minute runs. I don't really get some of the anti-turbo sentiment in here. I think you could utilize one quite effectively, especially if you run a pretty small turbo. You can get one that brings on the power earlier and pretty linear. Also, as long as your cooling setup is good I don't see why you couldn't run power all day long.

As far as super chargers go, the heaton roots type blowers are completely out of the question. You'll be 2 laps in and feel like you're in limp mode with all the heat soak. Personally I'd rather go with a centrifugal blower if I was trying to track the car, with again, focusing on linear power