So i hate towing in the summer. Everything under the hood gets hot and it effects my manifold air temp even when im not towing.
When i drive to work in the morning, everything is cool, the intake air temp (IAT) is 68*F and my MAT is 88*F.
But when i go home in the afternoon when its ~90 out my MAT is ~120*. I know the AC Condenser doesn't help the IC at all but i have to have the AC on.

Anyone have any solutions to lower the MAT? Even if it is by 10*F?

I was thinking of a new inter cooler but idk if that'll help as the condenser is still in the way.
Another option i was thinking of is a Turbo blanket as that puts off quite a bit of heat as well.

Any suggestions, let me know!

 

A turbo blanket will definitely cut down on under hood heat and heat transfer to the compressor side of the turbo. Are you running into an issue or just want cooler temps? Air heats up when it is compressed so gains will tough.

**hood louvers will get rid of a lot of engine bay heat

**move up to an s366 that will move more CFM of air at less boost pressure

 

Did you add this sensor? I don't recall seeing an intake manifold temp sensor on the stock set-up.

There are several ways to lower the temp, but what is the purpose of doing it?

 

You can try water/meth injection or if you want a power adder you can try nitrous oxide.

 

I had a thread on here a few years ago where we got into the nuts and bolts of intercooler upgrades for our trucks. The consensus was that they do help bring the temperature down 100-150 degrees, but were not the best bang for your buck.

I plan to get a blanket for my SXE turbine simply based on the recommendation from brokestroke and his initial impression.

At only $35 it is worth a shot in my opinion.

 

I am probably going to buy the turbo blanket on payday. Issue with a 366 is i have a 6 speed so building boost after shifting is going to hurt a bit more.
The only issue i have is when it gets hot out you can feel the difference, i floor it going 70mph ~2000RPM and the lag is unreal, but when cooler there is no lag.
I still cant hit 1200*F in my daily tune (i think its a 100HP tune from Dan K) so no there really isn't an issue just me grumbling.

Yes my T4 kit had 4? 1/8npt ports for sensors.

LOL if it was a bit lower miles i'd consider water meth but nitrous is definitely off the table.
I may go water meth when i get around to putting in a forged/billet rod block.

 

Yeah the blanket is definitely happening, looks better than what it is right now and is useful. I was looking at the CX Racing 6.0 intercooler as it is ~$700 and mine has the plastic end caps.

 

Well, go do what I did then and blow a hole in one of the pistons and then have Swamps rebuild it with all the high-strength stuff.

 

There is a manifold temp sensor, it's located on the intake spider.

Nitrous oxide is more to supplement a lack of oxygen when you dump the throttle and the turbo hasn't spooled up yet.

In theory you could build a water/meth, or even just a water injection system to address your manifold temps. I have thought about building something like this for myself using a pressure switch so that the water/meth injection would kick in under heavy load and higher boost. Not to address high EGT's or manifold temps, but to improve efficiency.

 

True. Either way, it will address his issue of lag in hot conditions.

 

Ah, I overlooked the comment about lag. I see it now.

 

So not to throw too much fuel in the fire, but what are you looking to spend to combat this? Take a radiator comb and coil cleaner to your truck, may help a few degrees. Wrapping your uppipes will help your spool and underhood temps, but takes time and install frustration.

Next up you may wanna try something I shared with @Sous this winter that I was hoping to share on here after some more in depth testing and Torque logs. So, my goal was to keep the cooling fan from cycling on while towing heavy on the highway on our cross country summer trips and keep the under hood stuff from getting heat soaked. Anyone that's towed heavy knows how when that fan kicks on you can feel it, and losing that 20-30hp sucks, especially at the pump.

So last fall i pulled a trick from my SCCA track days outta the hat. Unfortunately life happened and we haven't had any decent trips this summer to fully test any of it out yet.

So what i did was take some misting , threaded them into a 2' section of pipe mounted behind the grill pre ac condensor, ran some hose to a and it's own water in my bed tool box. Wired it all up, and now with a flip of a i can send 10 micron atomized water in measured increments to cover the condenser, intercooler and radiator. The nozzles flow 1 quart per hour, so simply adding another scales up the whole deal up till i find where there's enough water to keep those 3 heat exchangers semi-sweaty without slipping the accessory belt. Hopefully. Unfortunately i haven't had ideal hot test weather here, or had more than a 30 minute short tow to the lake. When we would go cross country thru the desert in summer its nothing to see 105* + air temp and who knows what temp is radiating up off that hot pavement to the engine bay

May help you in your quest, may not, but it's cheaper than water meth kits. (Which i also installed , but have also yet to tow in what I'd call real heat to test it) You could even T off of your washer resevoir to some 5g/hr cheapo garden sprinklers like the track guys do, but towing we're in it for the long hual, not a 12 second 1/4mile, or 3 minute autocross. That's why i scaled up on tank size and more atomized and measurable spray. But I'd recommend distilled water to keep from plugging these nozzles with mineral deposits and preventing potential underhood rust

 

Hah! That is exactly what I had considered doing to improve the efficiency of my AC condenser. Then I realized it was yet another system I had to maintain fluid levels on and winterize when the weather turns cold. Ended up opting for auxiliary electric fans.

What class did you run in SCCA?

 

The big flat plastic Ford piece that is between the core support and the grill can be trimmed. If you remove it there is about a 2" flap on the bottom that runs the whole length. You can trim it off and open about 2"x32" of air flow to the top section of the intercooler that does not go through the AC condenser first.

 

Figure i check all fluids every fuel stop as it is, have the water/meth tank mounted right above this one, already gonna be in the tool box grabbing fuel additives anyways. Easy to winterize, just undo the hose at the pipe and turn on the pump till the tank n hose are empty.

I just did regional autocross events. My '84 vette is the Z51 model, excels at autocross. Well, back in the early 2000's anyways. Anyone can floor it n drive a straight line for 1/4 mile