philooo

I am changing my water pump, so while they are in there I was thinking may be to invest in a 3rd radiator kit



https://www.suncoastparts.com/mm5/me...=996thirdradia

My dealer tells me they are useless even for the track

I have to say I tracked the car a couple times and in hot summer florida without any temperature problems.

Any input on that ?

mglobe

For hard track use in hot climates it is well worthwhile. Otherwise useless. I run one on my race car.

BruceP

I think the third radiator is useless for the street, where the solution to high temps has more to do with airflow than radiator surface area.

On the track, airflow isn't an issue. But if it were me, I'd do it anyway. Enough hot laps and I'm sure you'd heat soak the poor thing. If you're in there anyway, and plan to track the car, I'd do it just because a) it looks cool, and b) it seems like cheap insurance.

My .02...

MiamiC70

I'm in Miami as well NOT useless and i was looking into but unfortunately for me not so simple on my 2004 40th AE or I would have done already and my car never overheats. However, more surface area in cooling system is not a bad thing, plus it looks cool peeking out. too bad we cannot use this one:

http://www.suncoastparts.com/product//SKU9971TRK.html


P.S. I hope dealer you asked was not The Collection becasue talk about "useless"

wwest

Has no effect unless you remove the engine cooling regulator thermstat in order to "supercool" the engine.

The engine control system will automatically disable the A/C if the engine coolant temperature level begins to exceed the nominal range. If that happens on a reguler basis then yes, add the third radiator.

ivangene

OH LORD!

removing the t-stat has nothing to do with coolant effectiveness

more coolant - more surface area to cool more coolant = more cooling

no t-stat with the same amount of coolant will saturate at exactly the same place as if it has a t-stat .... there is no where for the heat to go at some point

I mean imagine having only 1 tea spoon ofwater in your car or having the pacific ocean - DUH!!

adding more coolant capacity will 100% remove more thermal energy then keeping it exactly the same and removing a bottleneck

infrasilver

I personally think the extra Rad is worthwhile, ignore all the math and reasons that it doesn't make a difference, this is from my personal experience. I originally fitted the rad due to high the temps I was getting from tracking it and wanted to keep it cooler to let me stay on track longer.

But I found out for normal road use when I fitted a low temp stat a few months before fitting a 3rd centre rad, (I can vouch for both mods) the Stat reduced running temps but a couple degrees C and when later fitting the 3rd rad it dropped the temp a couple more. This in turn takes longer for the engine to get really hot, like in heavy traffic, and it never gets as hot as it did, it also gives quicker cool down time when moving again which can only be good for our heat sensitive engines.

Even at stand still heat is radiated off the radiators without the fans turning, all the extra square inches of surface helps.

perryinva

+1 on the effect of the low temp T-stat. Provides more cooling sooner, rather than later, and with just that, I have lower cooling temps all around, maybe 10º F. I'm sure a massive thermal heat soak overload will be exactly the same final temp as wth the old T-stat, but haven't seen that yet in 4 years of owning it.

ivangene

how many track days are you putting in

ivangene

BTW OP
for a "few times" tracking I would not get too into modding the car - many people go years and years on ALL STOCK - save the money

but the question came from someone saying it was useless even on track - and I hollar B.S.

more coolant is more coolant - more area to cool coolant is more area to cool coolant
stupid to say useless

stupid

maybe say, you dont need it, but not useless - else why wouldn't any race car in the world just skip the added weight and not use one

ivangene

these guys could have just took out their t-sat and not put that big heavy thing up front

we all know race guys like added weight with useless purposes

philooo

I assume the nuance stands between the word DE and Racing.

DE are shorter period of time on track 15 to 25 minutes, while racing goes beyond that, sometimes for hours.

I might hold off on that mod for now. Just that I am getting the full aerokit thing so I figured why no go all out while at it.

nick49

If cooling is a problem, it may be a worthwhile solution. If not, less plumbing, less weight, and less cost is better in my book.

ivangene

like I said - for someone to say its worthless is stupid...

it might not be (and most likely would not be) a benifit to you, I see amny many stock 886/boxster/caymans running around at a DE with no one screaming the sky is falling...worst case if you do get warm, you can always throttle back for a lap or two and cool her down

wwest

The type of thermostat used for controlling engine via sensing the coolant temperature has something of a linear, incremental, flow control aspect. Even with the thermostat fully open there will still be a significant level of blocking of the coolant flow.

If the thermostat never "saturates", goes fully open, then the cost of a third radiator will be wasted.