A & A kit Road Racing
#1
Racer
Thread Starter
A & A kit Road Racing
Hey guys,
I was curious if anyone has first hand experience doing track days/ road course racing with the A & A kit. I had a procharger kit on a 07 z06 awhile back and the car would run hot quickly while I was on the track. I had to sell the car before I was able to try and fix the cooling issue. A&A seems to have put a great deal of time engineering a kit w/ better airflow so i would like to know how it performs on the track. Any feedback would be appreciated.
I was curious if anyone has first hand experience doing track days/ road course racing with the A & A kit. I had a procharger kit on a 07 z06 awhile back and the car would run hot quickly while I was on the track. I had to sell the car before I was able to try and fix the cooling issue. A&A seems to have put a great deal of time engineering a kit w/ better airflow so i would like to know how it performs on the track. Any feedback would be appreciated.
#2
Team Owner
IMO, any centri kit is not going to work well for road racing.
#3
Racer
Thread Starter
Yeah i agree. I will mostly drive car on street. I was just curious if i could track the car 1-2 times a year w/o it overheating like the procharger kit did.
#4
Out the box I don't think and centri kit is setup for road racing! However that's not to say they can't be made to work. Katech built a 1000bhp z06 using a a&ha kit that was used on the track. Was very fast from what they said. Try searching for it.
Others have also run centris at the track. Just need to engineer this kits a little more and focus on cooling rather than all out power. Bigger rad, oil cooling (maybe behind fog lights), fully sealing shroud (to ensure all air HAS to go through the rad), vented hood, etc, etc and you should be able to run it. If the worst comes to the worst just short shift it, you will still me making more power than the NA guys!
Others have also run centris at the track. Just need to engineer this kits a little more and focus on cooling rather than all out power. Bigger rad, oil cooling (maybe behind fog lights), fully sealing shroud (to ensure all air HAS to go through the rad), vented hood, etc, etc and you should be able to run it. If the worst comes to the worst just short shift it, you will still me making more power than the NA guys!
#5
I run an a&a kit at HPDE events, lots of upgrades to manage heat
That's my current situation. a&a kit was on the car 8 months after I bought it. My friend said "hey, lets do a track day and a performance driving class, might be fun". got addicted and ran the car 1x a month for a year at all the Florida tracks and half of the Georgia tracks. I've delt with most of the heat related issues having a s/c street car set up for 20 min track sessions... I run 4 times or so a year now. Before my built motor oil temps would hit 260 after 10 to 15 minutes with decent throttle but not redlining it. I do cool down laps when nearing 260 deg oil don't like it going past that. That was with the Dewitts radiator with the built in oil cooler section. I now have a low compression forged motor and temps increased. I added a dual Setrab oil cooler setup and last time out I ran a full 20 minute session without revving it out too high (has enough torque to not run high rpm all the time, just on straights) temps leveled out at 241 deg oil temp from the 12 to 20 minute mark. Coolant was normal. I now have an extra hood with Track Spec hood louvers to relieve under hood pressure and a couple guys have seen 10 deg or more temp drops on track... testing that at Homestead this weekend so I'll keep you posted. I added some pics of my setup. FYI if I knew I was going to become addicted to HPDE events I wouldn't have s/c it... h/c, bolt ons and suspension/chassis and tires is the route I would have gone. The boost doesn't net that much on a road course on most tracks and just adds heat to the mix. But, it's so much fun on the street so I'm just dialing it in to run cool enough for 20 minute HPDE sessions for fun 4 times a year or so. If that's what you want to do, it just takes a lot of effort to manage the heat. If you want to pick my brain about my setup and the headaches I've dealt with feel free to ask or pm me as well. But I HIGHLY recommend not using the Dewitts radiator oil cooler section and just add external oil coolers. Only run coolant through the Dewitts radiator that comes with the A&A kit. The oil will heat the radiator coolant and keeps the coolant and oil hotter than if they were seperate. You will hear many say that vented hoods don't help with oil or coolant temps, but I know my engine bay gets insanely hot just from header heat getting trapped in there, so I feel like it would help. I'll know for sure after this weekend.
#6
Team Owner
The difference in cooling between any of the centri kits is minimal.
Can it be done? Sure, with $3-5k in other cooling mods and even then not as well as a N/A car. If you want to do track stuff, put the money into tires/wheels/brakes/suspension.
Can it be done? Sure, with $3-5k in other cooling mods and even then not as well as a N/A car. If you want to do track stuff, put the money into tires/wheels/brakes/suspension.
#8
i do run meth for safety and you use way less than you'd expect I have never been in danger of running out on track. I run the largest pulley size for low boost and not very aggressive timing with meth since im using it to prevent detonation not to add power. Haven't logged the inlet temps yet i need to do that. I plan on getting all my data logging in the next few months so ill keep you posted. And disclaimer: knowing what i know now i would have switched back to an n/a setup for HPDE, s/c setup is a pain to deal with on track but I went down the rabbit hole and the now the car exists so i said screw it I'm running it lol. I agree about the cooling with the last comment, between different centri kits is probably minimal any s/c is going to add unnecessary heat into the system for road courses. And it does cost a couple thousand to deal with the heat issues on track and leaving the engine stock or close to it keeps it way more headache free. If you are doing the s/c anyway because you just really want it for the street and only plan a couple track days just for fun just know it's gonna cost you more and is definitely a pain to deal with...and you might not want to go all out on track; but if you are ok not going flat out at the track all the time and just run it for fun you might be ok... it just got expensive quickly for me and my build because im stubborn and wanted to make it work. It's not just the s/c when tracking the car, gotta upgrade the rest of the car to deal with the heat and stress on drivetrain. The road course will bring out every weak link in a s/c setup pretty quickly.
#9
Racer
Thread Starter
Thanks for all the info guys. I'll have plenty of time to research what I want to do. The supercharger is so fun on the street while retaining near factory driveability. For the money its hard to beat the power. I enjoy hdpe stuff but will not have the time or money to do it seriously for awhile. So just wanted to know if it is possible to go play occasionally. My procharger set up got so hot so fast in Ga summer I could barely complete a lap. So 10-20min would feel like an eternity.
#10
Thanks for all the info guys. I'll have plenty of time to research what I want to do. The supercharger is so fun on the street while retaining near factory driveability. For the money its hard to beat the power. I enjoy hdpe stuff but will not have the time or money to do it seriously for awhile. So just wanted to know if it is possible to go play occasionally. My procharger set up got so hot so fast in Ga summer I could barely complete a lap. So 10-20min would feel like an eternity.
#11
Racer
Thread Starter
I'd love to hear about the hood after youve tried it. After my first track day I installed a dewitts radiator and was looking at different hoods. I had to sell the car before I could test.
#12
Burning Brakes
I have done several autocross and a track day with my ECS-1500 Z06. I had to run in super modified and took 1st place. (Driver mod) They cried because I have a blower. In the auto cross, I never built any boost and its over in 2 minutes so zero heat issues.
The track day was a blast and never had any heat issues. I think it was like 10 to 15 laps per session, but it was cool out. Fast track, you can hit 140 no problem.
The track day was a blast and never had any heat issues. I think it was like 10 to 15 laps per session, but it was cool out. Fast track, you can hit 140 no problem.
#13
Race Director
Member Since: May 2004
Location: Raleigh, NC
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St. Jude Donor '15
What tires were you running?
#14
Hood vents
Regarding styling, sometimes I like the vents, sometimes I don't. However, they are definately effective at venting heat and relieving under hood pressure. I had a spare hood painted (they did an outstanding job matching the color without blending) so I can swap out if I want, but after seeing how much heat is vented even just driving around town I feel bad puting a sealed hood back on. The headers give off so much heat it's insane. Guess I'll have to do the carbon front splitter and extended ZR1 spoiler to match the look of the vents a little better
#17
#18
i also run the track spec vents on my 900whp procharged 1/2 mile car and they work wonders in helping keep the nose more planted at speed and lower cruising temps for sure when the car is hot. I'd agree with the 5-10* difference and car cools down way faster once hot and you're going slow again too. Noticeably more stable at 165+mph. Amazing quality pieces and easy install.
if it were me i would not supercharger a track car. heads/cam/intake should be more than enough and would work way better plus you can feel the 50-60lbs in the nose. it's not a big deal but for dedicated track car it's probably not ideal.
if it were me i would not supercharger a track car. heads/cam/intake should be more than enough and would work way better plus you can feel the 50-60lbs in the nose. it's not a big deal but for dedicated track car it's probably not ideal.
Last edited by neverstop; 03-27-2017 at 06:26 PM.
#19
Pro
I have a boosted car that I do HPDE's with. I am going to side mounts and a liquid oil cooler to combat the heat. Radiator flow was priority #1. I also have plenty of customer cars that have Procharger setups that do hdpe's.
#20