2001 Supercharged Z06 (mods in sig)

Before anything I realize I should likely clean stock radiator, condenser, and coolant flush for a little better performance but an upgrade would be nice if I'm going to pull the radiator. I also need to do some aero stuff and close the gap between condenser and radiator

Current street temps at 75mph cruise in 90-95 degree summer.

212 coolant/230 oil with no ac (244 oil after a few spirited runs)

228 coolant /250 oil with AC.

Actually runs a hair cooler around town unless AC on sitting in traffic then its about the same. Its not terrible but not ideal.

It does naturally run a bit warmer than before the trans swap because the Zr1 6th gear is about 2,300 rpm at 75mph.


Stock radiator, stock fans, no oil cooler.. I still have the large side Procharger intercoolers but may have single front mount if I push much more. I know this may be over due for a supercharged car and I would like to bring the temps down a bit (Would really like 190 water and 215-220 oil) but don't want to bring them down too low or go over kill on cooling (and my wallet lol)

Thinking about more Aero, Dewitts radiator, and an oil cooler. The radiator with oil cooler not as good as separate? If separate which do you recommend? Improved racing seems to have some nice stuff and my shop is good at fab work if needed. Mainly street driving with a few 1/2 mile events and do not plan to road race but I do like spirited drives.


Pretty sure a local C6 Z that road races used a Dewitts radiator plus they added external oil cooler here http://www.improvedracing.com/setrab...ler-p-247.html but I would almost worry my oil temps would be too low with that size. Lets hear your thoughts

 

I was shocked at how much better the stock cooling system performs when cleaned (externally and internally). Granted, my car is still NA, but my car used to run a lot hotter than it does now with cleaned radiator/condenser and new coolant. It's a lot cheaper than buying new parts.

I was going to go the route of a new radiator (DeWitts) but decided to see if the stocker could be improved on the cheap first. Sure enough on the street, coolant barely gets over 200 even in the heat (85-90 ambient) with adjusted fan settings, oil doesn't breach 210. AC on/off doesn't make much difference.

I had the car on the track last week, and with 85 ambient temp, coolant hit 220 and oil hit 256 after a 20 minute hard session.

 

Yea thats definitely a good idea. My car does have the radiator tilted back toward motor and could easily have lots of debris clogged in the fins that may not appear to be much just by looking.

Nice oil cooler would be nice for the more spirited events but yea I think you are right I should take a step back and clean and flush what I have plus replace thermostat just in case to see where it gets me. Then maybe add oil cooler and if needed radiator and further cooling items.

 

seeing that you have the side intercoolers I think your car could run cooler as it is, especially since these temps are at cruise and not idle, but that's not to say a radiator and fan upgrade would not be beneficial... when I put my blower on I did a full size dewitts with no cooler and spal fans and those have worked great for the past few years... most of the time the car runs low to high 190s in the extreme heat (whether at idle or cruising) and a tad less when it is cool outside... one of my fans took a dump (fan was fine it just stopped working) a year or so ago due to a fried relay terminal in the fusebox and even with one fan going it only got up to about 215-220, no doubt I would have overheated with the stock setup with only one fan going... if I were in your shoes and buying a new radiator I would go with the full size with no cooler so you get the extra cooling capacity and run a separate oil cooler if you wish to do that

 

Thanks Neutron. What oil temps are you seeing?

 

+1 on cleaning the radiator.

Granted, I run stock, so no extra load, but after an external cleaning of the radiator, my running temps at 75MPH and 95* ambient dropped from ~215*F to 199*F. And I just used compressed air.

A thorough cleaning, involving removing the fan shroud and radiator, then washing with water is strongly advocated by others on the forum. I just got a telescoping wand from Harbor Freight, raised the car and blew out a ton of crap; very little that I could see from underneath, but the amount of dirt on the floor was astonishing. Took less than 30 minutes. If you do it, wear a dust mask and safety glasses!

 

when just cruising around not beating on it after it's fully heated up it's typically 210-215, obviously that will go up when driving aggressively... I use redline 5w30

 

Cleaned the radiator and condenser with air gun and long hose from harbor freight this weekend. Bunch of stuff came out and definitely brought the temps down as it was 90 yesterday and car was running under 200 most of the day (oil about 220) while driving down highway. Id like to do some aero mods to direct more air through condenser and radiator and maybe add a small oil cooler and call it a day. It wasn't running much hotter than my dads 98 (that we also just cleaned the radiator) etc and it is all stock with radiator in factory position etc.

The main issue is radiator is tilted back with Procharger cradle and much more air than factory is not going over the radiator and through condenser. The factory set up basically directs all air through the condenser and radiator.

Thanks for the replies all