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Typical running Water temp - 420R - Duratec


Colin Heseltine

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What are the typical water temperatures people are seeing on a 420R.

I have just over 1000 miles on the engine.  I am normally around 90 degrees. If sat in traffic it goes up to around 95 and then the fan kicks in.  I noticed last weekend a couple of times it dropped back to around 70 when we were high up in the Peak District.

Its due its first service at Oakmere in couple of weeks time so I want to ensure any possible issues are looked at.

Colin

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Colin, a good issue to bring up.  There is always someone else with the same problem, in this case me.  I have a 2l Cosworth 220bhp Duratec in my car, a very similar engine to yours, but my engine temp. barely reaches 80 in normal driving and is often around 75.  In traffic it will get up to around 90 but I have rarely had it high enough for the fan to kick in.

I have always been a little concerned that it is running too cool, but haven't got around to doing anything about it yet.  I guess the obvious first thing is to change the thermostat temp, but I can't believe that Cosworth would have sent out their engine with the wrong thermostat fitted?

I will be very interested in your findings and anyone elses' experience.

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My 220 Duratec runs at around 80 on the road, never goes above 82/3 and drops down to about 75 when opened up after a period of light running, then gradually comes back up to 80 or so. On track it runs at just over 80 and sometimes goes up to 85 with heat soak when you stop it. 

It's all down to which stat is fitted. Earlier cars had an 82 stat, later ones a 102. There may be other stats. 

It does no harm running at 75 or so. In fact it's better for performance, though fuel economy and emissions will be better at the higher temperature which is why cars are generally run hotter. Probably not too significant either way. 

Some will argue running at the lower temperature will increase the risk of the oil being contaminated  by moisture etc but in reality and given that most of us change oil regularly it's not really an issue. 
 

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The standard cooling on the Duratec is very efficient and, if fitted with an 82c thermostat, it will seldom go much above 80C indicated on the guage - and I suspect a Cosworth engine will be 82C. The Caterham engines are a little more radom and certainly early cars had 98c thermostats (that was also miss-matched to the cooling fan ECU mapping). The 98C is OK but you will see correspondingly higher indicated temperature.   But you can also see lower temperatures than you would expect as under light loads, or cold conditions, and the overall engine cooling in the Caterham can be more than is needed.  Generally engine temperatures above 60C are fine provided the engine has been up to that temperature for some time.

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My R400D (2008, and 220bhp with roller barrels) runs mostly around 80C on the gauge (ditto for oil).  

The thermostat is the "long" variety:

Thermostat(standard).thumb.jpg.2c8dc17ecf3e17b032d09cca96a8b909.jpg

I'm told this is a 105C rather than the (short) 82C one, but I'm having trouble reconciling that to the gauge display and lack of excessive fan activity, so I'm beginning to think it's an 82C after all.

However, I'm unable to determine the "fan on/off" settings as Easimap doesn't offer any suitable panels.  Are these available only for the 9A4 ECU?  (Mine is a 992.)  Or am I doing something wrong in Easimap?

JV

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82 deg stat is fine however you will still be running the stock crank and water pump pullies, which are designed for tintops, when you start using the upper limits of the rpm the water pump is over speeding hence your temp drops rapidly, it can also lead to cavitation.

you have te option of fitting a larger diameter water pump pulley or smaller crank pulley, the later can affect charging whilst tootling around town - if you do that.

 

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Re #8: - However, I'm unable to determine the "fan on/off" settings as Easimap doesn't offer any suitable panels.  Are these available only for the 9A4 ECU?  (Mine is a 992.)

Hi John, the fan on and off thresholds are not shown in a panel, they are part of the ECU setup accessed via <System><Maps and Settings>, so not visible in a locked ECU. The panels that can be shown are "Rad Fan 1" and "Rad Fan 2" status, so you can infer the fan temperature limits by looking at the ECU water temperature when "Rad Fan 1" state changes from off to on (for fan "on" temp) and on to off (for fan "off" temp).

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Hi James,

That explains a lot!  Thanks.

However, when I hooked up the laptop to my ECU just now, and fired up Easimap, I could see only a subset of the usual panels:

Easimappagepanels_20210503.jpg.d2889f843e7ac0a28d1f5b37b4b71bac.jpg

 

...rather than these:

Easimappagepanels.jpg.ca87f11d5c87b2a113bc57719e221121.jpg

So, no longer any Rad Fan panels.  What am I doing wrong?

JV

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#9 Neil, I'm sure you're right about the pulleys but my car demonstrates the rapid cooling at relatively low revs, doesn't need more than 4-5000. 

On a long, brisk run it eventually settles to around 80 but if you then have a spell of very light load, it will do it again when you next wind it up. 

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Re #11 - Hi John, It may be software version issue or the firmware loaded to the ECU. Going by the template files description when viewed in Windows File Explorer, there seem to be a lot of rad control changes in versions from 2007, firmware 992ac67a (all firmware versions increment, so if the ECU device config shows as earlier than 992ac67a.ec2, it may not have the rad control features to monitor). I would also ensure Easimap is updated to the latest version and the latest 992 templates are loaded.

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Re #14:  James -- thank you!  That was indeed the problem.  Dense of me not to have spotted that.

I've two versions of Easimap: R71 on my old Dell laptop under Vista, and R76 just downloaded to my Win10 desktop (for playing with).  I've used the laptop version without problem but not for some time, so I'm puzzled why it should now revert to the Basic profile.  The R76 version downloaded ok, but started in Basic profile. 

Re #13: The latest SBD notes say that Easimap 6 requires Win 7, 8 or 10.  They make no mention of Vista**.  I'm happy to download the latest version to my laptop, but I'm reluctant to risk losing E6 altogether by installing an unsupported version.  Is this in fact a real risk?

** Edit: Actually, they do:

"You can now plug in your 985v* (Basic CAN mapping kit), your PC should now install the drivers. This may take several minutes.

*You need to be running a 985v or 973v mapping box. If there is no ‘v’ present on the part number, your unit will not work as it is a pre-Vista version and Windows changed their systems completely from that time onwards."

That suggests Vista is ok.  My lead is a 985v.

(Apologies to the OP for drifting a little off-topic here.)

JV

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Just checked on my car and it looks as though I have the long version of the thermostat.

I will be out in the car on thursday so will watch the temps a little closer.

I have an OBD reader but have not yet tried attaching to car to see what info it will display.

What data does Easimap display bearing in mind that the ECU is locked.

Colin

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Re #18: What data does Easimap display bearing in mind that the ECU is locked.

SBD state:

"Please note that all Cosworth & Caterham MBE ECUs are locked during manufacture, which means they cannot be modified in any way. You can only use the CAN mapping kit & Easimap 6 software for Real Time Viewing as an aid to diagnosing faults with sensors & replacement or setting up of throttle pots. " 

The best thing would be to download Easimap (from here) and explore the Help files.  See #11 for a list of panels.

I use these panels:

Engine speed
Throttle angle
Throttle site
Battery voltage
Coolant temp
Air temp
Lambda value
Lambda status
Hard cut
Soft cut
Rad fan on/off

Bear in mind that I'm just a novice at all this.  The experts do a lot more, including the logging and analysis of real-time (on-road) parameters and events. 

You'll need the 985 cable to connect the ECU to your PC.

JV

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I have played around with this problem for more than 10 years on several Duratec cars which have all overcooled , the worst being the ones fitted with the Caterham/Raceline dry sump systems.  I have tried a variety of thermostats from 82 to 105. with no effect, I have also fitted the large Water Pump pulley and even a Thermostat on the oil cooler circuit all with no effect.  I have seen the engine temps pulled down to 40C , thats both oil and water in cold conditions.   The expert view has always been that this problem occurs because the water pump is so powerful that it can keep the thermostat from closing.  I view I have never supported as there is no such problems with the engine is a stock Mondeo.

My latest car is my home brewed version of a Caterham 420r it differs in that I chose to run with a wet sump and crucially no oil cooler. It has the 82C stat fitted.   I had expected this cook the oil when held at high revs for prolonged running but this has proved not to be the case.  The car runs smack on 82C and is my first Duratec installation that has not overcooled.  

It is now my opinion that the engine is overcooled by the oil and even blanking the oil cooler if fitted will still not solve the problem as the losses from the sump pan, pipework and bulk oil storage tank effectively pull down the whole engine temps.

Obviously if you are racing on a warm day with the cooling restricted through drafting you will need an oil cooler, lets not be silly but for most who do even spirited road miles I don't believe an oil cooler is helpful.  It may also be helpfully to partially lag the bulk oil storage tank in cold weather.   I also found that partially blanking the water radiator was not very effective but did mask the problem.

Its the Oil.

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Re #20: Very interesting.  My R400D is wet-sump, and came with a Mocal oil cooler mounted in front of the rad.  Some years ago, I blanked the cooler off completely:

Oilcoolerblanking_20161224_0.thumb.jpg.7dff5cf4c6b854e86e9bf5b35652b2b2.jpg 

This certainly helped raise both oil and water temperatures.

JV

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Out in car today for a steady run over to Premier Power.  The temps were up to 90 very quickly and stayed between that and 95 all the way.  While I was there I had quick chat to Stuart about temperatures and he was happy with the water temps but suggested that for road use the oil cooler is blanked off.  Its great on track but not helpful on road as oil does not come up to optimum operating temp.

Colin

 

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I like to see 82- 85C water and 80 to 100C oil temps.

There is another issue that is also relevant to this discussion and that is oil and oil pressure.  It has become the current advice to run the tuned Duratecs on 10W60 oils sighting that this thick oil is necessary as the block can expand beyond the tolerances Ford/Mazda set for the main bearings and the oil film can brake down under extreme load.  I have a problem accepting this as Ford specified a 5W30 for the engine and I believe that this is necessary for the 4 spray jets that cool the back of the pistons to work as intended I also consider that the engine runs very high oil pressure as standard and putting 10W60 in will increase this. The result is most of the oil will be returned to the sump by the oil pressure pump bye pass valve and thus a reduced flow of oil will flow through the engine.   Caterham have now seen fit to modify the pressure pump rotors in order to reduce oil pressure on their dry sump systems a move that must further reduce vital oil flow through the engine.  I am not convinced that this is a positive move or the correct solution to excessive oil pressure.  Why not sort out the over cooling problem first and run with the correct oil as specified by the manufacturers, high spec modern lubricants even at low viscosity have massive film strengths.

Low temps, thick oil = loss of power in my experience.

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