F430 GT3

Hi, I'm racing an F430 GT3 in thailand and last week we had a major heating problem at Sepang Malaysia, the water temperature reached 140c when we checked the car, the engine has no problem, the cylinder head and gasket was good. water pump is working fine. radiator is new. anyone had this problem? any advice?

 

Is your car Loris Kessel version 430GT3?

 

Was engine really that hot or bad gauge reading? If it was and everything is as you say, likely air in line system needs bleeding.

How hot did oil get?

If water got that high it would boil over and likely damage engine.

 

430 water temperature gets to about 115 to 120 degrees Celcius at Sepang's full track configuration in 30 minute sprint races.

If your water temp got up to 140 then something is wrong.

 

Hi, no it's actually a challenge car with some basic modification like the straight pipe, the catalytic taken out, GT3 ECU, to fit GT3 category by Monlau Competicion in Barcelona, i bought the car from the owner a few months ago but it's hard to get any info from them about the car.

 

Hi Jim, thanks for the advice would like to say you're my inspiration for racing, bought the f430 because of the P4/5 C.

we vacuum the air in line system after every run, i'm not sure how hot the oil is, but i believe it's at a normal temperature since my engineers didn't say anything about it. oil pressure is also normal.

we haven't taken the engine apart yet because it's very difficult to do it here in thailand, lack of spare parts and we're running on kind of a tight budget. however we ran some tests and put a camera inside the engine to check for the condition and everything seems fine.

would you recommend i take the engine apart?

 

i was told too that water temp should be around 115, but at 109 i get a blue warning lights, and that's when the water in the cooling tank gets push out, by the 3rd lap it's almost empty. so...... if 115 is normal does that mean i can keep racing with the blue warning lights on?

somewhere between that i felt like the car switch it self into a safe mode and started to be very slow, i notice when i couldn't over take the Honda DC5 that's running in a touring car division in the straight line....

 

When running we never had a issue but during refueling we did
so we fit a cooling fan that stays on and an electric water pump
to keep flow going and never had another overheating issue.


Something is wrong with flow. Are you sure water pump is ok and impeller
is ok? Is a cooling line crimped? Is fuel/air ok? Very lean could run hot.

If you can't find anything in car can you put your engine on a dyno to see if
it overheats?

Somehow I think it's a problem with flow caused by air/ bad pump/or crimped coolant line.

Is cooling fan working?

If you were in Torino we'd check for you.

Best

 

If you lost coolant from just 109 degrees Celcius then your pressure cap at the overflow tank is probably out of spec. Have that checked and replaced. There is a 0.2 Bar higher pressure cap spec from 575 or 599, I don't quite remember which model, green in color I think, that we fitted to our 430. No boil overs up to about 119 degrees, but you better make sure your radiators and hoses are in good condition so the additional 0.2 Bar or about 10% extra pressure in the system won't blow them.

To lose water on 3rd lap at Sepang is way too early, so I suspect your pressure cap is faulty or there were air locks in your cooling system you did not flush out properly. We normally will run the cooling fan even on out lap and formation lap just to delay the inevitable overheating.

As your temp gets to around 112 degrees you should start to short shift at 8,000 rpm, use much less engine braking in down shifts, and backing off throttle slightly for the last 50 meters at the front and back straight These measures will help engine temp to stabilize at around 115. If you don't take these precautions to conserve your engine, then it's usually too late by the time engine temp reaches 117 and start the downward spiral of boil over and even hotter engine temp in a very short period of time.

 

Official answer from Ferrari is that the engine can take the higher temp, but that's really meaningless as Ferrari treats engines as a consumable item.

Losing power while over heated is never a good sign. Keep close eye on your compression and leak down numbers, as burnt exhaust valves and/or head gaskets are not unusual for 430 running in hot Asia climate.

 

that is exactly what happened! yes was told i need a 0.4bar pressure cap from kessel, since we couldn't get our hands on that in time for the race, we just kindda sealed it. result is the hoses blowed up, but i was runing 140c for 2 laps before it does.

i was told i should buy parts from kessel, any advice on how i can do that? 'cus i tried emailing them from their website and didn't get any reply.

thanks

 

the fan and pump are working fine, we actually tried fitting electric pump that runs at 5000rpm just to try as well, didn't help at all. i believe the coolant line are fine too, and i had the mechanic from official ferrari dealership to bleed out the air in the cooling system, so i assume he did it the right way.

since we're the only ferrari racing in thailand, it's almost impossible to know whats what, and ordering spare parts is a nightmare since we have to wait almost 2 weeks for air shipment.

 

It seems like you're doing the right things. The lambda fuel air ratios are fine? Not too lean?

I can't think of anything else except that the engine is damaged. Is there any white smoke in the exhaust?

The Engine may need to come out.

We're racing again at The Ring on September 29TH. If you want to come over, watch the race and talk to our mechanics and engineers let me know.

 

that sounded great, would love to go see the race at the ring. alright, during the next week i should have some updates to share. thank you all for helping

 

As an aside we can get you any parts you need.

 

Are both radiators new? The cooling fins take quite a bit of abuse and will at some point get air flow restricted due to constant gravel pelting. If the radiator fins are laid over at all replace both.

What coolant are you running? We have had best results with distilled water and water-wetter during hot summer events.

Hope you find the issue is not a motor problem.