after intense and "spirited" runs, my engine bay gets extremely hot. so hot, you need a towel to flip open the engine hood. what options are there out there to cool the engine bay while driving. i pop the cover when i am taking breaks on drives. or am i just over-reacting to this heating issue? i currently have the rear challenge grill/air intake/exhaust setup. thanks for any help. jon c.
replace the cats with drop outs. Should lower the temps a bit. I would not be too worried about under hood temps, as long as guage temps for water oil etc. are ok.
yeah all gauges are reading normal. maybe i'm just over-reacting. thank you for your help. i remember seeing something on the challenge cars... that keeps temp down... i maybe wrong though.
360C cars have a different rear window that may promote cooling (i am not sure?!!?!) But it is lexan as well. We have seen cars extremly hot and no damage has ever been directly reltated to the engine bay temp. After you run it hard, its not a bad idea to pop the hood, but at the same time, I am sure it will not do damage to leave it to cool on its own.
Jon, don't worry about the engine bay temperatures unless, as stated, a guage is in the danger zone. Challenge Lexan rear window is only to cut weight. Best regards, Rob Schermerhorn
the lexan back window also has a louver to extract the heat out. and remove the cats you will cut down the heat the cats hold a lot of heat believe it or not . also to go to extremes you can get heat covers the challenge cars have there headers and muffler and side panels in the engine bay insulated by heat extracting covers
The challenge window louvre actually draws air in to pass across the gearbox oil cooler (road cars have a water heat exchanger in the valley), not let heat out. The sides of the engine hood are grilles and the heat gets out through there. Removing cats is best option for all good reasons!!