Track Day In The Summer ... In The Desert

Hello All,

I'll be attending a track day in a couple of months at a track in the desert. The historical forecast is a high of ~100F during the day. My pinto cools nicely in normal conditions, and stays cool during track days and autocrosses, remaining at ~200F with a thermostat temperature of 190F. I was thinking of adding a water sprayer in front of the radiator for extra insurance, but to those with experience, are there other modifications/precautions I should be considering?

Photo credit: Ken Suzuki @slow_car_slow

I'd check on track rules for a water sprayer. Generally leaky things get black flagged.

I may be a bit confused;

You intend to add a spray bar / mister on the front of the car for when you are on track?

Or are you talking about after you come off the track?

I live in Vegas and here are some of the things you can do if the car starts getting hot after a few laps; short shift the car to keep the RPMs down, do a lap at a reduced pace to bring the temps down or simply pull off a few laps early. Water Wetter helps as well.

It's very difficult to say what it will do before you actually go to the event. Before I upgraded the radiator my Datsun ran fine up until 90F after that it got incrementally hotter. The car would see borderline water temps but never overheat.

Sometimes you just won't know until you run it. 

Depending on what you have in the radiator, somewhere between 75/25 water/coolant helps; I've heard water wetter works pretty well, never tried it.  But, significantly more water than coolant helped the Miata run cooler in Tucson summers.

As we chatted briefly in SD, see about an upper radiator hose that's a bit smaller ID than the lower hose. 

With the Volvo radiator I have in the E21, goofing around with (how much smaller) the upper hose size is how I got more consistent temps, and Max temp was cooler after I got it dialed in. 

My test was driving the car up the mountain on a hot day,  watching for temp swings and max temp.  Not fun in 105 degree weather, but it definitely paid off for me.

May or may not work as well with your car, but something to think about.

100F ambients are going to be just as hard on the driver as the machine. Consider a Coolshirt setup if this is a recurring thing, but regardless, be prepared to get quite hot & sweaty. Doubly bad if you're going to be wearing a suit. Myself and all my track buddies have had to tap-out of a warm session at least once (may or may not be related to Saturday night's partying), and I have seen more than one driver hauled away from the track on a hot day in an ambulance for heat exhaustion. Stay hydrated. Make sure there's some shade you can escape to during the day (or bring it). I really like coconut water for track weekends as it contains a fair amount of necessary electrolytes and is not full of chemicals.

+1 on water wetter. It's the real deal. Mix with straight water for the event if you want maximum benefit. Don't run less than 25% coolant long term since it will cease to inhibit organic growth (yes, the mix can and will turn swampy).