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Heat soak with supercharger

22K views 32 replies 5 participants last post by  sqidd 
#1 ·
Hi,

I'm planning to go with a Paxton supercharger for my 2012 Mustang 5.0. I have read that heat soak in supercharger happens often degrading hp power over time.

Here's the weather doesn't go too much higher than 90 degrees. So would it be a big issue, if so do I have to upgrade the radiator, intercooler or go with Steeda 3 pass heat exchanger?

Does that have Paxton or Vortech supercharger do you have those problems?
 
#2 ·
Smarties: i have not heard of centri's having these issues, usually just large Pd blowers thats get ran a lot. I run my vortech year round and i live in las vegas where we hit 120F sometimes even more in the summer and the car never overheats or gets close to it. I have even checked the head unit and motor after several passes back to back and its not hot. Still running the stock intercooler from the kit and stock ford radiator. If it only gets to 90F where you are, you wont ever have a heat issue.

Wouldnt bother spending more for another intercooler, the kit units run well and this is in city driving, highway, and i take trips across states in it with absolutely zero heat issues for 5+ hours of driving in the heat we have here.


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#3 ·
Smarties: i have not heard of centri's having these issues, usually just large Pd blowers thats get ran a lot. I run my vortech year round and i live in las vegas where we hit 120F sometimes even more in the summer and the car never overheats or gets close to it. I have even checked the head unit and motor after several passes back to back and its not hot. Still running the stock intercooler from the kit and stock ford radiator. If it only gets to 90F where you are, you wont ever have a heat issue.

Wouldnt bother spending more for another intercooler, the kit units run well and this is in city driving, highway, and i take trips across states in it with absolutely zero heat issues for 5+ hours of driving in the heat we have here.


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It doesn’t sound like you track your IAT’s, do you?
 
#5 ·
Ok so heat soak is not a factor with centrifugal kit. Glad to hear that. I won't race my car either, I just want to have power when I want to.
 
#7 ·
No, they have heat soak issues just like every forced induction setup. There are no free rides when it comes to forced induction and heat. Yes, different blowers/different types of blowers will make more/less/different heat/different times, but they are all not NA. Take what the other poster said with a grain of salt. He doesn't have much data and doesn't know much about how IAT's effect HP.

Something to consider is that a air to air intercooler, which is what is used on most centri setups will run hot/warm at low vehicle speeds (under 50mph). If there is no air moving through the intercooler.......it won't cool. There are distinct advantages to have a air to water intercooler that runs a fan on the heat exchanger when you are talking about a daily driver. They will cool when the car is sitting still. And you sit still/drive under 50mph far more than you think you do.
 
#8 ·
Ok thanks for the info. But what can I do to lower my temp when I will be running a supercharger?

Upgrade intercooler? Radiator? Thermostat? A 3 pass heat exchanger like the Steeda unit?

A Hood with heat extractor? What can I do about it and what people do when say they take a gt500 and go racing?
 
#9 ·
Ok thanks for the info. But what can I do to lower my temp when I will be running a supercharger?
Depends on what supercharger.

Upgrade intercooler?
Depends on what blower, but generally a good start.

Radiator? Thermostat?
Yes, but it doesn't do much for IAT's aside from slightly lowering how much heat is wicked up by the intake.

A 3 pass heat exchanger like the Steeda unit?
The whole "extra pass" thing is marketing hype. A single pass works just as well as a two or three pass. That said I use dual pass exchangers because the plumbing is easier with both fittings on one side.

A Hood with heat extractor?
This will only make a measurable difference in IAT's if the air filter is sucking hot air up from the engine compartment.

What can I do about it
First thing is picking the right blower. Some are a LOT better than others to start with. If you pick one of the hotter running ones you can throw the entire catalog at it and still not be as good as one of the cooler running ones is out of the box.

and what people do when say they take a gt500 and go racing?
What kind of racing? Drag racing? They just let their cars cool down between passes. Roadracing/track days? Most of them run hot/too hot.

GT500's have great blowers (M122 or TVS Eaton) for daily driving. They don't make much heat when not making boost. That is why Ford uses them.
 
#10 ·
I'm going with either Paxton or Vortech. Was told that pd blowers are the one making more heat as per Vortech website but then again maybe it's marketing hype.
 
#11 ·
There is some marketing trickery there. Blowers are not something you can make blanket statements about. There are too many variables. Saying a centri runs cooler than a PD blower with no qualifiers is borderline lying.

If you look on all the blower manufacturers sites you will find theirs is the best, makes the most power, runs the coolest, etc. They can't all be right?

I have lived with almost all of the blowers out there. I've built the most ridiculous/biggest/best cooling system on/in any S197 on the planet.....by a large margin. And I've even designed two PD blower intake manifolds with FANTASTIC intercoolers. Been there, done that, have the T-shirt.

If I were putting a blower on a street driven/daily driver 5.0 it would be a Roush TVS, hands down. Second place isn't even close.
 
#12 ·
What are the reason you would go with a Roush? Don't forget I have a boss intake manifold so putting a roush supercharger would be to scrap the boss intake.

If you were to list the supercharger you would install what would it be?
 
#13 ·
What are the reason you would go with a Roush?
Instant torque
TVS screws (best screw design for a street car out there)
Runs cool
Runs downright "cold" with a bigger water pump/better heat exchanger
Fantastic packaging (OEM quality)
Very upgradeable
100,000mi service intervals

Don't forget I have a boss intake manifold so putting a roush supercharger would be to scrap the boss intake.
Or sell it and re-coup some $$$

If you were to list the supercharger you would install what would it be?
For a street car:

Roush TVS
Roush TVS
Roush TVS
Whipple
Procharger
Vortech
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Kenne Bell:winks
 
#14 ·
I have had a Procharger on my GT for over a year and have never noticed any heat soak issues. Granted my car is street driven, with no drag strip usage. But whenever Ive taken my cart out and driven it for several miles in very warm weather, Ive never encountered any issues, or noticed any reduction in power.
 
#15 ·
If you don't have a gauge reading IAT2's or are logging them you wouldn't know if you are experiencing heat soak.

I'm not suggesting they get hot and start running bad (well eventually they can) or start chucking parts out of it. They just start running "soft". If you are not going WOT you wouldn't even notice. But because you are not noticing doesn't mean it's not happening.

I remember back in the day when I didn't track IAT's (this is a long time ago) I never thought about them and never considered I had a "problem". In retrospect I was leaving a lot on the table that I didn't need too.

Making boost is easy. Any blower will do it. The trick is getting them to run cool.
 
#22 ·
So what could I do to prevent heat soak with a Paxton blower? Those that have supercharger on their car what did you do? Did you do something at all to prevent the issue.

Maybe I'm just parano. By the way I have Aeroforce gauge so I can track my IAT.
 
#23 ·
Short of putting the biggest IC you can on it not much.

It's not like you will hurt anything. The ECU will pull timing if it gets hot so you don't have detonation issues. It will kill power, but it won't kill parts.

Set your Aeroforce up to track IAT2's and see what your getting and under what conditions. I couldn't imagine having a blown car and not having IAT's available to me all the time. IAT's are the gauge I pay attention too the most.
 
#25 ·
I think we can all agree that heat soak is a universal problem, and the reason why drag cars need to be cooled down between rounds. The only way Ive ever seen to alleviate it is to shut the engine off for a while.Because all running engines, generate heat. I mean can it get any simpler lol. :winks
 
#26 ·
And you would be wrong. When you shut the motor off things heat soak WORSE for about an hour/hour and a half. When you kill the motor, you kill the pump(s) and there is no air moving through the coolers. But the motor is still at full operating temp.

I have shut cars off for 15min while I run into lets say Lowe’s. When I come back out and start the car the IAT’s are 30-40deg higher. And if you are driving on surface streets they may not come back down.
 
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