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That's not the radiator up front, it's a huge air to air intercooler. A huge intercooler is needed due to the inefficient state of compressor operation forced upon it by having an inlet restrictor and super high boost. This creates a large amount of intake charge heating. Notice that the intercooler is pretty thin in profile, thin cores with a big frontal area are much more efficient than thick cores with a smaller frontal area. Most heat exchange occurs in the first 1.5 inches or so of core. The intercooler air ducts upwards and out the hood for better aerodynamics and also has a large electric fan to help reduce heatsoak. The intercooler is so effective that mountune has never measured a charge air temp higher than 140 degrees even in the worst imaginable conditions.
The radiator is here out back! Yes in the trunk. That dirty looking ductwork is actually made of dry carbon fiber! The cooling system is very effective. The water temp seldom goes past 212 degrees and the worst temp ever recorded has been around 230 which resulted in no harm to the engine at all.
The thinwall stainless exhaust system must exit at the rear of the car. It is hidden by skidplates and stone shielding. Some of the shielding has been removed here for between round checks. The exhaust exits via this nicely sculpted tip set into the rear bumper.
It is a fast, expensive and sophisticated machine. In a future article, we hope to show you some more parts of it.
When running flat out the mountune engine produces “around” 550 hp and 627 lb/ft of torque, figures that are most likely fudged. At full song the engines reported BMEP is an amazing 760 psi which is more than any other race motor we have seen the data for other than drag racers. Due to the restrictor the the engine produces at or about its maximum power from 5000 to 9000 rpm, with useable power starting down to 4000 rpm. That is an incredibly wide powerband. When the restrictor is removed like in Gymkhana, the power output can easily jump to nearly 800 hp!
If a full blown GRC Rallycross engine is a bit out of your budget fear not. All of this technology also trickles down to mountune's ecoboost consumer parts which are available from mountune USA. Look to the future and we will be working with mountune USA to do some cool stuff on some of our project cars.
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