Project S2000 Part 5: Keeping it From Overheating

Project S2000 Part 5: Keeping it From Overheating

By Khiem Dinh

Khiem Dinh is an engineer for Honeywell Turbo Technologies at the time of this writing.  All statements and opinions expressed by Khiem Dinh are solely those of Khiem Dinh and not reflective of Honeywell Turbo Technologies.

A major factor towards building a reliable car is keeping it from overheating.  This requires instrumentation beyond the super inaccurate factory coolant temp gauge (generally three settings: cold/warm/blown head gasket).  Keeping track of oil temperature is also very important for a vehicle that is tracked heavily.  Examples of cars with excessive oil temps include the 370Z and the dual clutch transmissions of the Evo X MR and Nissan GT-R.  Even the BMW 335, when first released, overheated the oil during a high speed Autobahn run (BMW fixed the situation by adding oil coolers to all the vehicles).

Hooking up the MFD2 is simple: use the cable to attach the MFD2 to the OBDII port, and then hook up the power (either the 12V power adapter or to a 12V source).

In keeping with the theme of making this car as reliable as possible, we’ve added ARK Design’s newly released MFD2 (Multi-Function Display).  The benefit of the MFD2 over the previous MFD is the ability to plug straight into the OBDII port whereas the old MFD required splicing into the ECU harness.  We hate electrical work, and this makes it about as plug-n-play as you can get!

I ran the wires for the oil pressure and temperature sensors along the A/C line behind the exhaust manifold heat shield and then along the rear firewall.

Now you can read all the parameters off the ECU displayed in one convenient location.  We also hate having a lot of gauges, so the MFD2’s ability to display up to 8 parameters is a great feature.  The parameters from the ECU include: boost/vacuum, coolant temp, injector %, throttle %, A/F, and rpm.  Of particular interest is the coolant temp off the factory ECU; so now instead of the idiot 3-position dash gauge, we have proper temperature readout.

There’s a hole in the firewall to run the wires through near the bracket that holds the throttle and cruise control cables.   This hole is used for the factory hood alarm sensor.

The other two parameters we wanted to monitor were oil pressure and oil temperature.  Low oil pressure results in blown engines.  High oil temperatures also lead to blown engines.  Preventing both is essential to a happy engine.  ARK Design makes adding instrumentation for these extremely simple too.