 |
|
As some of you know, Fred Switzer lost his engine at CMP the other weekend because in the heat of battle the blinking LEDs he had connected to his coolant pressure switch didn’t catch his attention.
Everyone should think about that. Coolant loss will kill your engine and it’s a helova lot more common than a loss of oil pressure. Warning lights need to be big, bright, and right in your field of view. Otherwise they will be defeated by bright sunlight and excitement.
Excellent point Ranger. I’m just as bad; I started this process a year ago and never finished acquiring the switch sender and associated hardware.
As a public service, would you and/or Fred mind publishing the final solution you came up with, in terms of where the switch is located and the necessary bits to make it work?
We killed our engine in a very similar way at Nationals 2011.
Light and sensor kit available any where. I got mine form Discovery Parts.
http://www.preciseracing.com/product.cfm?InvKey=18366
I think the 34mm is the correct size but you should double check upper rad hose diameter. They come in 30mm-38mm sizes.
My pressure switch. Free if you have a collection of spares http://spece30.com/forum/41-electrical-gauges-and-sensors/64531-free-coolant-pressure-switch
There’s lots of possible ways to set up warning lights. For the helova it, last night I was did some searching for small rotating lights that a person with a sense of humor could put on top of their dash. This post (link below) from the New #6 build shows the LED warning lights that were orginally in Old #6. The bottom of LEDs, both left and right are red and are oil pressure. The top row of LEDs are amber and are coolant pressure. The rows of LEDs aren’t pointed straight back, but instead are pointed inboard towards my eyeballs. When I originally came up with these, I bought and tested probably a dozen possibilities, most via ebay.
Also…this is kind of interesting. http://www.superbrightleds.com/cat/emergency-strobe/
http://spece30.com/forum/31-southeast/61688-the-new-ranger-6-build-thread?limit=10&start=140#64116
How 'bout no girly man lights at all?
Seriously, help me not over think this one.
Slow leak, slow loss of pressure, gets hot(hotter), I don’t notice.
Finally gets low enough: damage already done?
Coolant dump type leak, light comes on, stop engine.
How often do we have the dump scenario? Do you stop in time.
Yes, I too have lost two engines due to coolant problems.Like youse guys, I’m wondering about the effectiveness of gauges.
RP
[quote=“Patton” post=70858]How 'bout no girly man lights at all?
Seriously, help me not over think this one.
Slow leak, slow loss of pressure, gets hot(hotter), I don’t notice.
Finally gets low enough: damage already done?
Coolant dump type leak, light comes on, stop engine.
How often do we have the dump scenario? Do you stop in time.
Yes, I too have lost two engines due to coolant problems.Like youse guys, I’m wondering about the effectiveness of gauges.
RP[/quote]
I think the pressure switch works for any scenario short of a drip-drip leak. The water pump isn’t putting out much pressure. The only place a 7psi switch works is in the block. After the coolant emerges from the head, the pressure is below 7psi…I’ve tested this. Therefore I’d guess that it wouldn’t take much of a leak to drop the pressure in the block <7psi.
7psi is so close to the pressure of the coolant in the block that old and cranky pressure switches can be “half-triggered” at that pressure. Most of my coolant pressure switches have worked perfectly, but a couple of them have “dimly lit” the warning LED when they were supposed to be off. I infer from this that the working pressure in the block is around 7-8psi.
The “dimly lit” business doesn’t interfere with the switch working fine, mind you. “Dimly lit” is not “burning retinas out” which is the indicator of a problem.
I put ours between the radiator and the coolant fill tank - per Jim Levie’s suggestion on a previous post. Tap into that small hose that goes to the coolant tank.
I used the 4psi coolant pressure switch that Pegasus “used to sell”. Looks like they replaced with a 3 psi version.
Parts we used:
https://www.pegasusautoracing.com/productdetails.asp?RecID=9749
https://www.pegasusautoracing.com/productdetails.asp?RecID=903 Qty 2
https://www.pegasusautoracing.com/productdetails.asp?RecID=895
https://www.pegasusautoracing.com/productdetails.asp?RecID=583
Last year I had a sudden coolent dump via the lower radiator hose poping off. I knew right away, mainly because all the water went on my LR as I turned into the keyhole, causing me to do a half spin. Now if that would have happened exiting the keyhole & I went down the entire back straight without water? Might not have caught it, but I do make it a point to check my lights/gauges in every straight. Big bright lights might be effective as creating the habbit of checking.
I still think my marine (no pun intended, Ranger) alarm would be a solution to this. We are bombarded by visual stimuli, but we always have the ear to hear that strange noise in the closing laps, so shouldn’t be a problem picking up on the alarm.
Basically a loud buzzer that you can hear over the din of the kids, splashing water, wind in your face, and the screaming I/O V8.