Well, I thought I would take my Stage 2 FiST to the Houston Motorsports Ranch - the track is relatively short, and favors momentum cars like this. Houston, I have to tell you, is a rather warm place, especially in the summer.
Today, the temperature hit about 93F or so.
The track is about 2.3 miles long, if I am not mistaken, and has 17 turns with 4 relatively short straights. During the first session, which was under relatively cool conditions, I managed to get about 3 laps before the temperature went 'over the limit' and the power management overlords throttled the output. It was actually rather odd - when the temp symbol would come up, I could drive with (what felt like) full power, but - even if the car cooled down a bit on a straight - then, I would be limited to about 4K RPMs until the temperature dropped a bit further. Needless to say, not a particularly pleasant experience - the lap times are all over the place, because the power throttling would come on at random intervals. I turned the heater all the way up on the subsequent sessions and it may have bought me a couple more laps before this nonsense started again.
Then a rainstorm passed by and the temperature dropped by about 10 degrees - and with that (and the heater blasting), I managed to get about 18 minutes before overheating again.
I mean - is this "normal"? This is, after all, a "performance-oriented" vehicle, meant to compete with the other 'hot hatches'. It was a rather unpleasant surprise - wasn't expecting this at all.
Any thoughts? Solutions?
Sad Panda
Today, the temperature hit about 93F or so.
The track is about 2.3 miles long, if I am not mistaken, and has 17 turns with 4 relatively short straights. During the first session, which was under relatively cool conditions, I managed to get about 3 laps before the temperature went 'over the limit' and the power management overlords throttled the output. It was actually rather odd - when the temp symbol would come up, I could drive with (what felt like) full power, but - even if the car cooled down a bit on a straight - then, I would be limited to about 4K RPMs until the temperature dropped a bit further. Needless to say, not a particularly pleasant experience - the lap times are all over the place, because the power throttling would come on at random intervals. I turned the heater all the way up on the subsequent sessions and it may have bought me a couple more laps before this nonsense started again.
Then a rainstorm passed by and the temperature dropped by about 10 degrees - and with that (and the heater blasting), I managed to get about 18 minutes before overheating again.
I mean - is this "normal"? This is, after all, a "performance-oriented" vehicle, meant to compete with the other 'hot hatches'. It was a rather unpleasant surprise - wasn't expecting this at all.
Any thoughts? Solutions?
Sad Panda