T Montague's 2zr swap - '08 m/t sedan some extra info

[tmontague]

Originally Posted by 06YarisRS

Awesome! Glad you got some track time with your new responsibilities. I gotta read your posts on your custom rad setup. Yesterday was about 32 - 34C and I did a couple hour highway drive. My coolant temp was reaching 204 on longer hills, then of course the fan would kick in and it would drop quickly. Oil temps never exceeded 230F. If you're tracking and only hitting 188F, then clearly a rad upgrade would benefit me. Any quick suggestions/info before I go digging through the thread? Thanks!

There are no performance radiators for the 2nd gen and onward. Your only option is an Ebay (Mishimoto discontinued theirs) dual core rad specific for the 1st gen Echo.

I open for the dual core rad found on MWR which is specific for the matrix/vibe. I went with that because the hoses and rad mouths are the same size as those for the 2zr. I contemplated the Ebay one for the 1st gen but it would only cover half to 3/4's of the grill space and I figured I might as well take advantage of the whole space.

The MWR rad is shorted in height then the 1st gen ebay one so I had to do some serious bending and manipulation of the lower rad support to make it hold it tightly. I also had a handful of various rad rubber grommets. In the end it ended up working and it is held firmly in place but let me be clear that this was not easy nor anything remotely close to a plug and play. I also fabricated a full ducting set up from the lower grill forcing air into the radiator. I used aluminum sheet metal and riv nuts so I can remove it if needed. I am going to be blocking off the top grill down the road as I believe I have enough air flow and surface area just off of the lower one alone.

I had to purchase a generic aftermarket overflow bottle and due to the rad cap now being below the engine and in a sub optimal space the car no longer bleeds its coolant itself from driving. I had air in the system on a drive last year and under 3k+ rpm the coolant level rose to 245F and the temp light went on. This was either a false reading due to an air pocket or a real reading that was caused by hot spots from the air bubbles. Either way I had to keep the car going 100km/h on the highway until I could get home to avoid over heating - not a good situation.

I have since solved this issue by jacking the front end up high and using one of those spill free funnels and letting the engine idle in mid summer heat for 30 mins. No way this would be possible with out high ambient temps.

Keep in mind my set up has an a/c delete so I have no condenser blocking my rad. I also have a single Mishimoto fan behind the radiator and no fan shroud. This allows for minimal restriction and full unobstructed air flow through the rad at high speed/temp track driving. The fan is simply there to keep the coolant temps down while idling in the paddocks. The fan/rad set up offers enough air flow over the small portion of the rad to keep the coolant down after some hard laps.

I was regularly seeing 240F coolant temps and 280-290F oil temps 10 mins into a hard session with 28C ambient temps. This by itself is not actually an issue as I was still far away from the coolant boiling (I had a performance high pressure rad cap) and the syn oil can easily handle that (oil pressure still within spec)

I went with a larger rad as I wanted to keep a larger buffer zone from a serious issue in case something happened on track. The last think I needed was for coolant to boil and ruin my engine. With my current temps I have a large buffer zone so the time from something going wrong and me noticing before it gets catastrophic is much longer. I check my gauges frequently on track but not every second for obvious reasons. I also wanted lower temps so my head temp would drop. I run 87 octane and although Toyota tunes are very conservative, I didn't want to push the threshold of engine knock and have the ECU pull timing on me.

Don't think that my 188F on track temps are normal and anything above that is too high. This is specific to my track specific set up and my set up is exactly that - track specific with no regard for day to day driving as I no longer drive my car on the street except to and form the track (22min drive country back roads). Think race cars with Tstat deletes. Makes no sense for a daily driver but can sometimes make sense for a race car.

Your 204F is completely normal and well within spec for Toyota. With my 1nz I regularly would see 212F mid summer in traffic and then the fan would kick on around 208F and bring is down to 203F. Modern engines typically are more efficient north of 200F and you are well below the boiling point of OEM coolant which is around 255F IIRC.

I honestly wouldn't worry unless you started seeing north of 220F on hills and day to day driving. The amount of work involved in putting in the MWR radiator makes no sense for your situation and would not be ideal for a street car. The closer to stock you can stay (outside of your engine set up) the better it will be for future trouble shooting and simplicity.

I've been down this road and unless you strip your car as much as you can to make everything easy to access, staying close to stock is the simplest.

Keep in mind many people with the 2zr track it with the stock rad and have no issues. From my understanding I push my 2zr harder then most others due to the time I spend on track each session and the nature of TMP. The 2zr is hard pressed to find a situation more challenging of it's stoutness then what I've put it through.

Just my $0.02

Originally Posted by CrankyOldMan

Love it! (and the two little Yarii in the background!!)

thanks! those are Ron's cup cars, they are a handful :D

[06YarisRS]

Originally Posted by tmontague

There are no performance radiators for the 2nd gen and onward. Your only option is an Ebay (Mishimoto discontinued theirs) dual core rad specific for the 1st gen Echo.

I open for the dual core rad found on MWR which is specific for the matrix/vibe. I went with that because the hoses and rad mouths are the same size as those for the 2zr. I contemplated the Ebay one for the 1st gen but it would only cover half to 3/4's of the grill space and I figured I might as well take advantage of the whole space.

The MWR rad is shorted in height then the 1st gen ebay one so I had to do some serious bending and manipulation of the lower rad support to make it hold it tightly. I also had a handful of various rad rubber grommets. In the end it ended up working and it is held firmly in place but let me be clear that this was not easy nor anything remotely close to a plug and play. I also fabricated a full ducting set up from the lower grill forcing air into the radiator. I used aluminum sheet metal and riv nuts so I can remove it if needed. I am going to be blocking off the top grill down the road as I believe I have enough air flow and surface area just off of the lower one alone.

I had to purchase a generic aftermarket overflow bottle and due to the rad cap now being below the engine and in a sub optimal space the car no longer bleeds its coolant itself from driving. I had air in the system on a drive last year and under 3k+ rpm the coolant level rose to 245F and the temp light went on. This was either a false reading due to an air pocket or a real reading that was caused by hot spots from the air bubbles. Either way I had to keep the car going 100km/h on the highway until I could get home to avoid over heating - not a good situation.

I have since solved this issue by jacking the front end up high and using one of those spill free funnels and letting the engine idle in mid summer heat for 30 mins. No way this would be possible with out high ambient temps.

Keep in mind my set up has an a/c delete so I have no condenser blocking my rad. I also have a single Mishimoto fan behind the radiator and no fan shroud. This allows for minimal restriction and full unobstructed air flow through the rad at high speed/temp track driving. The fan is simply there to keep the coolant temps down while idling in the paddocks. The fan/rad set up offers enough air flow over the small portion of the rad to keep the coolant down after some hard laps.

I was regularly seeing 240F coolant temps and 280-290F oil temps 10 mins into a hard session with 28C ambient temps. This by itself is not actually an issue as I was still far away from the coolant boiling (I had a performance high pressure rad cap) and the syn oil can easily handle that (oil pressure still within spec)

I went with a larger rad as I wanted to keep a larger buffer zone from a serious issue in case something happened on track. The last think I needed was for coolant to boil and ruin my engine. With my current temps I have a large buffer zone so the time from something going wrong and me noticing before it gets catastrophic is much longer. I check my gauges frequently on track but not every second for obvious reasons. I also wanted lower temps so my head temp would drop. I run 87 octane and although Toyota tunes are very conservative, I didn't want to push the threshold of engine knock and have the ECU pull timing on me.

Don't think that my 188F on track temps are normal and anything above that is too high. This is specific to my track specific set up and my set up is exactly that - track specific with no regard for day to day driving as I no longer drive my car on the street except to and form the track (22min drive country back roads). Think race cars with Tstat deletes. Makes no sense for a daily driver but can sometimes make sense for a race car.

Your 204F is completely normal and well within spec for Toyota. With my 1nz I regularly would see 212F mid summer in traffic and then the fan would kick on around 208F and bring is down to 203F. Modern engines typically are more efficient north of 200F and you are well below the boiling point of OEM coolant which is around 255F IIRC.

I honestly wouldn't worry unless you started seeing north of 220F on hills and day to day driving. The amount of work involved in putting in the MWR radiator makes no sense for your situation and would not be ideal for a street car. The closer to stock you can stay (outside of your engine set up) the better it will be for future trouble shooting and simplicity.

I've been down this road and unless you strip your car as much as you can to make everything easy to access, staying close to stock is the simplest.

Keep in mind many people with the 2zr track it with the stock rad and have no issues. From my understanding I push my 2zr harder then most others due to the time I spend on track each session and the nature of TMP. The 2zr is hard pressed to find a situation more challenging of it's stoutness then what I've put it through.

Just my $0.02



thanks! those are Ron's cup cars, they are a handful :D

I'll take that $0.02. The car has never had an issue coming down from 204 F. As soon as the fan starts, it basically plummets. I don't boost for extended times. I was just used to being below the 190s in my area where the ambient temp is easily 8 - 10 degrees lower than inland. It was a particularly warm and muggy day when it was hitting 204.

The above said, do you see any benefit in a lower temp thermostat such as this? https://www.hoonigan.com/collections...dels-2000-2013 and/or a slim line fan? I know that overall cooling capacity is related to radiator size and efficiency and that the coolant will reach the temp that the coolant will reach. I'm just wondering if the colder thermostat will start cooling earlier and stave off higher temps with my driving style - short boost sessions (4 - 6 seconds on average).

[Ronnie V]

Originally Posted by tmontague

thanks! those are Ron's cup cars, they are a handful :D

LOL! They certainly are..........was a really fun day!!!

re: the lower temp thermo.........Hillclimb car Trev? Drag car? get the whole system warmed up faster???

[tmontague]

Originally Posted by Ronnie V

LOL! They certainly are..........was a really fun day!!!

re: the lower temp thermo.........Hillclimb car Trev? Drag car? get the whole system warmed up faster???

Maybe I'm missing something about their design but how would a lower temp tstat warm up a car faster? It opens at a lower temp dumping cooler coolant into the engine. Does this not translate into increasing time it takes to get the engine up to operating temps?