hi all i just bought a mk2 rossa
she is fitted with a fairly standard mg metro a+ engine

i am considering supercharging her as i know the heat under the hood is already an issue
anybody else using a blower?
there are so many companies selling kits - most with the eaton charger anybody experienced any of them

im also considering wrapping the entire exhaust and manifold with ceramic tape as i had on my westfield
it worked well on the westy and i hope it will help keep the ambient tempeture down in the engine compartment

i will joining the club in the new year
i intend to be at stoneleigh maybe with the blower fitted

thanks all merry christmas

If your exhaust manifold is mild steel and you use heat wrap it may well disintegrate beneath the tape Its ok on a race car thats used for short periods and is replaced regularly, stainless should be no problem but thats thermaly superior anyway. A good idea thats been used by others is a scoop underneath at the front of the engine bay to feed in cool air.

thanks for the advice

i have a Front mounted raditor with an assited fan connected to a switch on the dash....never had to use it once and i am thinking of going down the turbo line myself...

my experiance with Exhaust wrap has so far been very good,

But one thing i wil lsay is my car gets used, i.e its a daily driver 99% of the time, and this helsp keep a mild steel exhaust manifold thats wrapped in good condition, as any moisture that gets trapped in the wrap is regularly removed , certainly helps with the temps in my coupe for the ultimate how about ceramic coating that is ment to work wonders, and may investigate this route once ive built my new manifold.

with a boosted engine heat is an enemy anything you can do to ingest cooler isr the better yor chances are to relaible power. inter coolers, heat wrap/ceramic coating, cold air intakes etc all helps.

WEST

i did a few rather limited experiments with my Rossa regarding temperature.

First I fitted a temp gauge in the engine compartment.
The air temp with the air vent above the carb completely open was never a problem over thirty miles an hour.
Under thirty miles an hour it was a different story. When stationary even removing the engine cover would not reduce air temp around the carb, due to the hot air rising off the manifolds.
I fitted a relatively closed mesh grill to the air vent and temperatures at all speeds increased.

I had an oil leak that sprayed onto the hot manifold producing significant quantities of smoke. A bit of an unintentional wind tunnel. The result was that when driving, no smoke rose out of the engine cover. It all exited from below the rear bumper. I take this to suggest that scoops trying to raise air up through the engine bay are less effective than venting through or around the boot space from above.

Engine bay temperature never had an effect on actual coolant temperature. But when stationary it did affect the performance of the carb and fuel. If I were to build a turbo Rossa now I would try and put some distance between the carb and the exhaust at the expense of boot space.

Coolant temperature only rose when I had no radiator fan. The fan (metro) was essential to city driving. However over thirty miles an hour with a tame engine in the highlands I did not even need a fan.