As a racer, you want to have as many tuning tools and performance advantages at your disposal as possible. Heat mitigation and reduction is an easy way to increase performance, and high-performance cooling products can make that happen.

Cool Racing Parts has developed a robust line of high-performance cooling products that can be used on multiple areas of a vehicle. These products fight heat soak and can reduce the temperature of things like intake manifolds, transmissions, and even fuel containers. All of these different products can be used to increase performance, and they can be outfitted to a vehicle without major modifications.

How Does It Work?

The team at Cool Racing Parts has used science to come up with a way to reduce the temperature of parts and fight heat soak. This is relevant to racers because, in most cases, less heat means better performance. While many still use ice to accomplish this, the downside is the mess that ice makes as it melts, and the cost of buying ice can get out of control if you race often.

Ken Collins from Cool Racing Parts explains just how these high-performance cooling products work.

“Our racing parts we make are good cold insulators, which means they can effectively lower the temperature of the part they are used for. When you use the part on your application, the surface and interlayer temperatures will change. For example, the surface temperature will drop when our intake pipe coolers are put around an air induction pipe, which will affect your air/fuel mixture, which will help generate more horsepower and torque, and also help with heat soak prevention. You can cool everything, including your fuel or fuel regulators, for maximum gains in horsepower and torque.”

Once the polymer beads are activated, they begin to lower the temperature of the blanket. This cooling effect is what helps the blanket reduce the temperature of whatever it’s placed on.

So, how do these different cooling products work, is it magic? Not quite, the stars of the show are the small super-absorbent polymer beads inside the blankets. These beads absorb the water you soak the blankets in during the activation process. Once the beads are activated, they’re ready to go to work absorbing the heat from whatever you put the blanket on.

“Where these blankets really shine is when you’re trying to reduce heat soak. You can put them on something and they produce a wicking effect, like a paper towel, but instead of absorbing liquid, they absorb the heat. This is going to reduce the overall temperature of whatever you place the blanket on,” Collins explains.

What Are The Advantages?

Performance and consistency are two things that racers are always chasing at the track. Heat soak generated by an engine or transmission will reduce performance and consistency, but that’s where the high-performance heat control products come in. You can use these products to mitigate the impacts of heat across multiple areas of your vehicle.

If you race to run a specific e.t. or dial-in, trying to keep your vehicle consistent is very important. As you make laps during an event, your engine is going to start to experience heat soak. The intake blankets that Cool Racing Products offers can fight the heat soak by wicking the heat away. These blankets don’t melt like ice, so they can be used over and over again.

Sounds too simple, right? We actually tested one of these blankets to see if they would actually remove a significant amount of heat from an intake. What we found was that in just 30 minutes, the blanket lowered the temperature of a turbocharged engine’s intake by 27 degrees. You can learn more about that test right here.

Now, imagine being able to cool your intake to nearly the same temperature after each run. That’s going to provide a more consistent and repeatable performance, something every bracket racer can use. For a heads-up racer, you now have a consistent base to work with, and that will help make tuning a vehicle for maximum performance much easier.

Unlike bags of ice, you can leave one of these cooling blankets on your intake as long as you have a way to secure it. This will help keep the intake cool and pull away heat during a run. When you get back to the pits, you can swap to a fresh cooling blanket and have a head start on fighting heat soak before your next pass.

A Wide Range Of Applications

Cool Racing Products has found a way to bring high-performance heat control products to all areas of a racing program. This gives racers plenty of opportunities to improve their vehicle’s performance thanks to the benefits these high-performance heat control products offer.

Keeping your fuel cool has a lot of advantages. When the fuel is at a consistent temperature, it will make the engine easier to tune and provide repeatable results. Cool Racing Products created its fuel container and fuel cell blankets to make it easier for racers to reap these benefits.

“A fuel blanket is going to protect the fuel from UV rays. The fuel will also be at a consistent temperature, and that will remove a variable from the tuning equation. It will also help fight evaporation for alcohol fuels, which will change the percentage in the fuel,” Collins says.

Cold air intakes are used on all kinds of EFI vehicles and replace the OEM air intake systems that can rob an engine of horsepower. The problem is, those cold air intakes are under the hood of a vehicle and can become heat-soaked. Charge pipes for boosted applications can also fall victim to heat soak. Cool Racing Products saw this as an opportunity to create a product that would help provide the engine with cooler air so it can make more horsepower.

Heads up racers are finding ways to use high-performance heat control products in their pits.

“The intake pipe coolers really do a good job lowering the temperature of the air coming into the engine. They not only fight the heat soak, but they are also going to help lower its temperature below the ambient temperature of the air outside. This will cool the airflow that the engine is seeing and help it produce more horsepower,” Collins explains.

Sometimes you need to think outside the box to find some performance, or in this case, outside of the engine itself. Cool Racing Products found a way to cool the air coming into an engine in a new way with hood scoop and cowl hood blankets.

“The hood scoop and cowl hood blankets actually do two things at the same time. They keep the sun off the hood to help reduce heat exposure. Then, they act like a ‘cool sink’ and assist with cooling the air that enters the engine. You’ll also see lower engine bay temperatures thanks to these products,” Collins says.

The transmission cooling pads that Cool Racing Products developed have become very popular with heads up racers with exposed transmissions. Most high-horsepower heads up cars will use an external transmission cooler to cool transmission fluid, but that does nothing for the transmission case, which acts like a giant heat sink for the fluid when it’s reintroduced.

“We gave a couple of our transmission cooling pads to Mark Mickie to try, and he immediately loved them. Racers are putting the cooling pad on as soon as a run is over to start cooling the transmission case down. Then, they’ll swap out to another cooling pad to help remove more heat. We’re seeing transmission temperatures go from 250 degrees to 90 degrees in between runs using this method. That’s huge because transmission temperatures play a big role in how well these cars perform,” Collins states.

Using high-performance heat control products can unlock a new level of performance for your racing program. Not only will you see improved e.t.’s at the track, you’ll also have more consistent performance thanks to the temperature of key components staying within the same range pass after pass.