18/11/16
Supporting the OUMF
Thanks to Ding Boston and the team at the Oxford Universities Motor Foundation for flying the GDM Motorsport flag at the recent NEC Classic Motor Show.
Lots of interest was reported in our bespoke radiator for their new ‘Sprite’ project. Best of luck to the team on their new build.
18/11/16
BRISCA F1 Stock Car Racing
Darren has been busy in the workshop this year building a monster 454 Chevy BRISCA F1 stock car. Everything for the car has been handcrafted here at GDM. The chassis, panel work, wing, seat, fuel tank, exhausts, radiator…..the list goes on and on!!!
We have attended a few race meetings over later part of the season including the World Championship event held at Coventry Stadium in September in front of a huge crowd where a season best 3rd place was achieved in a qualifying heat.
Building the entire car has been a big but very rewarding challenge allowing us to build and test our components in the most extreme racing environment possible.
22/01/16
GDM at Race Retro 2016
GDM Motorsport will again be exhibiting at Race Retro at Stoneleigh Park, Coventry from the 24th – 26th February 2016
If you’ve not been before come along for a chat and to see some fantastic cars and bikes from the past up close. Meet the drivers, riders and characters from years gone gone by. The show is a real favorite of ours.
20/11/15
F1 BSCDA 60th Aniversary
GDM is very pleased to be one of the many sponsors for the BSCDA Diamond Jubilee.
14/03/13
GDM Scoops National Marketing Excellence Award
GDM Heat Transfer Ltd picked up one of the prestigious Chartered Institute of Marketing Excellence Awards at the awards ceremony held at the Grosvenor House Hotel, London.
The awards celebrate the achievements across all industry sectors to acknowledge the marketing contributions made by both individuals and teams. GDM was announced as a finalist within the Construction/Engineering and Manufacturing category in December 2012.
GDM fought off tough competition from some of the major players including; Balfour Beatty Major Civil Engineering, Eurocell & GL Noble Denton. The award application was based on the Knowledge Transfer Partnership project developed and implemented by GDM’s Marketing Manager; Lisa Finney. With the support of the company and Staffordshire University, Lisa implemented a robust strategic marketing plan to aid company growth. “It is such an honour and accomplishment of winning such a prominent and significant award within our industry. We were up against some key companies within our sector. This is a great reward for the whole team who have worked so hard to build the company up year on year since I arrived”.
For more information on the Chartered Institute of Marketing Excellence Awards please visit: www.cimawards.co.uk.
05/03/13
Race Retro 2013
GDM Motorsport would like to say a big thank you to all those people that visited the stand at Race Retro 2013 at Stoneleigh Park.
GDM Motorsport the new division of GDM Heat Transfer Ltd launched their new and exciting products at this prominent International Historic Motorsport Show. Some of the products that were on show include:
- Water Radiators
- Charge Cooler Kits
- Intercal Coolers- 77 to 44 row
- Fuel Tanks
- Bespoke Seats
- Swirl Pots
To find out more about our products and services, please contact the motorsports department on +44 (0) 1889 574880 or alternatively e-mail: info@gdmmotorsport.com.
18/02/13
Intercooler vs Charge Cooler vs Nothing
Superchargers and turbo chargers do to engines, what bellows do to a fire. Valve overlap changes help even more, using the compressed air to scavenge the cylinders of burnt fuel. It’s all good!
There are draw backs though; Compressing air creates heat. It’s still got the same heat energy, but now it’s all squished into one space. The higher the boost, the more heat there is in the ‘charge’. For even better performance it needs to be removed. This makes the air less viscous and means more expansion in the cylinders.
The down side of cooling is greater air volume between the compressor and engine. The higher the volume, the slower the boost pressure is to rise. This can mean annoying turbo-lag, which is why some racing disciplines remove the intercooler completely and link turbo and inlet manifold with a short pipe. Others fit huge intercoolers and never let off the throttle. But there is a third way!
The charge cooler is a little used item with many advantages. It’s not for major car manufacturers, who buy intercoolers for £20 each, but it might be for you! The construction is simple enough, being an intercooler that’s cooled by water instead of air. Water can store a lot more heat energy than air, so the equivalent charge cooler can be much smaller. This reduced package size means it can be placed closer to the turbo charger or inlet manifold and can even be built into the inlet manifold. This gives a two fold advantage to turbo lag, in that the air volume is less in a charge cooler, and there is less hose work required to plumb it in.
As the circulating water is cooled at another location, there can be twin coolers either side of the engine rad, so main engine cooling doesn’t suffer from a large intercooler stuck on the front.
What’s Required for a Charge Cooler?
Here are the basic bits without pump and hoses. There’s a simple header tank with pressure cap, a pre-rad, and the charge cooler itself.In this case the pre-rad is a centre mounted type, but a pair of intercal units do the job, and are good value for money. They are best plumbed in series with each other.The charge cooler itself is shown with 76mm ports at either end, though the unit can be made with the ports on the same end. Position is only really dependant on the engine and turbo installation and the ideal piping route.Although the charge cooler size plays a part in the temperature of the compressed air, the pre-cooler size and position is also important, as is the volume of water in the system. The proportion of these components depends on the duty cycle of the engine. If short use at full power is required, or short bursts of power, the ability of the water to suck up the heat is more important. The pre-rad can loose that heat at its leisure. So water volume is more critical. Maybe you only need a bucket of ice to feed the charge-cooler? But on constant high engine power the system will soon become saturated with heat, so a good sized pre-rad and pump are required. And the water volume need only be big enough to fill all the parts.It’s also worth noting that the nearer you want to get the charge temperature to the ambient air temperature of the day, the bigger the coolers. Getting close to the ambient gets harder and harder, so really it’s a balance between ‘Perfect ideal solution’ and practical installation.
For further information on the range of charge coolers available, please contact our motorsport team on: +44 (0) 1889 574880 . Alternatively e-mail our motorsports team on: info@gdmmotorsport.com.