Piston crown cooling
How piston cooling works
In motorsport and tuned vehicles, keeping the pistons cool is more important than ever. In these situations, the extreme power also exposes the pistons to more heat. Get all the info you need for efficient piston crown cooling here, to protect your pistons from heat-induced damage and maintain your engine’s performance.
Why is piston crown cooling so important?
Your piston is a component that is under extreme stress. It is even one of the most highly stressed parts in your engine. One of the biggest stress factors for the piston, however, remains the extreme heat, which is why piston crown cooling plays an important role in tuning. This is of course especially true for pistons in tuned high-performance engines, racing engines and the like. The piston moves through the cylinder at insane speed and is also constantly exposed to the combustion explosions that shoot it back down again. It has to withstand the extreme heat, pressure and speed inside the engine, as well as external conditions such as temperature, fuel, engine oil and varying loads.
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The piston therefore offers a comparatively large attack surface for all kinds of problems. To counter piston seizure, piston crown damage, melting, cracks and piston ring damage, various measures are therefore developed to strengthen the piston. These include, for example, piston coating and piston crown cooling, which we will look at in more detail here.
Here you can find everything about piston coatingHow does piston crown cooling work?
For piston crown cooling, oil squirters are installed in the engine block (at the lower end of the cylinder). These spray the inner piston crown with oil from the oil flow of the crankshaft. By specifically spraying the pistons, the combustion chamber temperature is reduced. Engine damage is also effectively prevented by the cooling, since cooling the pistons counteracts engine knocking. By lowering the combustion chamber temperature, we also achieve an increase in power.
Can the piston crown cooling be retrofitted?
Yes, you can retrofit the piston crown cooling. If you do not have oil spray nozzles installed as standard, this makes sense especially with increased power. In this case, the nozzles are installed in the main bearing gallery (in some engines this procedure is also standard). Here, the oil then passes through the main bearing shells into the nozzles and from there to the underside of the pistons.
Yes, you can retrofit the piston crown cooling. If you do not have oil spray nozzles installed as standard, this makes sense especially with increased power. In this case, the nozzles are installed in the main bearing gallery (in some engines this procedure is also standard). Here, the oil then passes through the main bearing shells into the nozzles and from there to the underside of the pistons.
Why is piston crown cooling so important for increasing performance?
For racing freaks like us, there can hardly be enough power. We always try to squeeze out a few more hp. However, with extreme performance increases, the pistons always suffer if we do not sufficiently protect them from the high combustion chamber temperature. The extreme heat can cause piston damage that can have devastating effects, even leading to total engine failure. A common type of piston damage, for example, is piston seizure due to overheating at the piston crown. Cracks in the crown and crown bowl of the pistons are also among the frequent problems caused by insufficient cooling. At excessively high combustion chamber temperatures, the engine also tends to knock and lose power. Both are of course absolutely unacceptable in tuning. Special high-performance oil jets such as our 1.8T RACE oil spray nozzles ensure, through higher flow, that pistons in high-performance engines are also optimally cooled.
