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Radiator and Oil Cooler ducting/boxing in advice


QuaTTro

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We've been racing our audi for like 10 years and it started as a LeMons car....as such it has some crappy homemade ducting for the radiator and oil cooler made from scrap sheet metal and old licence plates.  I'd like to remake them with possibly a better material but also a better design that's easier to install/uninstall.

 

Does anyone have advice on design and materials for helping duct air to the various coolers?

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Sure...  I use circle track roll plastic for the side ducting.  Easy to use, cut, shape, and it's cheap.

 

If you cut a vent in the hood behind the radiator, you might need to do some testing to see if you need a gurney flap at the front of the opening.  We did.  It wouldn't flow well without it.

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1 hour ago, wvumtnbkr said:

Sure...  I use circle track roll plastic for the side ducting.  Easy to use, cut, shape, and it's cheap.

 

If you cut a vent in the hood behind the radiator, you might need to do some testing to see if you need a gurney flap at the front of the opening.  We did.  It wouldn't flow well without it.

Thanks!  Do you have any pictures of your ducting?  I'm a very visual person and new to this type of fabrication.  Assume I would make a template out of cardboard and then build the real thing out of roll plastic?

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On 9/17/2021 at 5:14 PM, QuaTTro said:

Thanks!  Do you have any pictures of your ducting?  I'm a very visual person and new to this type of fabrication.  Assume I would make a template out of cardboard and then build the real thing out of roll plastic?

Roll plastic, with an aluminum frame

No photo description available.

Edited by Wink
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3 hours ago, QuaTTro said:

Thanks!  Do you have any pictures of your ducting?  I'm a very visual person and new to this type of fabrication.  Assume I would make a template out of cardboard and then build the real thing out of roll plastic?

Sure!  But, the nice thing about roll plastic is that you don't really need to do the cardboard step.  Same way you cut and trim cardboard, you can do with roll plastic.

 

I have recently changed how my splitter is mounted and now use the splitter mounts as part of the ducting.   I also use the brake ducting as radiator ducting.

 

Here comes pics....

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So, this current iteration doesn't use much roll plastic.  But, in the past I used roll plastic where the aluminum brackets to hold the splitter on and where the brake ducts are.  

 

Temps currently run about 160 f unless we run some tape on the ducting.

 

Not shown is the entire airdam that Is made of roll plastic.

 

Pm me for more info.

 

 

You can see the tiny silverish gurney flap at the front behind the headlights 

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  • 7 months later...

I improved the ducting on my car and seems to help a lot. I haven't run in hot texas weather yet but it seems like temps are around 180 when driving in 90f or so. Before they would sneak up to above 200.

 

I added a hood vent and did a mediocre repair on the decent factory air ducting (NC Miata). I also cleaned up the engine bay so there is a nice path from radiator exit to the hood vent. The stock NC Miata engine bay is terrible from airflow perspective.

 

I also removed the huge fan and replaced it with a computer fan that kicks in at 212. I don't think the computer fan helps.

But it takes a very long time for the car to overheat when idling but I think that it eventually will. (I turn it off at 220).

 

 

 

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12 hours ago, turbogrill said:

I added a hood vent and did a mediocre repair on the decent factory air ducting (NC Miata). I also cleaned up the engine bay so there is a nice path from radiator exit to the hood vent. The stock NC Miata engine bay is terrible from airflow perspective.

 

Did you use the Track Dog Super Cool kit (or whatever its called), or did you move stuff around on your own?

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56 minutes ago, snowman said:

 

Did you use the Track Dog Super Cool kit (or whatever its called), or did you move stuff around on your own?

 

Using that kit would have been the smart move.

 

I moved it my self, so fusebox and ECU is in a different location. Huge pain in the ass. (Couldn't reuse OEM fusebox)

 

 

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I guess I should update this thread since we finished our new ducting and raced at Harris Hill.  Weather was pretty cool for that race, but basically we ran just under "normal" operating temp (per our factory dummy gauges) anytime we were racing.  At stops the fan would run and we'd sit pegged on the normal temp.  So basically our new cooling setup worked great.  I'll be curious to see how it performs in a hot race but I'm optimistic it'll work good.

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