Radiator Air Guide

[neo32]

wheres your reo bar dale?

you should know better

lol

This pic shows the side plates and the rubber seals if you look closely. Little bit tricky to show the lower guide but it's there.

I'm in the process of fitting a GTR replica front bar with bigger openings, and there will be further guides fitted to channel air onto the intercooler rather than allow it to spill around the sides.

[Dale FZ1]

It's back on with the front bar assembly all nice and neat. Must have been on/off 50 times for trial fitment and checking for clearances with those guides.

[Dale FZ1]

Ran the car over the weekend. Full 4 sided guide/seal between intercooler and radiator resulted in the engine temps still running hot. But took longer to get hot than before any cooling changes were implemented. Things were pointed in the generally right direction. Notably many competitors were experiencing cooling problems during practice, ambients up around 34C

My top plate guide was made in two parts, so I removed the one that sealed up against the radiator and ran the event that way. Vast improvement, with no indication when driving that temps had climbed high enough to hit my ECU failsafes. A mate watching did suggest that some visual/audible signs were there that it was maybe pulling a couple of degrees of ignition out, so there's still things to look at.

Bottom line: the full 4 sides seal was not a good thing on my car. The other stuff had a positive impact.

Another competitor running very similar spec R33 had no cooling dramas (apparently). And he was running consistently better times than me. No guides installed, OEM radiator, OEM fan, same intercooler, replacement front bar with big openings, and a vented bonnet.

Edited March 5, 2012 by Dale FZ1

[GTSBoy]

Interesting. I would have thought the divider was a good thing. Your competitor's car.....vented bonnet. Do you have one? Because letting the air out may turn out to be the difference. You can duct it all together as much as you like but if the air isn't escaping then you've done nothing. Is there some scope for you to look at the trailing edge of your undertray and see if you can extend/lower it to add some suction?

[Dale FZ1]

It was worth having a close look at his car just trying to understand why the difference. Bonnet venting looks like the way forward. Mitsubishi do it for good reason with the Evo, as rally-spec cars generate enormous heat via anti-lag. If they don't get good air extraction from the engine bay then performance suffers and reliability goes out the window.

Under-tray design is being checked/reviewed too, and I have a couple of weeks to implement what I want. Simple to install, functional, and scope for some easy changes at an event.

[GTR_JOEY]

Old thread I know but how did you go with this Dale?

[Dale FZ1]

It all works a treat. No overheating issues.

Fairly sure I posted up some pics in my motorsport build thread.

Summary: its about air throughput. Understand how the high pressure zone in front of the car works, and encouraging/directing the air from that point through the heat exchanger but allowing an escape through a low pressure pathway. The undertray is an important part of that. I reckon using plates/guides in front of the coolers work too, don't allow the air an easy escape path around (instead of through) the heat exchanger.

Non shrouded fans are dumb. Thermo setups are not bad provided there is some thinking behind the install, but there is a fair bit of cadence between the switch on / switch off temps. With some clever thinking I'm sure a twin thermo fan setup can be configured so that a single fan operates initially, with a backup in higher ambients.

There is nothing at all wrong with the OEM viscous fan design other than making a radiator removal more fiddly and time consuming.

[GTR_JOEY]

Awesome thanks for the reply, gonna shoot you a PM mate