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Posted by: synthesisdv Oct 10 2004, 07:32 AM

Just found some '04 runoff pictures and saw an FP with twin coolers at the rear. Now I don't feel so dumb about where I put them, I've been having some serious second thoughts about it.

And yes, I didn't hide my plate, I'm living dangerously.


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Posted by: seanery Oct 10 2004, 09:36 AM

damn, they're low on the 78 car!

any worry of damage from the bottom?

Posted by: URY914 Oct 10 2004, 10:48 AM

Dave, that last shot is like looking up a skirt.

Posted by: Joe Sharp Old Oct 10 2004, 10:54 AM

Gave me wood.
Joe

Posted by: echocanyons Oct 10 2004, 10:55 AM

Any thoughts of using a heavy guage skid plate on yours?

I agree the blue cars oil coolers look really low

Posted by: synthesisdv Oct 10 2004, 11:51 AM

If I did go off, I would rather have the cooler mount fail then rip the tub apart. That's one good thing about the small gauge bracket material.

I am concerned about hitting them or even damage from kicked up debris from the tires, etc. We'll see how it works out.

Posted by: groot Oct 11 2004, 05:52 AM

Put up a rock screen, that should help.

Posted by: synthesisdv Oct 11 2004, 05:53 AM

yup, done...

Posted by: groot Oct 11 2004, 08:08 AM

BTW... Nice fabrication.

How did you size your coolers? What made you decide on 2?

Posted by: synthesisdv Oct 11 2004, 08:18 AM

thanks,

After I decided on the location, I knew I had to split the coolers to make room for the exhaust , tranny, etc.

I had an idea that they shouldn't hang any lower than the stock valence (which I don't run anyway). Width wise, there was the limitation between not getting behind the rear tires and not getting too close to the exhaust.

I looked at doing heat load calculations etc but without real data on air flow capacity, etc. I thought it was just too academic. So if I have too much cooling (duct tape) if too little cooling, I'll fab some ducting to get the most cool air and the least hot air from the exhaust, motor,...

Posted by: groot Oct 11 2004, 08:28 AM

Cool.

I feel like I have an appropriately sized single cooler, based on expected heat load, but as a spectator at the Runoffs, I saw a water cooled 1.3L Alfa with 2 coolers, each bigger than my one. He also ran -12 lines. Huge overkill in my mind, but I haven't built any production cars until this one. I can add a second cooler pretty easily, so it's not that big of a deal.

-12 lines crack me up, too, considering the size of the oil passages in the engine.......

Not knowing the detail of your coolers, I'd estimate that we ended up with approximately the same amount of heat rejection capacity.

Posted by: Jake Raby Oct 11 2004, 09:11 AM

Dave,
I would fab up some rock guards for those coolers made from mesh. If a rock shoots off of a slick it could easily give you a catastrophic oil leak.

Posted by: synthesisdv Oct 11 2004, 09:19 AM

there are already mounting points on the brackets for the mesh.

I have some really heavy stainless steel mesh that is going in front of the coolers.