Brake Cooling Ducts, Got any pics? Options

[brokenmoped]

I'm thinking of making a brake cooling duct with the air that goes through my front-mounted oil cooler and running hoses into the wheel wells, but don't know where to start. Does anyone have any designs or pics of their brake cooling ducts? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

-Corey

[jhadler]

Uhm, you mean routing the heated air from the oil cooler to the brakes? Why? Then you'd be defeating the purpose of running air to the brakes. Unless... you're actually experiencing "not enough" brake fade, and are looking to increase it...

No, really, why route heated air to the brakes?

You can either use something like the brake scoops that Chris makes (or made), or run hoses to brake ducts in a front air dam.

But running the heated air from the oil cooler to the brakes seems a bad idea to me... Granted, it's not BAD, like it'll kill your brakes or anything. It's still cooler than the brakes are, but why go to the trouble of running ducts if you're gonna use pre-heated air that's going to be hotter than the ambient air around them already.

-Josh2

[brokenmoped]

What I mean is the air that runs through the oil cooler and gets trapped in the hood. There isn't enough ventilation from the two holes at the floor of the trunk to get rid of all the air and my hood is starting to float at high speeds. Whoever cut the hole for the cooler did it too big and I have way too much airflow in the front trunk, so I figured I could somehow siphon off most of the air into the wheelwell, aiming it at the brakes. So from what I gather, that air is not hot at all. Does that make sense?


I thought I saw a picture somewhere of the inside of the front trunk with a scoop and two hoses leading to the wheelwells... Anyone know what I'm talking about?!

[brokenmoped]

Found a pic of what I'm talking about...
(IMG:http://www.patrickmotorsports.com/img/gallery/423.jpg)

[brant]

I think those are patrick's cooler ducting and are probably NOT going to the brakes.
just using ducting to get the exhaust air out without filling up the front cavity and raising the hood.

If you want brake cooling, I'd recommend the standard smart scoops.
do you run 911 vented rotors?
pm me for some used scoops if your interested.
brant

[campbellcj]

Following the "KISS principle", it seems to me that the SRP (Smart Racing Products) and/or AJR type of setup works fine. However, I try to ask myself questions and confirm that I am implementing an actual solution to an actual problem before cutting holes and/or dumping money into my car -- not that it usually stops me anyway (IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/html/emoticons/sawzall-smiley.gif) -- and accordingly, are you sure that you 'need' brake cooling ducts? Just checkin'...

[Trekkor]

Since we're all in the garage throwing out some ideas... (IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/html/emoticons/idea.gif)

My brakes came up to 465° IIRC at one of my track days before I opened up some air inlets in the air dam.
( no brake loss, BTW )

I'd be thrilled to have 200° air hitting my brakes instead of nothing.

Sure, 75-100° would be best.


KT

[brokenmoped]

QUOTE

Following the "KISS principle", it seems to me that the SRP (Smart Racing Products) and/or AJR type of setup works fine. However, I try to ask myself questions and confirm that I am implementing an actual solution to an actual problem before cutting holes and/or dumping money into my car -- not that it usually stops me anyway  -- and accordingly, are you sure that you 'need' brake cooling ducts? Just checkin'..

No, I don't need brake cooling ducts - I have no problems with my brakes over-heating - but I figured I might as well use the excess airflow for some kind of advantage rather than just ducting it out of the car. It's just killing two birds with one stone: getting rid of the air blowing up my hood AND potentially cooling the brakes. And it would only cost 20 bucks to buy some hoses from Lowe's so, why not?

[brant]

Ok...
sorry if we all jumped on you.
if you just want to duct your extra air towards your brakes that is fine..

won't hurt a thing.

but will not technically be brake duct/cooling.
most of the brake ducts use a special aluminum or plastic hat that is fitted to force air through the vented rotor from the inside out. and since space is at a premium in there and the steering still needs to have room to turn, these special hats are made to fit, and be as small as possible.

can't seem to find/get a picture at the moment.

[db9146]

Sounds like a reasonable idea to me, particularly considering that even if the air coming off the cooler is 215 degrees, it would be "diluted" with somewhat cooler air in the trunk and then ducted towards your brakes which will certainly be far more than the 180 degree air providing some air flow/cooling.

[jhadler]

Well... I don't think you don't need fancy hats or anything to get cool air to the brakes. They certainly will be more efficient than simply pointing a hose of cool, ducted air at the brake. If you don't have any brake ducting however, then anything is a big step up. As for the question posted, I think the best thing to do is to just route the air out into the wheel wells, but not actually direct the air to the brakes.

That picture posted is simply a very clean (PMS does it really clean) way of routing air out and away from the cooler. Actually, pretty much anything you do will be an improvement. If you have no other holes in your front truck for the air to escape to, you probably don't have much air passing through the oil cooler anyway. And if you already have some holes in the trunk, then either one of two things are happening. One, they're way too small or very poorly located/shrouded and they're not letting the high pressure air escape the trunk area. Or two, nothing's wrong with the setup, and you hood latch might need some attention... (IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif)

-Josh2

[jhadler]

Oh, about routing the oil cooler air to the brakes...

It's not that there's stagnant air surrounding the brakes, it's swirling and moving around, but it's a low pressure zone in the wheel well (especially the 914), so adding some air to that low pressure area is pretty much always a good thing. I wouldn't go aiming that hose right at the brakes though...

-Josh2