Hey Guys,
Does anyone have an opinion on adding louvers or opening the front fender like this MR2? How about removing the rear bumper? I bet the chump rules wouldn't mine, I wonder about race organizations?

Why? That MR2 did all the fancy work to try and get air out of the front fender wells and then stuck them two bricks of lights on the front that does nothing but slow the car down.

Now the rear bumper, just cut the section out and get it flat to the floor. You will also need to cut the rear apron off.

Of course these mods fix all your problems.

Click to view attachment

I had to look twice at this picture to see it was a 914. Wow.

Its funny he did that fender work and put those lights on the hood like that. A lot of chump teams add the light like that for evening stints. I just thought his approach to the front fenders wouldn't be a bad idea.
Does opening the front fenders and cutting off the back make sense on a car that barely exceeds 100mph? Is that air trying to escape the fenders creating lift?

I drive a 914....there is always problems

Shane, the way I personally look at things is to stand on the shoulders of giants. I look at the problems Im having, then try to imitate/emulate the solutions that others have done. With a 40 year old car, we have some really good examples to work from, especially cars that are way faster than ours - the factory GTs, Racer Chris, the Sheridan car, etc. If they didnt cut holes in stuff needlessly, I'm not going to. It's sort of like when someone says they're going to remove their engine tin - I always assume the factory engineers, even 40 years ago knew more about what they were doing than I do theoretically.

In the case of that MR2, he's a good guy, but focuses way too much on doo dads and gadgets rather than getting the car to actually run 14 hours. I'm not sure ive ever seen him finish at Sebring. I wouldn't start cutting holes in the front fenders unless I had a severe brake overheating problem, but had already exhausted all the other solutions, personally.

Plus, after driving your car, I think it handles fan-freakin-tastic! If anything, if the car did another 10-20 mph, I'd consider adding a spoiler to the rear, to improve the aero balance. From what I understand, the 914 has more issues with the ass end walking around at high speeds than getting air out of the front wheel wells.

Hey George,
I noticed at chump that there was more then one car with opening on the rear portion of there front fenders. Thought there may be something to it. I just happened to pull a picture of Bills MR2. He didn't do so well last race, I never seen him on the track. He broke early, we lasted all day.
All I every worked on with my car was reliability and safety. Thought some aero improvements would be smart. I'll worry about that after I get my engine back in.
Thanks for the compliment about my car. We going to get after it again this year.

Unless you're dumping extra air into your fender wells (e.g. if you exhaust oil cooler air there), you are unlikely to notice any difference at all from adding louvers to your front fenders. Especially if you're not significantly exceeding 100 mph.

Go ahead and take off the back bumper if you're allowed to. And you can ventilate the rear sheet metal too, or just cut it away as much as rules allow. It will let out hot air and may help cooling in addition to whatever aero gains you might get. And drop a little weight too.

Scott

For Chump, we removed the rear bumper and cut away the lower part of the rear sheet metal up to the trunk floor - gives me more clearance for engine R&R

Agree.

Remove the rear bumper and add holes to remove hot air from the engine and transaxle.Click to view attachment