after a short brainstorm session with Roger Sheridan, brad and jason i've been busy bouncing around ideas about a good oil-cooling system and getting some air to my front brakes.
here's what i came up with so far:

Oil-Cooling:
my first idea was to just put a oil cooler in the front. i have a GT (916) front spoiler that already has the cutout for the cooler. but then, while looking at rogers car, i got a better idea.
what if i put a oil cooler in the spot where the stock fresh air fan resides? this is a high pressure area (roger uses it as air intake for his tranny-cooler). i can then use tubes to run the air from the oil-cooler either inside the car (meaning i can have heat AND nice headers) or route it to the outside. the fans you see in the picture could be just 911 ventilation fans. using fans would also help cooling the car when i sit in traffic, which a normal front oilcooler does not do very well.
any commentz?




Brake Air Duct:
since i already have the above mentioned 916 front spoiler and it does not come with openings for brake cooling, i now can use the oilcooler cutout to run a tube (or duct) throught the sides of the front trunk and route the air to the brakes.
any commentz?

A friend out here, runs that oil cooler set up on a 4cylinder race car. He doesn't bother with the heat though.

there is a significant difference in cooling capability when it comes to the duct work and air exit...

I ran a restrictive exit on one of my coolers once. When I changed to an extremely not restrictive exit (hood of the car) I had a huge drop in oil temp even using the same cooler.

So my thoughts on the cowl are: how big of a motor, how high of compression, how much oil temp drop do you want to get?....

also its kinda high up in the chassis to be adding weight if that matters (track car?)

I also have seen people feed their brakes from inside of the trunk area. Reportedly, worked well.... no personal experience with it. I can say that I have noticed ducting for brake air to be much less bothered by restriction (ie right angles) than ducting or exitting cooler work.

(hope that makes since?)

brant

yes, makes perfect sense. i agree with the not restrictive exit. front oilcooler with exit in the hood has almost no restriction on air flow (plus additional downforce). that's why i planned on adding at least two fans to assist the air-flow. plus having the exits on the side should create a additional "sucktion" effect.

for now, i'm running a more or less stock 1.8, but the plan is to upgrade to a 3.6 in the near future and brad and i are also talking about putting a supercharger on the 3.6, soooo, there is a real need for cooling

Andy

ps.: the high weight is not too much of a concern as i plan on only running time-trail events with the car.
i was and will be a daily driver ...

damm brad, i need a spell-checker for my posts

Andy,

I know brad doesn't have cooling probs.. with big bore motors... Maybe its the altitude out here, but I would run a big cooler on such a big 6.

The car out here with a cowl cooler only has a cooler sized to fit the cowl openings... (roughly 6inches by 12 inches)

You might want something bigger?

the word around here is that 195 degrees is optimal,
so i'm aiming for keeping the temp around 200 ...

i think i will go ahead and try this setup.
if it is not enough, i can always add a second cooler

later,
Andy

I think that everone considering adding an external cooler goes thru this debate with hisself. Many try (myself included) to reinvent the wheel.

I would suggest that you only want to do this install once.
That being the case, your future plans for a 3.6L dictate a monster cooler with a lot of airflow or , at least, a setup that can be replumbed from a smaller one (for now) to the biggie.....with enough air flow for the biggie.

The nose, tho it can be a PITA, is the best spot.
I also like to keep the cooler and lines below the tank.....not sure why, it just *seems* right....one of those intuitive things that I don't question any more.

hey andy,

cut some inlets for the brake ducts in the very bottom of that 916 bumper/spoiler, about under the foglights
it would be very hard to spot these (unless you're laying down)
Cover the openings with a stretched mesh painted in body color and you'll notice em even less

this way, you can put the oilcooler in the nose

cheers,

jeroen

errrr... the pic above is "supposed" to be a sideview of the 916 bumper

btw, I don't see any seems between the bumper and the fenders, headlight "eyebrows" or rocker panels
is that because of the quality of the picture or has it all glassed up?

cheers,

Jeroen

all glassed up
all around, front, sides and back are bondo'd to the body.

i don't think the area under the lower "lip" would get enough air for the brakes,
that is a very low angle there.
BUT, the 916 front-spoiler is not very tall anyways, which had me thinking about
putting a extra "snow plow" spoiler underneath. that would give me some
surface to work with, air-intake wise ...

Andy

Andy, not trying bust your bubble.
I don't think you can move enough air over the size cooler you could fit in the cowl. Lot of guys stuffing 3.6's in early 911's either run a huge cooler in the front or 2 Carrera type coolers in the front fenders with the associated headache of ducting. With the mods you're planning I hope there's a cage in your future. Putting the cooler in the cowl area just makes everything so much more difficult.
Running the front brake ducts thru the trunk is the way to go.
Try and come up with a plan for where you're going with this project. If you go to a cage and tie in suspension points the front truck starts getting congested. Running brake cooling ducts add to the problem. If you go to front cooler and vent thru hood is another. Add a fuel cell and it will teach you language you can't use in mixed company.

Hey Andy,

What type of calipers are you gonna use anyway?
I currently have 944turbo calipers on the front of my '87 911 carrera 3.2 (which quite a bit heavier than a 914)
These stand up to take track abuse just fine without any ducting...

Since you're only gonna do occasional DE stuff, why not just ditch the brake ducts all together?
(I.O.W. do you really need 'em?)

cheers,

Jeroen

Jeroen currently, i run the complete front suspension from a 86 carrera 911.
but i do have an eye on brad's turbo setup :-)
i might not need the air ducts at this point, but then again, they can't hurt, right?

Don, i already got the cage in, i'm going to have some more pix on tuesday,
but you can kind of see the cage here:


Andy