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Sorry about that title.

This is a post about sealing the gaps around your radiator, and ducting the air through the nose of your car so it has nowhere to go except your heat exchangers (radiator, intercooler, oil cooler, small clothesline for drying your gloves, etc).

I might be able to drive a little bit, but when it comes to mechanical skill, any handiwork really, I am, as one avid newspaper reader so eloquently wrote to my journalist friend, an absolutely dumb idiot.

So here goes. This is my attempt at ducting. It's not pretty, it's maybe even not functional (I am optimistic, but as an idiot, of course I am) but it's an attempt. It's an attempt!

Trackday tomorrow, will report back on effectiveness.

First attempt at the passenger side. Used a cardboard template to get a rough shape, then just kept trimming and test fitting. There are three parts: two side pieces, and a bottom piece. I used coroplast (election signboard stuff), adhesive backed foam, and aluminium cloth tape


Further progress


Driver's side. Ooohh yeah that's some real nice work there, so professional and pretty


Here you can see the bottom piece a bit better. It attaches to the radiator and there is no gap underneath. It effectively makes a sealed chute so that the air through the nose cannot go anywhere but through the intercooler and radiator. I have got any pics but there is also foam sealing the sides of the radiator.


Another view of the front. It looks a bit wonky, but that's just because my intercooler is a bit wonky, and also because it's a bit wonky.


Fin. I also sealed the top section under where the bonnet meets the chassis, but didn't take any pics. Can do later if anyone's interested.

Nice work!

Just be aware that this may adversely affect the airflow to the brakes resulting in some issues during heavy use like, errrr...... Track days.
(The most common solution is to remove the foglights to provide brake cooling ducts )

Needs some "Speed Stripes" worked into the dusty bonnet.

Definitely worth experimenting with ducting though.

Nevyn72 wrote:Just be aware that this may adversely affect the airflow to the brakes resulting in some issues during heavy use like, errrr...... Track days.
(The most common solution is to remove the foglights to provide brake cooling ducts )

Yes, have had that thought too - even considered whether to just remove the foglights as a temporary measure to possibly get some air flowing through there. I'll see how I go after this track day. Barbagallo doesn't seem to be too hard on brakes, and the car is low power, so I might get away with it. Running XP10 pads too.

Lokiel wrote:Needs some "Speed Stripes" worked into the dusty bonnet.

It's getting a wash before it goes out in public tonight!

pepejesus wrote:

Lokiel wrote:Needs some "Speed Stripes" worked into the dusty bonnet.

It's getting a wash before it goes out in public tonight!

Can you get a photo of the "Ghetto Speed Stripes" first?

Ok, reporting back as promised.

I can say that the ghetto ducting was a great success

Temps were sitting around 98 - 102, power was good, not pulling timing and losing power due to the temps climbing as it has before.

This is with a cheapy eBay special radiator too. I will definitely be upgrading the radiator in future, and considering hood vents depending on how the radiator performs.

I did however get some brake fade! Which I had never had before. It wasn't particlularly bad but the pedal was a little soft on the big braking zones after the first couple of laps, and whilst it was still pulling me up , I wasn't giving me quite the same brake force. So you were on the money, Nevyn72, the air bypassing the radiator was effective at cooling the brakes to some extent. I'll be going down the fog light duct route for sure.

Because of the fact I wasn't losing power, I managed to smash my best times. Did a 1:10.6 where my previous best was a 1:11.9.

Duct tales, woohoo, indeed...