For all you guys with front mounts and cooling issues, check out what I did. It is supposed to duct air under the intercooler to the radiator. The bottom of the radiator is sealed to the undertray with foam. Originaly this idea was devised by Chris Carlisi, but I did it a bit differently to work with my 99 front bumper. On his car we dropped the coolant temps 5 degrees C while flogging the car in a parking lot simulating autox. I haven't gotten a chance to test it much on mine, but tonight I was seeing temps between 84-87C on the highway. The real test will be at MADS this comming weekend.

looks good

looks clean.

for what its worth, guys. this is a great modification and chris' best contribution to the rx7 community. i can't believe how well it worked on his car. i mean, think about it. a 5 degree decrease i temps! and it doesn;t cost an arm and a leg. ihor's install looks more professional than chris', though his looks nice too and is unobtrusive.if you're running front mount with rad and a/c behind, i think this is a must do mod. good deal, ihor. -gordon

i'm doing something similar on my t2. the ic wont let me use an under cover so i'm going to put a little flap on the oil cooler to duct the air that gets under the car up, like an 83 camaro. i havent done it yet because the 20b runs cool anyways



mike

Can you post a pic of this a little further back so I can see the entire front end???



STEPHEN

nice work.....ill conjure mine soon.

that looks very similar to what N-tech engineering sells as their "shark" mod. however, i always knew it could be done for almost no cost. just look at all of those benefits.....

anyone got a pic of the ntech one?

I believe this is it.

yeah, that is the one. it opens the stock hole a good bit...

Well it seams to work, as I didn't even come close to overheating at MADS. Highest temps I saw were 99 C after beating the crap of the car for 20 min. I did catch the spoiler loading the car on the trailer and chipped the paint. Oh well.

The N tech simply makes the stock opening bigger. This is different. For what it's worth let me give you the history of this project (before starting take a bathroom break, get a cup of coffee-sorry for the book).



When I was shopping for ICs I decided to go with a FMIC because I do a lot of stop and go and wanted to avoid heat soak. The FMIC is fine in stop and go with the fan mod, but when the boost is up for extended periods of time (hilly roads, highway, track) it will still overheat (granted it takes much longer with the fans running).



My first idea was to cut a hole into the belly pan behind the IC and in front of the Radiator. I decided against this because I was concerned that the air flowing in through the bumper could use the body pan opening (intended to be an intake) as an exit vent, creating lift.



My next thought was to do a snorkle to force air up into the belly pan. I ruled this out because it would be difficult to fabricate and would reduce ground clearance issues.



Finally I noticed that the Radiator sits lower than the IC in the engine compartment. The radiator core is clearly visible when looking at the car head on without an R1 spoiler or body pan. Therefore by ducting air in from below the stock bumper skin you can get a straight shot at the radiator.



FABRICATION:

I cut the center section out of my old touring lip and used the sides as a spacer between the r1 spoiler and the bumper skin. The interior portion of the belly pan was removed (by simply drilling the rivets) and a foam strip was installed to fill the gap between the pan and the radiator. The whole mess is held together by the stock r1 spoiler mounting nuts, bolts from home depot that are 2x longer than the stock bolts and aluminum pipe that provides a solid bridge between the bumper skin and the r1 spoiler for the mounting screws to tighten down again.

.

I've had this on my car for over a month now and drive it on a daily basis. I have never gotten temps over 99 with this mod. Downforce should also be higher because the R1 lip is lower. The only downside I've noticed is that I occasionally scrap the lip on parking garage ramps and steep driveways. I'm running stock springs and shocks at the moment, but am switching to a set of koni yellows and eibach springs to further complicate my life. Finally as an added bonus my friends think it makes the car look menacing-can never have enough of that;)



I will post a couple recent pics later tonight for those of you who are curious as to how it looks on a 94 bumper. I think Ihor did a good job adapting it to the 99 front end. I'm glad to see it looks ok since I will probably upgrade to that when it's time.



-Chris C.