Cooling ducts to cool underhood?

[WhalePirot]

Brake cooling ducts to cool underhood?

Is anyone using, or know, if the brake cooling kit from MidAmerica can be ducted into the engine area for extra cooling?

Try this link: http://www.madvet.com/shop?store=1&frame=3979

TIA.

mike

 

[rrubel]

Dunno.. yet... but I'm getting one of these for Father's Day and I can find out.
[RICHR]

 

[Hotred94]

I don't see why it wouldn't work, but I think the problem is more that the hot air in the engine compartment can't get out very well. I've been thinking about it myself.

 

[JT ZR-Won]

I'd like to get that kit. In one of my KOTH magazines I get from the LT5 Registry, it explains how to build a home made version that looks great and is just as effective.

Jay

 

[Ken]

If you do it Mike, keep us informed, with pictures hopefully.

_ken

 

[vader86]

I dont see why not, but youre going to have to make somewhere for the air to exit for it to really work best.

Greenwood heat extractors would do the same job, but that'd involve cuttin the hood.

 

[Ken]

One of the easiest, but certainly the cheapest, ways to get rid of some of that hot underhood air is to remove the weather seals at the area where the hood latches. It will open up that area to the outside and allow some hot air to escape.

_ken

 

[rrubel]

The older C4's don't even have a full set of seals at the back of the hood - Corvette Central and others sell "upgrades" to the newer parts. Sounds like that's one thing to leave alone.
[RICHR]

 

[WradDad]

What am I missing...?

It would seem to me that ducting air into to the engine bay would reduce the cooling efficiency of your radiator. Like Ken said, I think the best thing would be to provide a way for the hot air to escape. That way, the air all comes in through the radiator, and exits more quickly. That should reduce under-hood temps, and increase the radiator's cooling ability at the same time.

I've seen small ( three or four inch diameter) fans installed in the wheel wells to pull air out of the engine bay. Haven't tried it myself, so I can't say if that actually works or not!

My $.02

Barry

 

[Alfonso Gomez]

I bought the kit from Mid America. Was dissapointed because there is NO WAY to route the ducts where the instructions tell you to. Had to route the different. If they helped cool the brakes: Who knows???????
As the forum members said, there is no problem getting more air INTO the engine compartment. Problem is getting the hot air OUT.
Also, using the ducts to reduce the temperature in the engine compartment, if you find a way to allow the air current to exit the compartment, will increase the amount of dirt on your engine area, specially if you drive under dusty conditions.
The idea is not bad but will probably be effective:
1- At high speeds
2- Will make your engine compartment dirty-errr
3- Needs a way to exhaust the hot air.

My 2 cents worth.

 

[vms4evr]

I've been working on this idea for about 6 months now. I have a bullet style fan and wired it up. I've tried ducting with limited success. But I have found a couple of places to mount the fan. Still more experimenting.

What I noticed was you want to suck the air out of the engine compartment. You want the mouth of the inlet tube as close to the top of the hood as possible and away from the radiator. Then dump the air either down onto the ground so it passes under the car OR in my case I wanted to route that air out to the rotors. That way I can cool the rotors with the exhausted air. Address 2 problems with 1 fix :cool

A guy I just met has a 91 with a home made setup just for cooling the rotors for autocross. I'll talk to him about it and try and get some pics.

Graham

 

[Da Hawaiian Punch]

One of the easiest, but certainly the cheapest, ways to get rid of some of that hot underhood air is to remove the weather seals at the area where the hood latches. It will open up that area to the outside and allow some hot air to escape.

_ken

Yep! thats one of the first things that I did when I first got my car.

 

[vms4evr]

One of the easiest, but certainly the cheapest, ways to get rid of some of that hot underhood air is to remove the weather seals at the area where the hood latches. It will open up that area to the outside and allow some hot air to escape.

_ken

Ken,
I thought that was a bad idea because it lets rain easily get into the top the engine compartment and firewall. I get the impression that the seal is there for stopping things from getting in, not out. I'll bet it does help with the cooling some though. At my last autox I popped the hood just enough so that the pins were resting on the mounts from the weight of the hood. Standing in front of the car you could see the heat rolling up the windshield.
Graham

 

[Da Hawaiian Punch]

Ken,
I thought that was a bad idea because it lets rain easily get into the top the engine compartment and firewall. I get the impression that the seal is there for stopping things from getting in, not out. I'll bet it does help with the cooling some though. At my last autox I popped the hood just enough so that the pins were resting on the mounts from the weight of the hood. Standing in front of the car you could see the heat rolling up the windshield.
Graham

I know you addressed this to Ken, but I just wanted to let you know that, thats what I was thinking also before I trimmed away the trimming, so I trimmed just enough to where the air could still escape, but left some of the curve part of the rubber on so it'll still keep rain out of the engine conpartment.

 

[Mad-Mic]

i was looking at mine and i got the soft rubber thick weatherstrip behind the hood latches. well inside of those is a flimsy rubber piece that runs the whole length of the hood. i'm thinking about cutting out a 6 inch by 2 inch piece on each side of the motor to help with heat transfer. wish i had a digital camera to show you guys what i'm thinking.

 

[ErnieN85]

Guys the base of the windshield is a high pressure area.
probably at speed it will push air into the engine compartment.

 

[Ken]

No, no, no... :nono I did not mean the rubber strip that runs along the base of the windshield at the top of the firewall! I meant the two small foam (?) rubber sealing strips at the hood sides where the latch mechanism is located. Removing those allows some heat to escape, much in the same manner as the "gills" in the side panel.

The base of the windshield is a high pressure area as Ernie pointed out. It's a great area for inducting air to the engine compartment though. :L

_ken

 

[Hotred94]

There have been some good thoughts in this thread. I've been thinking about the exhaust heat problem for a while also, and perhaps I need to chime in here. The rubber seals at the rear of the hood are designed to keep the engine heat out of your interior air intakes. These intakes are immediately behind the rubber and under the wiper blades. That's where all your interior air is sucked in at, so if you remove the rubber you increase the heat coming into the cockpit. Not exactly the ideal solution.

Triming only the outer edges of the hood seal beyond the air intakes might seem like a fix for this problem, but then the airflow blows the hot engine air right around the windshield pillar and into your open window.

Cutting the seal out in the center of the hood and daming it off from the air intakes would probably work except that the seals are quite small in this area, so I don't know if the volume of airflow out of the engine compartment would be effective enough to do any good. I haven't come up with a good solution yet but I'm still thinking on it. Like all good vette tinkerers, I know what doesn't work but I don't know what does work.

I wish the side vents were more efficient.

 

[Mad-Mic]

Hotred,

are you talking about the rubber seal and possibly cutting it in the middle of the engine?

the more i think about this the more i want to help the problem. when i was out last night hanging out, i had the car shut off for a good 1 1/2 - 2 hours and then i popped my hood and slowly opened it and i could feel the heat just pour off the motor and escape into the atmosphere.

now what i am thinking is cutting where i was talking about, the rubber seal below the wipers on each side of the motor 8 inche by 2 inch gap out, and taking some sheet metal and fabricating a heat sink or like a very small wing 1 inch wing basically bent in a 60 degree angle then riveting it in the cut rubber piece. this way the heat won't just go over the lip and get pulled in the air intake for the cockpit. also this will help the heat escape as we know heat rises and gives it a lifting effect before it can be sucked into the cockpit.

only thing that might be a problem is rain. but if you keep it small enough and tucked under the hood as best you can i don't think it would be. i have to do some measurements and see what i can come up with. also the sheet metal is very pliable and bendable so you could basically bend them down when in use and bend them up into the hood when not in use. as long as it's still tucked under the hood on initial fabrication.

i'll see what i can come up with.

 

[Hotred94]

Yea, the flimsey rubber seal right in the middle, about where your distributer is located. I'm referencing my 94 which is a little different than your model. I should probably also state that I'm mostly thinking of air dynamics when the car is moving, as opposed to when the car is parked.

Ken and Ernie both pointed out that the base of the windshield is normally an area with positive air pressure. My opinion is that that is true so long as the rubber hood seal is in place, but if it is removed or has openings cut in it then the hot air coming through the radiator will easily over-power any air trying to come in at the top of the hood. The air at the front edge of the car where the radiator picks up air is a much higher pressure area than the base of the windshield. It also has more volume.

About the air foil, I think that idea may have some success so long as the wing is long enough to keep the hot engine air from curling back around it to the intakes. I believe it would need to be longer than the hood though to do that, making it stick out too far.

This is the kind of challange we need to think on for a couple of weeks.