DWS964

Curious about the routing of the ducts in the rear quarter panels on Turbo S. Do they provide engine cooling, and to where? or brake cooling?
Pictures?

JamesE

One does 'sort of' engine oil cooler cooling, the other is just pretty. Asymmetric due to various engine ancillaries getting in the way.

I have a set of Car Graphic composite rear vents that I didn't use on my project which will be listed soon...

DWS964

I don't see how either duct in the rear quarter provides any additional cooling, to anything. I thought perhaps the factory installation utilized some ducting to direct the air to a specific spot. My wide body conversion utilizes Turbo S quarter panels, but the ducts just "look pretty".
Sorry to intrude in the Turbo forum, I'm just an imposter.

Metal Guru

+1
There's a post somewhere on this forum where one of our Flatnose owners says just that: the ducts lead to nowhere.

JamesE

It has been covered extensively. You can see from the wings themselves, that they clearly go 'somewhere'... However, they are as much cosmetic, as anything else. The right hand-side one is aimed at the engine oil cooler, the left one does nothing but basic engine cooling.

On my Flatnose conversion we use them to feed the intakes for the two turbos...

Metal Guru

Oil cooler?
The oil tank is over there but I doubt that the gentle breeze hitting it from the scoop does much cooling. As for the left side, I'm told the air passes on out the rear of the vehicle.

DWS964

Search is my friend - I found a good/long thread on the subject, with lots of opinion and some good data. Forgot to retain the link, though.
Bottom line - they do nothing. Well, maybe cool off the outer sheet metal....

JamesE

Sorry thats just not true.

The engine produces an incredible amount of radiant heat. Blowing cold air over the engine removes that radiant heat. If you have a cup of coffee do you blow through a straw directly at the hot liquid? No, you blow over the top to remove as much local heat as possible. This then gets replaced by more heat, which is again removed. This is simple physics.

I absolutely agree they are as much cosmetic as cooling, but they do cool. Whether its worth the extra drag is anyones guess.

They defo don't cool the brakes, though.

Flachbau

If they do anything at all as regards cooling it is negligible.

JamesE

I actually have a Temp sensor in the engine bay. I could measure the temp, but don't have a reference for no vents...

Flachbau

Will get you the requested photos this weekend.

budge96

This maybe late to the game but I always thought they were ducted to the rear brakes on factory cars
I may be mistaken but this was my assumption..Bert

Metal Guru

Well, Flachbau owns one of these cars. If he says the ducts lead to nowhere, I would tend to trust that assessment.

Flachbau

Air flows over the top of the wheel liners ... so zero air gets to the brakes.