anyone ever try/use a larger than stock intercooler mounted horizontally (parallel to the ground) similar to the callaway setup? im just curious how much airflow there is down there. id image that there would be some sort of ducting setup to take air from the front of the car and pass it through the ic rather than try to use warm ground air...

here's an example.

 

To run a horizontal Ic, you do inded need to proprely duct it. The air you ram in must also be sucked out.
Most 951 guys put in header panel vents, and remove, or don't even own the under car panels, thinking they are doing something good. They are not.
The real improvement is made via the 968TRS method. It uses a hood vent that PULLS the air out from the back of the IC and the radiator and allows it to exit, thus creating a strong cooling environment.
The air you extract is almost more important (it's debateable) than the air you shove in.
Run a more modren IC, with the same size dimensions, and the original ducts, lower engine plates, and a 968 style air extractor, and you will achieve the most that can be achieved in our cars.

 

i was talking to ibkevin about this a week or two ago.

i dont really want to put a fatty reverse-scoop on my hood/vents ala deutschnine, so i looked around and thought of this. kevin said that some racer guy had some success with airflow by removing the body-to-hood gasket, but i thought of something different...what if i cut a hole through the understructure of the hood? the air could get through there and would exit right in front of the windshield.

pic stolen from moddedeverything951s...red line is the cutout area

 

My guess (and that's all it is) would be that you are changing a proven position that will definitely be enhanced using a hood vent that Ehall suggests, to something that will be difficult to achieve AND more than likely be in a much less effective pressure area for heat/air extraction. You could do a lot of R&D to find out that you should have just done the 'normal' venting in the first place.
However, I'm also not going to suggest you don't try. Are you getting heat soak? Do you use the stock i/c? Putting a larger i/c with larger diam. pipes and some decent venting will give you all you need without the experimentation. IMHO.

 

There is a reason I want to move to Australia....but what was it again?......

 

You were both wrong. The factory got this right almost immediately. Some of the reason for their success came from their failed Indy Car effort.
I'll try and find a few basic aerodynamic articles that I have saved, but If I forget, pm me.
Go look up how an air plane wing works.
Apply that to a car. Remember that hot = high pressure and cool = LOW pressure. faster air is almost ALWAYS. (see 99.99%) LOW pressure. Hot moves towards cold. It is lighter.
An intercooler exists to lower air pressure, which lowers air temp.. The faster you can move air across it's vanes, the cooler you can make the intake charge. The colder the intake charge, the denser the intake air. That is Oxygen. O+fuel , in proper proportions =more power.

SO, a horizontal
IC, on a turbo F1 car, of the 80's, or a LeMans car, or the eighties, with HUGE ground force aero set up, that crammed HUGE amount of air into channels, under the car, somewhat like 951's, could run a semi horizontal IC, really effectively, UNTIL the car took up debris, then it could get REALLY ugly. Porsche, and this was their finest era, didn't make this mistake on our cars, the 93X series, nor the 95X=962 series, and won every damned endurance race on the planet.
If you are smarter than they were.....
I'm listening.

If you REALLY want to create more effective boost, go study 968 turbo s race cars. There were exactly 4 of them.

 

You could always remove the standard air to air I/C altogether of course...

 

Because you don't have to pay exorbitant fees to join some stuffy Country club just to play on brilliant golf courses!

 

That area would allow air in, not out. The cowl area in most cars is positive pressure, that's why almost all cars use that area for air intake for the cabin in the 'vent' setting.

That sounds like you would just be causing turbulence under the hood, which I don't know if that would be good or bad. Cowl induction hoods work as their only function is as a ram-air intake. Generally they have the aircleaner sealed up against the hood, allowing it to only ingest air from the cowl area.

 

ok i had to read that a few times to get it clear. (no chance in hell i am smarter than the race factory lol)

basically a horizontal ic only works with a hell of alot of controlled airflow but eventually isnt very smart to use because it gets f*cked majorly by rocks etc.

so a standard vertical mount ic is the best option

 

Absolutely correct, extracting hot air is almost always neglected, and shoving cooler air in seems to be the main topic.

 

do you think there needs to be any correlation between size of the intercooler and size of the hood vent? ive seen on the 968TRS how the vent is direct from the IC but i dont know how big the IC is compared to the hole.

 

Theoretically, you could use the same sized IC, but with a modern core, and it would make a reasonable improvement. As long as the air is being pulled out, something the size of the 968 vent would be just fine. You could also use hood vents, like David Floyd's.

 

I personally think that this horizontal mounting with good ducting is a good idea. As said earlier the extraction of the air that has gone through the IC is as important if not more important than getting air into the IC. In the stock setup I cannot see how any attempt has been made to extract air from behind the IC. In the horizontal position with good ducting you will get a venturi effect set up from air flowing over the bonnet that will suck air through the IC which will make huge efficiency improvements. You could probably even use a smaller IC for ease of installation and still get a better performing IC.

 

I've always wanted to do a latteral hood vent just behind the latch mechanics, on the lower front of the hood, sized and shaped to match the inlet hole on my header pannel! Still designing. My intention would be to create a rain channel under the hood to use on the street, to block rainfall. This would be incorporated into a shroud that would be mounted in the engine bay leading to the hood vent (or perhaps mounted underneath and attached to the hood vent.)
Would like to kill two birds; vent the IC and also vent the engine bay. In addition I believe this would add a slight amount of downforce. Saw the illegal Beemer's at Lime Rock a few years ago and they had all kminds of aero ducting going up through the hood; very cool stuff. Have the pics somewhere. I was/am just worried about rain in general street use. The design would allow rain to just dump into the fron of the engine bay and that would probably not be good, hence the rain channel idea and why I have never completed the project... sure would like to take a hood a f--- around for a few months though...