Engine undertray
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Racer
Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 412
Likes: 2
From: SoCal
Engine undertray
I know this topic has been debated for years, and I thought getting that undertray off was a great idea for letting the engine cool down after stopping, to avoid heat soak. Then I crawled under car, and it is really scrapped up. It has totally protected the heat exchangers. I think I am going to leave it on.
Racer
Joined: Apr 2003
Posts: 487
Likes: 4
From: Los Angeles
took mine off, went up a steeper hill to a parking lot which are very common here in So Cal...not having the tray cover caused it to hit the orange rubber tubing to the heat box on the pavement, tearing one.. i think protection is a good thing so I put it back on...
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Everyone loves to run without one, but few people know there can be expensive drawbacks, especially if the car has been lowered.
Racer
Joined: Apr 2003
Posts: 487
Likes: 4
From: Los Angeles
+1 also....my car has been lowered also which contributed to it...but it shouldnt have happened had the cover been in place. There was some debate over whether the cover off could make the engine run cooler and therefore help with premature valve guide wear and also SAI...however there has yet to have been any quantitative data as to whether the cover off actually helps... I doubt that it does, but who knows for sure?... if I were tracking my car, which Im not...Id have it off of course but for daily street it does offer some needed protection if the car has been lowered.
Drifting
Joined: Jul 2004
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I wonder how much scrape "protection" you really get from a plastic tray held on by a couple of dzus fasteners. We are not talking about a steel skid plate on a 4x4. Chances are if you are damaging your undersides without it, you'd probably have ripped off the cover had it been installed.
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I wonder how much scrape "protection" you really get from a plastic tray held on by a couple of dzus fasteners. We are not talking about a steel skid plate on a 4x4. Chances are if you are damaging your undersides without it, you'd probably have ripped off the cover had it been installed.
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From: Winston-Salem, NC
Uhhh, just because the engine tray had some scrapes on it, doesn't mean it protected anything. It just means the tray got scraped. If you were to bottom out sufficiently to damage the heater boxes, the engine tray would've been smashed in the process and the heater boxes probably would've still been damaged.
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Uhhh, just because the engine tray had some scrapes on it, doesn't mean it protected anything. It just means the tray got scraped. If you were to bottom out sufficiently to damage the heater boxes, the engine tray would've been smashed in the process and the heater boxes probably would've still been damaged.
The engine tray in place would have prevented this. An advantage to having the engine tray, as it came from the factory, on.
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Joined: Nov 2004
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From: USA
tray aerodynamics
On & off-topic:
Of all the RL discussions re: undertray on & off, I've only recently noticed mentions of potential aerodynamic advantages with undertray on...
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Unrelated photo taken this week, during a break from a spirited November romp in the Rockies
Of all the RL discussions re: undertray on & off, I've only recently noticed mentions of potential aerodynamic advantages with undertray on...
Unrelated photo taken this week, during a break from a spirited November romp in the Rockies
Instructor
Joined: Sep 2003
Posts: 230
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From: Berkshire, UK
Surely Porsche designed the underside tray with cooling in mind ie to manage the airflow (to help keep it on the ground) and cooling. To take that off would compromise the design. We all know that Porsche engineering is always for a purpose, rather than necessarily to look good.