250 Brake cooling ducts

Hi Scott
I have just fitted my cooling ducts, was going to wait to see how they worked out at Silverstone on the 27th, but that has now been cancelled.

I was going to do a thread on it if it worked, it should as it flows air right into the back of the disc.

 

I haven't used any aperture on the bumper
I fitted some scoops under the engine on the undertray, then ran a pipe right into the back of the disc's by the abs sensor.

The pipe is about 400mm long, so very short, i have just looked to see if i had any pics and i can't find them, so i'm going to have to take them again.

 

Would be good to get some of the paint the f1 teams use to monitor the airflow! Slap some around and in the duct entry point and see if it's flowing.

I'm always dubious about these kind of mods as I imagine air would stall a lot of the time and have little to no effectiveness.

 

I was wondering about the amount of air going through as well, would like something to measure it but what

 

I've got a cordless leaf blower, think it does about 50mph so not great, but I was thinking of sticking some small strips of paper to areas of interest and seeing how the paper reacts to the air flow.

Pretty primitive, but would give an indication I suppose!

 

I did that with the bonnet, was told that the air goes down the back of the bonnet if the rubber is removed, tied a couple of pieces of cloth to the panel behind, at 30mph they disappeared and stayed there well past a ton

 

It looks great, but I honestly think it's doing nothing as the air would just be stalling.

 

Don't shoot me for this, but I'm actually toying with the idea of the stupid bonnet raisers to let some air into the back of the engine to help with cooling the turbo etc!

 

I'm looking at combining the two tbh.

Wrapping everything will definitely help with engine bay temps, but if you can get more airflow in there it should massively reduce overall temps. Popping the bonnet after a few hot laps is pretty intense, anything that can reduce temps is worth looking at imo!

 

Bottom fed would surely be the best, in theory you'd have a lot of air being forced underneath the car so if you could channel that with very little bends, you'd possibly be on to a winner.

 

It's pretty, but with all that pipe and bends, can we really expect much airflow? I guess it depends on whether or not theres a vacuum created at the pipes outlet, if so, then it would be assumed that the air is getting sucked through as well as pushed and could be effective?

To get really technical your need a wind tunnel and some heat sensors pointed at the discs to monitor things.

 

Seat of your pants testing is great, but I like to see some raw data!

Personally, I'd go with a polyurethane rather than ct1, I used ct1 to stick my polycarbonate windows in and its degraded and failing where the polyurethane is perfect.

 

From what I can gather, the wheel arch area can have high pressure which can lead to various problems from efficiency to lift.

A lot of the modern performance stuff (m4 as an example) have vents in the fenders to relieve the pressure. Others have vents in the liners themselves to remove that hot dirty air from the wheels/brakes.

I think what I'm trying to say is these pipes from the front bumper (or anywhere) to the wheel arches are shit. Unless you can get the air removed from the arches, you're wasting your time trying to channel more air into it.

That's my understanding so far anyway.

 

Yeah I think it's a waste of time tbh.

In fact, if the pressure at the exit point (wheel arch area) is higher than the intake (front bumper area) you may find that the airflow is opposite to the intended direction and creates even more drag? Damn I wish I listened in school and had the knowledge to understand this more!!

 

There is certainly pressure generated in the wheel arch from a rotating wheel. However, there is also a lot of space for that pressure to be extracted. Air coming into the ducts at 100 km/h+ and directed at the calliper (even with the bends) is more than enough force to overcome the pressure generated in the wheel arch.

 

I think the air would've already stalled at the pipe intake before you reach those speeds.

Think how turbulent and dirty the air is going to be at that point of the bumper, I cant imagine it'll cleanly blow through a tiny intake, through 3 or 4 bends and then have enough pressure to overcome the pressure in the wheel arch.

I could however, be completely wrong.

 

To think the gt4 race car hasn't got some trick aero package that integrates all cooling systems is a little naive!

I'd just love to see some data on the matter, or at least some f1 style paint that highlights the airflow!

If I ever get mine back on the road I'll be sure to do some testing!

 

Ironically, I used the m4 as an example of a modern performance car that has a way to release pressure in the arch area using vents, this is no doubt technology learnt from the race cars they run.

Looks like you have to manufacture your own visualization paint which will be fun!

 

I can guarantee it'll have more than just a splitter. A lot of aero tweaks can be virtually invisible to the naked eye! Look at formula one, the cars at the back of the grid look almost identical to those at the front yet can be hugely different in performance.

Spread sheets would be great to see, but unless it's back to back testing the results can't be taken that seriously!

I genuinely would love for this to work, it's a great addition for little outlay, but I am dubious.

 

Looks like there is a pretty big splitter, two intakes to a purpose built disc surround and as I've previously shown, the m4 has vents in the arches and liners to relieve the high pressure that builds there!

It looks as though the disc surrounds will also be designed to push air out of the wheel rather than allow the air to be sucked into the wheel that a conventional set up would rely on.

It too can be yours for only a little under £2k!