Does anyone here know Baja bugs or Dune buggies?
 

Specifically, how do the engines cool? In a stock VW or air cooled Porsche, the rubber and sheet metal seal between the upper portion of the engine and the lower cylinders and heads directs the cooling air through ducts the the hot part of the engine.

In Baja bugs and Dune buggies, the engine is just hanging out in the breeze. I guess the wind keeps the upper part from getting too hot? In a stock set-up, if the rubber seal is not present or damaged, the heat from cylinders will just rise and create an overheating situation due to continuous recycling of the same hot air.

This one has me baffled. If wind is the answer, they would overheat like crazy in slow traffic on a hot day. :confused:

The engine still utilizes the fan and shrouds.

Right. But how does it keep the heated air from bottom rising up to the air intake for blower fan on top?

A stock bug w missing rubber seal between engine sheet metal and body will overheat in hot weather. With all fan and shrouds present.

I guess I don't know, now that I think about it. I know that the oil cooler is in the doghouse, so I guess that is doing most of the work, and the small shrouds to duct the air over the tops of the cylinders are only needed when the engine is enclosed?

They cool just fine like that, have had a bunch of them including a 2275 at 10:1 can mpression. No problems in the desert at 100 temps. Most desert running is fairly low speed, 20-80 mph . Offset or “doghouse” style cooler and an external oil cooler help a bunch.

911 & 914 racecars run w/o the shielding and seals. IMHO it's for traffic/slow/stopped conditions.

No problem at speed.

http://www.vehiclecraft.com/pictures...s/0008_JPG.jpg
http://www.vehiclecraft.com/pictures...s/0120_JPG.jpg

They don't sit and idle at traffic lights like a full body Bug would. Plus there is so much air rushing past a fully exposed engine the lower heat never makes to the top of the engine.

On a full body car with no seals the air gets trapped under the car and gets sucked back up again. It also has a hot exhaust system trapped under the body.
On a open buggy it's not trapped and even the slightest breeze blows hot air away and exhaust is exposed.

The basic shrouding and bottom cylinder deflectors should still be all intact, the only bits I leave off is the pulley tins and the rear (flywheel) sealing tin.

They over heated.
Most all of them I have been around, and I have owned a few and been around a lot of them.
Usually they had more displacement more carburation and the same size cooling system and were put together by amateurs and then ran hard. Most people were lucky to get a year or two out of the engines, but they were cheap and easily replaced for another go around. we would take the oil cooler off the block cut a hole in the shroud and ad an external oil cooler, which of course did nothing in stop and go traffic where we spent 90% of our time. but that is what the racers did, we also added power pulleys ;0. Ahh youth.

That teener sure looks like fun.