"What you could do is pack the whole underside of the car with bondo and sand it into the shape of a large inverted wing to create downforce"
Funny you should mention this...
A quick retelling of some autoracing history..In the mid-60's Jim Hall developed a radical and very sucessful racing sports car .The Chapparal. Included in it's many inovations was a completely flat and smooth fiberglass underside coupled with a high mounted movable rear wing. A major problem with this car was front end lift ,so the next evolution was a front wing , to produce downforce at the expense of drag.

Bruce Mclaren, Great driver-designer whose team still wins in F1, took theidea one step further. With his M4 Can-Am car he did something very similar to what you suggested..he molded a slight concave curve in the bottom of the car which would create area of low pressure to add down force at high speed. Good Info http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1093954368.jpg

schosh, thanks for the link, thats great stuff.

doesnt the 914 gt have the air that flows over the front mounted oil cooler go out the bottom of the front trunk?

if porsche did it with their cars, i dont think it would be a problem... just thinking of real world examples.

I don't think I'd consider that the same as the air to water radiator, the amount of heat that needs to be transferred is much higher for the radiator than the oil-cooler....

I did say "real world examples"... but realize i'm using "real world examples" 35 years later. In 35 years, its obvious that technology has changed, along with the design of cars. Even Porsche has changed their designs... and i would guess it was for the better. Keep in mind that the 60's were the beginning of the airdynamic advancements for racing, even though the 914 didn't start till the 70's (but work had be going on way before that) it was a joint, entry level project for Porsche. I wouldn't emagine that they would have spent lots of money developing better aerodynamics for it. They shot down Max, the USA importer for Porsche, when he installed an 'S' badge on the 914 2.0 in 73 for fear it would hurt the 911'S' reputation...

Although, I remember reading an old artical about Porsche's new 911 (don't remember what model, but i want to say the 964). Anyways, during the press Q&A, one of the reporters asked why Porsche had spend millions of dollars to develope this car and they kept the old doors (IE, 1965-89 were pretty much the same), and the Porsche rep said in his German accented english "It was a good door!".

All in all, your right, it did work then, and it will work now. I think they did it to get it done, it was a simple solution with minor body modifications. Its only my take on the subject, and there are many different takes. Thats the beauty of doing what you want with your car.

Good luck, and i hope how ever you plumb your vent air goes well. Don

why can't you take an old beat up hood, cut a big hole in it with louvers or something and have the air come out through the hood back toward the windshield? There would be problems if you ever blew a radiator, and you might have to brace the hood a little bit to make up for the hole, but it seems like it wouldn't hurt downforce much, if at all.

I was thinking the same thing - plus the air would travel a straighter path than having to turn and exit out through the wheel-wells.

Well, part of the hood is a high-pressure area... As I said, I've seen that approach taken with an oil cooler, and it didn't work very well. If you can put the outlet somewhere that is a low-pressure area, it should work a lot better--but I'm thinking that louvers probably don't allow for enough air flow even so!

BTW, just because the Factory did something does not automagically make it The Best Solution. Our cars are full of "factory hacks" IMHO. (The rear deck lid hinge and torsion spring system? The front trunk seal???) The GTs are not exempt--for example, I feel that having the oil cooler lines running straight through the driver's footwell is a Very Bad Idea Indeed...

That said, exhausting the air into the wheel wells or under the car has been done for years and does not seem to have that huge an effect.

Note that the Boxster and the 996 both exhaust their cooling air into the wheel wells. They have been the recipients of a whole lot more engineering work than our cars ever were, so I would be more inclined to think that the solutions used in their cases are pretty good ones. (If not necessarily The Best For All Applications.)

--DD

True, but does overall vehicle weight have a factor? Boxsters weight 1000lb more?Not sure, but even if they weighed 500lb more, that would help, plus the body aero dynamics are different... so maybe the result of the air ducting wouldn;t show up untill 150mph+, unlike our beloved 914 which starts much sooner...

Just a thought

I don't see myself ever attempting that kind of speed in my 914....


130mph is my limit in my 911 and I know it's could get well past that number...i just don't have the balls (or stupidity??) to push it past that speed :)

Good point Mike, on the track is where I try fast ( why is that stupid?) things... and Nevada.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1094079582.jpg

Run your water thur these tube;s and you can get away with using a small radiator in the gt opening.

...I was referring to doing on public roads :)

Steve, I had thought about something like that, I know the 911 guys have had success running the copper lines with the cooling fins on them, but I'm not too sure if the water would get a chance to cool off much due to it flowing too fast thru those pipes.

also, those tubes look fairly large in diameter, and unless one ran them inside the car or thru the rockers, they for sure would get damaged if you get too friendly with a speed bump :)

I think they are 1.75 in diameter, the surface area is considerable.
http://www.secureperformanceorder.com/onlinestore/getproduct.cfm?CategoryID=9&ClassID=135&SubclassID =638&ProductID=2700

http://www.cyburbia.net.au/Commercial/Key/finned_tube.html

i agree that just because the factory did something, it doesnt make it right. I was just thinking of options. If i do go through with this (or any water cooled) conversion, i would more than likely cut the wheel wells. Regardless of whether louvers in the hood would work or not, they are a big tipoff that the car is "suped up". I love having a sleeper, so its staying as close to stock as possible.

Going back to the discussion about torque and power on pages two and three of this thread - here's a good example of a motor that has less peak hp than its gasoline engine counterpart but because of its superior low-end power it actually accelerates quicker (to 60 mph) than its gas engine counterpart.

So i was bored during physics and started thinking of the grille and i remembered that the 914/8's they made for Dr. Porsche had something very similar to this:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1094671289.jpg
(pardon the crappy 'artwork')

One thing i also thought of was couldnt you (if you didnt have foglights) run air in through the grilles the cover the foglights? I know this would probably require quite a bit of air channeling, but it would the the ultimate in "stealth"

I think you are trying to take this "stealth" thing too far :)

...how many people in your area even know what a 914 is, let alone know if it's modified or not....I've heard of some people seeing a Chevy V8 in a 914 and actually believe it belongs in there.....

The tread on your directional tires is facing the wrong way. Better get that swapped out before you drive that in the rain. :p

I had thought a vr6 powered 914 would be the ultimate, I see I'm not the only one to think of it.
If you decide to do a different engine, let me know I'd like a VR6 for my Golf