here it is! This is an FC, but he's got an FD motor in there if I'm reading the Japanese right. It belongs to this crazy bald drifter guy, he's in the RX-7 special video by Option 2 (vol 33) and he crashes it pretty badly, and then buys a thrashed out silver 3rd gen and has Mr Amemiya fix it up a bit. There's a funny scene where he sneaks up on Amemiya in his garage while he's turning wrenches... anyway here's the pic. Note the interesting re-working of the frame member that holds the hood latch. The a/c is long gone too.

 

Here's another interesting one. Check out that dual oil cooler setup, and total lack of frame member where the hood latch goes...

This one is an FC motor, but with an FD intake manifold.

 

That is a horrible Idea. Why would you want to do that. I have a starion front mount, and I tried to get it as close to the front of the car as possible. The cooler the air the more power you get. So the closer to fresh air you can get the intercooler the better. For every 11 degrees cooler the charged air is it is 7 more horsepower or something of that nature. So put the intercooler up as far as you can.

 

Has anyone ever put an electric fan on the stock IC? It works for regular radiators, would it not work here? There's a LOT of room in that hood scoop to add a flat, small fan...just asking to see if anyone has tried this before.

Michael
n1xrr-mm@home.com

 

I have seen lots of pics of cars with IC fans. Knowing that the stock IC is in a bad spot, this seems like it should help. A small vacuum under that sccop may also help draw in more fresh air. Anyone else?

 

I thought of this too but are you thinking of pushing air down through the intercooler or pulling air up through the intercooler? If you are pulling air up through the intercooler you would end up sucking all that heated engine air through it. If you are blowing air down I would think that at mid to higher speeds the fan would not keep up to air flow and end up being a blockage to air going through the intercooler. Anyone else have a thought on this?

 

those IC mounts aren't really a bad idea, because they have ducting to bring clean air from the front opening. There is also a matching exit vent.

Also, a fan on top of the IC wouldn't be a blockage at speed because at speed there is a low pressure area in front of that scoop and it isn't getting any air anyway. But I bet it would help reduce heat soak under slower/stopped conditions

 

Installation would be a pain..lots of cutting and drilling most likely, would need some way to block out rocks and keeping things like leakage leaking onto the intercooler away. It would be very difficult, but at the bottom of the car you don't have to worry to much about heat soaking (almost all fresh air coming in)...however piping could get a little longer (but one you are moving if the intake for the intercooler is setup right you should be ramming air in hard enough not to worry about it...then again that depends entirely on the air pressure and flow underneith the car during driving which I would have to test.

Benefits I think:
1. Heat soaking problem not bad
2. Don't have to Jam the Rad, oil cooler and IC plus fans in the front of the car.
3. Air flow should in theory be increased (depending on air pressure, air is already being dispersed somewhat once it reaches a hood scoop).
4. Rocks, now I think that if the scoop was made so that it had a flat backside after the curve, I do not think that rocks would make it up to the intercooler (but that is purely theoretical and could be inacurate when speed of you and the rocks are taken into consideration), however, with big FM IC's that can easily be seen through the front of the car....what if a rock flies into there from a semi's wheels and whatnot...

Setbacks:
1. Extra piping
2. cutting the car and drilling (some people with FM IC's do this anyways)
3. Mounting problems (could be solved)
4. Dirt Possibly more dust and such getting into the air intake (and I don't know much about intercooler systems, but I think that that might not be good)