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All I wanted was info... the source came to me, he just hasn't followed up with his claim. Besides, I never said I wanted the combination stock oil cooler/brake duct. YOU and Jason brought that suggestion.
All I wanted was info... the source came to me, he just hasn't followed up with his claim. Besides, I never said I wanted the combination stock oil cooler/brake duct. YOU and Jason brought that suggestion.
That's what the 99 Spec duct is, a combination duct:
Not a very descriptive pic, but you need both the brake duct and the oil cooler duct if you want it to function properly IMO
The mazda oil/brake duct just doesn’t cut it if you really want efficient cooling on warm days and hard driving.
Plus aesthetically speaking it looks horrible and incomplete if you can see into the front ducting and see the ground IMO…
I got my oil ducts from Chuck and had to do quite a bit of extending on one and some on the other side to make them work with the 99RE plateless bumper.
I got my oil ducts from Chuck and had to do quite a bit of extending on one and some on the other side to make them work with the 99RE plateless bumper.
How did you 'extend' them? Is it too much to ask for a part that fits? Not happy right now, I will examine mine (still in the box) more in detail next time I am in NJ.
I extended them by simply fitting the bumper to the car with the oil ducts as correctly placed as possible and marked where the rim of the polyurethane came to.
Then I disassembled everything and secured the ducts to the bumper and fiber glassed a reasonably sized lip onto the existing pieces.
This also allowed me to correct most of the cupping that was very prevalent (I tried to explain I was very failure with FG and that it simply looked like they where pulled too green, but this didn’t seem to change his opinion on the subject) in the pieces that I received. I talked to sunny at RE and then chuck but it didn’t seem they wanted to exchange my parts for better ones so I was forced to do a little modding to make them fit better, because initially they where far from a presentable fit!
This also allowed me to correct most of the cupping that was very prevalent (I tried to explain I was very failure with FG and that it simply looked like they where pulled too green, but this didn’t seem to change his opinion on the subject) in the pieces that I received. I talked to sunny at RE and then chuck but it didn’t seem they wanted to exchange my parts for better ones so I was forced to do a little modding to make them fit better, because initially they where far from a presentable fit!
This is why I returned mine. At first, Chuck said no one else had problems with theirs not fitting but after returning one of my duct to him, he told me the remaining ducts he had looked exactly the same as the one I returned, so I returned the other one as well and got a refund for both.
I might just follow your process and use my original ducts and mod it to fit the 99 bumper using FG.
I have the ones chuck made also.. Ive been too lazy for past 1.5 years to put it on my MB (when I do the R1 dual coolers). But those I spoke with about RE ducts, it needs some trimming with 99 front. Maybe its the RE plateless vs these that gives problem?? who knows. I'll try to get them on within next month or so..
They are unusable if you do a little work on them, its just the whole “why should I have to” thing that gets me.
IMO they are very worth the effort to fit them and make them work properly.
But yes the fitment is just atrocious, even the “flat” (in quotes mine you) part that is supposed to mate with the oil cooler surface was not even close. I had to set them on a sanding table to make the surface planer so that it would sit against the cooler properly.
And like I said when I was putting on the extension lips, I had to force the openings up so that they would more closely resemble the openings for the oil ducts on the poly nose. Otherwise they just pushed and collapsed the plastic openings down
:
I wonder if the knightsport ones that were supposedly the source for the reproduction fit better than these? Anyone have high res pics they could share, hopefully at different angles?
Walter, I'm actually not familiar w/ KS making a set. I know R-Magic does, however.
BTW, if you don't mind temporarily donating your ducts, I can get a mold made based on the modifications you've made to them, maybe even make any necessary improvements (such as enlarging them) and have them made... Lemme know if that's something you'd be interested in.
I currently have a 99 spec bumper, 99 rebar, 99 brake ducts and 99 lip. When I picked the car up from the body shop after installing the horns, I noticed that the 93-95 oil cooler ducts are still attached. The question is, do I still need these ducts now that the 99 bumper has a larger opening or should I leave it as is?
'99 didn't come with a dedicated oil cooler duct. If you have an oil temp gauge, you could measure the temps as is, then w/o the usdm ducts. For best airflow, you should fab a duct (could connect to existing usdm), or buy the RE-A one
'99 didn't come with a dedicated oil cooler duct. If you have an oil temp gauge, you could measure the temps as is, then w/o the usdm ducts. For best airflow, you should fab a duct (could connect to existing usdm), or buy the RE-A one
Thanks! Just the answer I was looking for (I don't have an oil temp gauge so I'll leave it as is until I extend the ducts). I know there aren't 99 oil cooler ducts except the aftermarket ones.
'99 didn't come with a dedicated oil cooler duct. If you have an oil temp gauge, you could measure the temps as is, then w/o the usdm ducts. For best airflow, you should fab a duct (could connect to existing usdm), or buy the RE-A one
I've recently opted for a dual cooler setup and was wondering if there was anything out there now.
Aftermarket coolers is a different story. I have dual Setrabs with Banzai Racing's brackets and the coolers are right on the back face of the bumper. This is good because no duct is needed, problem is they are not centered on the opening. I will eventually block the opening, but my oil temps rarely get over 170. You can see this towards the bottom of this post...
01-18-07, 09:17 AM
. How much of a lip was required? I know nothing about fiberglassing.
