i just cut out part of the wheel well on the pass side and covered it up with a screen door type mesh and a heavier wire mesh. holdin up good and no i don't drive in the rain much. can't give any hard data on effectiveness. maybe its doin nothin, but looking at it it seems that it must help a bit...

btw, used my new canon s230 which i'd say was a good buy.

 

Now you will have to give a nice how to write up and what your intakes temps are now compare to before...nice looking though!

 

Write up is an easy one:

Tools: Swiss army knive, drill or screwdriver w/elbow grease

Supplies: mesh from HDR (i used two layers), screws

1. Loosen lugnuts on wheel
2. Jack up car
3. Remove wheel
4. Cut cover (its only plastic, knife did fine)
5. Cut out whatever mesh you're using to size, obviously slightly bigger than the hole you cut
6. Place mesh over hole and screw it on through the remaining plastic of wheel well cover. I used mounting tape to hold it in place while i did this.

thats it. looking at the pic i could of made the hole bigger but i wanted to leave something to protect the fan relays a bit. but you can see it extends down to where the connectors for the fan wiring are.

Since i have the heat shield blocking off the hot radiator air hopefully this is where i'm sucking air from. guess if you're really ambitious you could make a box...but then lots of kits have that already.

we just had an 80+ sunny day here in PA and the car still suffers from heat soak in stop/go traffic, got up into low 60s. likely the IC's fault more than the intake's. IC fan planned to combat that...

 

Looks nice. I'll have to try that when I have some extra time.

 

do you have an R1? or touring?

cuz if you have the passenger sider oil cooler there, youre not gonna get anything but hot air into the engine. please correct me if im wrong.

 

how about hot air from brakes? hot road surface?

 

true but you will get airflow. And the Air would not be any hotter than the air coming through your radiator.
There would just be more of it. the only thing I would probably do differently is make supporting bars in a star formation for the sheet metal I took out.

 

oh no you cut that peice i just got pricing from the dealership on that peice cause i dont have mine, its like 150$$.

 

i don't know. i'm pretty sure all the hot air will try to escape through that vent and in the process. will get sucked up into the intake. so, i'm not sure if that was worth it.

 

Ghetto fabulous!

 

Very True. Depends where your intake is located to though. By the way what isn't $150 from the factory for this car. LOL...

 

random responses...
touring, no oil cooler on that side.
the piece isn't metal so no support needed.
$150 for a piece of plastic? figures, maybe try a junkyard.

i'm not a total pro on physics but anyone care to take a stab at this one? i know two things: hot air rises, and air moves from areas of high pressure to low pressure. so is there more pressure in that part of the engine bay or outside in the wheel well? at a standstill? at speed?

someone mentioned the hot air will try to escape through here and in turn be drawn thru the intake. curious about the logic here. if you look at the right side of the pic you can see the heat shield blocking off the radiator area. it just seems like the air outside the vent is much more liable to be sucked in by the intake rather than air from around the heat shield.

heat from the road you're contending with no matter what and from the brakes? dunno, i can't imagine its hotter than underhood air...

 

DO'H! I've been looking all over for a fender liner.

 

in my opinion it can have two route...
first its either draws cold air from the oil cooler(if you have them) to the engine bay ORRR it can suck the hot air from the engine bay?!?!

my car is a daily driver... so i dont think this is a good idea! and puting a hole there... hmmm... i dont think so... hehehe

 

well i'm pretty sure there's a reason there wasn't a vent there when it came out of the factory. i mean when the rx7 was built they did the dumbest things just it make it a little lighter(haha sorry, but it's a good thing i guess). so, like i was saying then y didn't they just put the vent there? i mean it would lighten the cat a little right? and they know that rotary gets real hot right? so i'm sure there was a reason they didn't put it there. and another thing it that the vent kills the air flow. the air is supposed to go through the mouth, to the engine and cool it, and out the vents and stuff in the back and windshield. and for the air to go out from the side doesn't make sense. =/ sorry i'm not trying to be a jackass, but someone has to say something.

 

Probably because when it came from the factory it had an airbox and air was routed differently.

 

Now make a fiber glass duct that feeds from the r1 lip brake duct to that spot and then you got something.
Your not gonna see any temp difference the way you have it now just because there is gonna be no air flow.
Not to mention the first tim eyou drive through a mud puddle your vent there is gonna get all clogged up.But hey please take your notes and try to prove me wrong.
Your on the right track.

 

oooh...now you're talkin.

doesn't the suction from the intake create a kind of air flow though? you could certainly create a box and limit where the filters draw air from to that hole.

but anyway i'm just giving the open filters easier access to outside air.


disclaimer: not recommended if you rally

 

i suppose you might get a small amount of air flowing from the intakes alone, but i think a duct would make it function alot better.