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Reply to "Shaping 550 Fenders..."

Carey spoke to Pat recently, and Pat had mentioned that my car needed some ducting from the cylinder heads down to the belly pan. This would be needed to help give hot air a way to escape. Oil temps have been just fine in the test driving that Carey has done, but Pat was uncomfortable with this. 

I reached out to my high school classmate and good friend Chris Maglio. We built a solar powered car together in high school and raced it from Dallas to San Antonio. I went on to a BA/MD program, he he went to Cal Poly and studied aeronautical engineering. He owned a very successful engineering firm that did work for DoD and a number of other government agencies — he was always a sharp guy. I wanted his counsel on how essential this ducting was, though I felt I knew the answer (not surprisingly, he knows quite a lot about 4 cam engines, too). 

Chris felt that it was essential — just as Pat had said. I sent him the photos of the ducting on the original 550 Carrera engines, and he agreed that allowing the hot air to stagnate was a bad idea. Knowing that I am a pea-brained physician, he sent pictures:

Current setup, without ducting:

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After ducting:

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Here’s a original 550 motor with the shrouding on it — notice the finning on the heads it totally encapsulated with sheet metal:

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Exhaust on a 4 cam head is straight out of the bottom unlike a VW head. Shrouding surrounds it. 

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Here’s the underbelly of an original car:

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So...once my car is out of the paint booth from touch ups and some work to the wheel wells (so my tires don’t rub!), Brady Miller is going to make some ducting for me. He is a award-winning medal worker in Ind\iana who had done work on a few of my prior projects with Carey (his work won 2nd place at Pebble a few years back — he had some free time before his next project). We plan to create some shrouding that will keep the air from that Carrera double fan running over the bottom of those heads and down the holes in the bottom. Of course, we will need to make some allowance for movement of the motor, but that should be do-able.

Pictures of my belly pan, both before paint and after, are below. You can also see the holes below the engine after installation. Note: the AN fittings in the valve covers below have been flipped and are now facing forward!

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