New 2.8 Liter Six for the Racecar, I'll be asking a bunch of Conversion Questions Options

[motorvated]

The first question I have is related to modifications to the engine shelf pieces required for the 6-cylinder conversion. I noticed the Patrick Motorsports sells an expensive engine shelf kit for the 6-cylinder conversion. But, since the 6-cylinder is going into a Racecar, can I just cut out the entire engine shelf to maximize the available space in the engine compartment? Or, has anyone made a template that can be used to modify the 4-cylinder engine shelf to accommodate the 911 engines? I'd like just to remove the shelf parts if they are not needed. Thoughts on this? How do you other racers handle this. Many more questions to follow. I know there are many conversion threads out there, but it's hard to weed through them to see if they address the question(s) that I have. Plus most of Tigre are for street car conversions, not race cars.

Mike S.

[brant]

I dump my 2 front coolers through the wheel wells also
I wondered in the beginning if it would impact brake temps...


my mechanic told me no...
said that 200 degree air from the cooler was not going to hurt 600 degree brake temps...

turns out he was correct.
I've never had brake temp problems.
in fact if anything I have too low of a brake temp problem

I started measuring my rotors temps..
had to remove all of my brake cooling to get them to come up to a higher temp... operating range...

in fact had to lower my pad compound to a lower operating range just to get the temps up

had to lower 2 designations on pad material as the first step still didn't bring my brake temps into operating range....

so at least on my car... getting enough temp into the brakes was my problem and not overheating them....

I know I'm running a smaller motor (2.0) than a lot of others do...
I realize that with a much bigger motor, my top speeds would increase that that would also bring my brake temperatures up...

but at least in my application, the oil cooling air... does not negatively impact brake temps

[stownsen914]

my mechanic told me no...
said that 200 degree air from the cooler was not going to hurt 600 degree brake temps...

Agree with this. I have my front cooler dumping to the wheel wells on my 914 racecar and have never had an issue. I have a 260 hp and Wilwood large brakes on the front. I do duct the brakes separately.

On the trans cooler, it's a little tough on a 914, but anything you can do to get the cooler away from ambient heat and provide it a source of fresh air ducting will go a long way. Remember a cooler is a heat exchanger - if it's sitting near the exhaust, etc., it's going to have a hard time shedding heat from the trans oil.

(I put mine in the passenger right rear fender and ducted air to it, but I have flexibility due to full fiberglass widebody.)