Lots of little bits here and there to get bodywork on and working. Then went on to hood venting:
Cut the hood, and once the louvers came back from powdercoating I mounted them up:
The hood louvers used here are one pair each:
Singular Motorsports Universal Louvers: Type 1 (outer vents)
Singular Motorsports Universal Louvers: Type 2 (inner vents)
The louvers pull pressure out of the engine bay to optimize airflow through the coolers and reduce lift. It’s rather incredible how well they work – with the radiator just venting into the engine bay like normal the louvers will pull the majority of air that passes through the radiator up and out through the hood. Since this car is about getting that last little bit everywhere, I’m also ducting the radiator’s exit up towards the hood vents to maximize front downforce.
Work in progress:
Finished duct:
The ducting directs the radiator exhaust directly up to the larger middle two vents and isolates that flow from other pressure sources I’ll be playing with in the nose of the car.
New fence on the splitter to seal behind the lower edge of the bumper skin:
Plugged all the now-unused holes in the bumper skin that used to feed the oil cooler and front brake ducts. This pic reminds me, still need to relocate that “tow” decal to the hood:
Things are coming together:
Went to reinstall the fire extinguisher, discovered the new frame rails blocked the holes the extinguisher bracket had used. Made a new bracket with wider mounting points that tucks the extinguisher up as much as possible under the front edge of the seat:
Tires arrived and mounted on 15×10 Tungsten 6ULs. This is the 245 Rival S 1.5. Tire tech evolves crazy fast, even from just a couple years ago… back when I was running street tires to fit into a certain class for Miata Challenge I was on the original RS3… then the original Rival came out and it was better because you could actually use the brakes! Now for RLTA and GTA my class requires 100tw or greater, but these “Super200’s” are faster than the 100tw options. I’m betting this combo here is easily 2 seconds faster than the old worn out 225 NT01s on 15×9 that I ran at Superlap in 2014.
