see if you wait long enough someone else posts what you were thinking:D has any one seen a hood prop that hangs down from the hood?

 

Don't forget, that's less than half of the equation. Once you get the air inside, it needs to flow well, and then it needs a way to get out. You could put the biggest shogun style grille opening on the car, but if you don't have vents to allow the air out, the airflow will simply stall, and you won't gain anything.

---jps

 

Talking of airflow, I hope this car has good electric fans... AND a big alternator...

It's amasing how little cooling you can get when stationary with no airflow unless you have really decent fans.

I nearly got stranded the other day in the landrover I use to carry junk and bits of engine etc..... got stuck in stationary traffic for 1 1/2 hours... night time, pouring rain etc.... with everything switched on and 35-40 amps of engine cooling fans it took out the battery!... I noticed when the relay for the fans clicked and the stereo switched off!!!

Glanced down at the voltmeter and it read 7 volts... you've never seen me switch everything off and rev the engine so fast!!!

Good thing the ignition system on that thing has no computers or anything... I bet I was on the verge of loosing the ignition too!

 

I see where the prop rod clips into when it's down.

Soon as I get my RX-8 (if I ever get one...) that plastic crap will be first to go. I want to see the engine dagnabbit!

Methinks that's what the vents behind the front wheels are for.

 

where?

 

Exactly opposite where it's hinge mounts...

 

here?:

 

Doesn't look right to me.. that's the same thing on the other side.

 

the skinny silver rod on the left side of the engine oil dipstick? or some dipstick tranny?

 

Are they functional? They weren't necessarilly so on the FD.

---jps

 

They are functional actually. They cool the brake housings.

Orginally they were going to be full swept intakes going over the wheel wells but they didn't have the room. So they scrapped them...

The engineers came back later and said they needed better break cooling so they came back, only without the well intakes.

Plust the styling guys wanted them. Win for everyone.

But we almost didn't get them.

 

Twifosp,

Since you’re new to this board, would it be possible for you to provide a little background on your rotary engine experience & your source(s) of information???

I was sure that if the vents were functional, they’d be used to cool the oil.

If the vents are in fact being used to cool the breaks, I’d have to say that Mazda picked the easiest rather than most beneficial thing to cool for the sake of having functional vents @ the lowest cost.

 

The vents located directly behind the wheels are for brake cooling!? Why is my BS detector going off?

---jps

 

Every FD had functional driver's side ducts. The passenger side ducts were only functional if the car was an R model.

 

On the FD that I looked at, the driver's side was blocked off.

---jps

 

you gotta vent the hot air out somewhere and that is the best place to do it that i can think of

 

Hmm, the only thing I can think is that maybe you just weren't looking at it the right way? It's very hard to see that the vent is functional without actually removing the wheel well liner. In fact, I had come to the same conclusion you have by inspecting the car completely assembled. One day I removed the wheel well liner and realized that I was wrong. If you didn't look at it with the liner off, you haven't looked at it closely enough.

The side vent provides the exhaust for the oil cooler air. Oil cooling is very important to the rotary, and every FD RX-7 has an oil cooler on the driver's side. It simply can't have been blocked off, unless someone "modified" it for some reason.

This is not inteded as a flame, it's just that I am confident that this was the case on all cars.

Don't make me get out my digital camera and remove my wheel well liner! :D

 

The brakes are located way out at the ends of the suspension. There's no way to duct the hot air FROM the brakes, routed to the rear. If there are brake ducts on this car, they would be in the front. Where the air goes onces it has hit the rotors is it's own business.

I think those rear vents are an aesthetic feature...

 

hey zoom... that's a good guess, and actually i thought those vents were there to expire the wheel well, so you don't get that turbulent venturi you can plainly see billowing out of the back side of any wheel well during a rainy day on the freeway...

anyhoo, the best way to vent that warm air from the brakes is to push it out through the wheel itself... Ferrari first perfected this, using some kind of impeller or something to thrust air out of the spokes in the wheel and added a non-rotating sleeve which smooths the airflow inside the rim... many other constructors have copied this, but even without the impeller, the good ol' big-duct-ram-system still does the same thing... just look at the front wheels of an F1 car as they brake for a very slow corner, coming down from 300kph, on a really hot day... brake dust from the disc and pad will blow out into clouds of black haze...

anyhoo, ya, that's the consensus for the best way to ventilate brakes... this is also because with a car trying to use the ground effect, moving the air from under the car out of the wheels cools the brakes while at the same time lowers the air pressure under it... so ya...
:D good idea though, i'm imagining what you mean... it would work (using a small inlet duct, then using negative pressure behind the brake to pull the air through), just maybe not so efficiently as ramming the air across the brake...

 

guys lets not forget that this is still a CONCEPT model. I bet you they are trying to cover the final engine layout and design. This is probably the last concept, maybe even pre -production....but it i still a concept as you notice on the mazda site for rx-8 design, the final model is blacked out...so ill bet you they are just covering the engine design until final release..

 

I have also read that the passenger side vent was functional on all 3rd gens. There was a duct that went from the oil cooler over the wheel arch and to the side vent.

The r1 had 2 oil coolers so both side vents were functional.

Brian

 

thanks wakeech. but after reading your post i understand more. i stand corected! so are the vents just for looks or do they offer some aerodynamic effects like you spoke of?

 

uh, i don't think they ventilate the wheel well, the rubber thingy gets in the way, i think (from reading RRR's post) they just do what you were describeing for the brakes, but do it for the oil coolers...

 

That's right, except that it's the driver's side that always has an oil cooler and functional vent. The passenger side has the optional oil cooler for the R model. (passenger side USA that is) Either way, you are correct about the duct over the wheel arch. The duct is attached to the back side of the wheel well liner and takes the air back to the side vent.

 

I don't mean to toot my own horn too much, but I love my R1!