After I had already purchased a Racing Beat Inlet Duct, Swoope warned me that it might make my RX8 run hotter. Although I can't say for certain it was entirely the fault of the RB inlet duct, it was ~98F at the track, I did in fact see the needle start to move 2 ticks to the hot side of the gauge for the first time whereupon I slowed down and used the heater for the rest of the day with no problems. After discussing this on the issues forum I figured I would just get rid of it. I didn't really see any performance gain. The guy I bought the car from had already removed the VFAD. But I did pay $145 for it so I thought why not keep it and just fix the problem. So I made some modifications.

You can see the problem the "ram air" part blocks all of the upper grill which is about 25% of the total radiator intake area.

There's a big difference when you take it out.

So I cut off the offending part.

Which leaves a nice unobstructed radiused edge cold air intake and doesn't block the radiator.

Final installation, I left the corners on because that's where the mounting screws go. This is the best of all options. Don't know if its worth $145 to buy and then hack it up, but if you have one and are afraid to use it because of the heat, this might work for a good cold air duct.

Don't know if I'll be able to test it at the track in August, I'm saving my track money for the 24 hours of Lemons in South Carolina and Ohio in the fall.

 

i guess that makes sense, in a way...but if your sayin you saw the heat go up, then thats reasonable on your part