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Ram Air Rule Clarification Issue
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TOPIC: Ram Air Rule Clarification Issue

Re: Ram Air Rule Clarification Issue 10 years, 11 months ago #16921

  • tcomeau
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924S: I still run the stock air box, snorkel, and small plastic wall at the front of the driver's fender well because I get clean, cool, high pressure air, JUST LIKE THE FACTORY INTENDED. Zero cost.
That having been said, Too many cars mod'd now. I'm ok with cutting chassis sheetmetal in the headlight area to allow air for intake or oil coolers. Exterior must remain stock in appearance.
Tim Comeau
SoCal 944 Spec #22 since Feb 2003.
Let's keep building it!

Re: Ram Air Rule Clarification Issue 10 years, 11 months ago #16922

  • Bottoz
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Stock Airboxes anyone? It would solve all this ram-air chit chat.

"The spirit of the class is for all cars to be equal in weight and horsepower and be competitive with one another. The focus will be on driver ability and not dollar ability. This class is not intended to be an engine builder or innovator’s class."

Ram Air adds hp, but we have a dyno hp cap. Hmmm... how much hp does Ram Air add? Seems like now that we have a hp cap, Ram Air should be eliminated.
C.J. Botts
1984 944 #37

2007 RM HPDE Driver of the Year
2010 RM Instructor of the Year
2013 RM 944SPEC Director

Re: Ram Air Rule Clarification Issue 10 years, 11 months ago #16923

  • KLR
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Ram air uses the stock airbox. You just replace the plastic tube that goes to the inner fender wall with a flexible tube the pulls the air from the turn signal opening or foglight hole. It requires no engineering and is superior to pulling from the fender both because of the ram air effect and because you don't suck in a ton of hot rubber booger junk from the wheel well. All of the cars in our region (Midwest) have installed it and it makes the racing more spec than it was when there was a random mix of cone filters, etc. FWIW it also helps a bit when passing out of class cars, which is an issue for us as we have active SM and SE30 groups in our region and are constantly having to navigate out of class racing situations.
Neal Agran
Midwest Region 944 Spec Series Director

National championships: 2nd 2013, 3rd 2011

25 Hours of Thunderhill: 2nd E3 class 2011

Midwest Region Champion 2013 and 2014

Re: Ram Air Rule Clarification Issue 10 years, 11 months ago #16924

  • Bottoz
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I've seen many Ram Air configs that do not use the stock air box.

In my perfect world, it would be a Stock Air Box with the tube to the fender opening and nothing else. No innovation, just as the 1st paragraph of our rules state. Problem Solved.

Ram Air has to add hp, or else people wouldn't do it. Yet we have a dyno hp cap... so in my opinion, Ram Air is what people use to cheat the system, and get round the hp cap rule.
C.J. Botts
1984 944 #37

2007 RM HPDE Driver of the Year
2010 RM Instructor of the Year
2013 RM 944SPEC Director

Re: Ram Air Rule Clarification Issue 10 years, 11 months ago #16925

  • Big Dog
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In areas of the country with high (above 100) air temps, getting oil temps below 250/270 can be a challenge. The small turbo oil coolers, that we started with, simply do not work to keep the oil temps down to a reasonable level in such conditions. If one installs a larger oil cooler, a fair bit of the right side headlight bucket needs to be cut out to accommodate it.

Even with a 7"X14" Septrab cooler the oil temps can get to 240 degrees at times and those border on dangerous for our engines. It is just a fact of life when racing and pushing our cars far beyond what Porsche expected for a street car.

It seems to me that there is no way around us cutting out significant portions of the headlight bucket to accommodate large oil coolers in places with high ambient air temps and there is no reason to even worry about it as it is not a performance issue.

As for the air intake system, it has been allowed for quite some time for whatever reason. As Tim C. says, there are too many cars with headlight buckets modified now to change it.

I agree that cutting the headlight buckets for oil cooling and for air intakes should be specifically included in the rules and do not think that we should be too restrictive about it because we are not trying to create a DQ issue for those that may "overcut" to accommodate their set up or for a larger oil cooler than someone else has. I believe the "floor" of the bucket should be open to cutting as, like Eric said, some cars may not even have it to begin with. The front wall portion of the bucket that comes down and curves back and down, behind the bumper area, also needs to be open to cutting to allow for air to be ducted into the oil cooler or to allow for air intake from the bumper opening.

I do not see any valid reason to be overly restrictive on this modification because different people will have different solutions to the problem and there is no purpose in creating a tech nightmare for our racers. Keep the outside appearance stock but recognize the need to modify the headlight bucket area and remove any tech question.

Jim Foxx
Jim Foxx

Re: Ram Air Rule Clarification Issue 10 years, 11 months ago #16926

I think it's pretty cleare that ram air increases HP. Fortunately, it seems that routing to the stock airbox seems to be the best way to do it, both in our experience, and through extrapolation from factory engineered setups (i.e. factory ram air on motorcyles).

As the best way is also the cheapest, it migitates concerns about buying an unfair advantage. I'd prefer one option was spec'd, but that proposal went down in the rules change voting.

If there are concerns about the routing & cutting holes ,though, these need to be hashed out here for good. We need to be done with this issue.
Eric Kuhns

National Director Emeritus

2007, & 2008 National Champion
2011, 2012 2nd
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