Is this enough airflow?

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Fitted a watercooled Bay front panel to my late bay Subaru conversion, want to make the front panel look as original as possible. So I have made a panel to fit the hole that the ugly grille would go. My question is, will there be enough air flow with the mods I have done or will I need more?

[Bugsy_malone 666]

You have to look at things with cooling in a different sort of way.

You have to look at it in a term of a high pressure and low pressure area.

So as an example, take the bays normal ventilation system, the grill has air pushing against it, an area of high pressure. Now with all the windows shut its like blowing into a bag, it quickly fills up and the amount of air blowing in reduces (obviously vws arent that air tight which is why it works) but if you open the windows a little, you get alot more airflow because air moving past the cabin draws air out of the cabin, meaning the cabin becomes an area of low pressure.

so on my bay my radiators were out of the airflow between the chassis rails, I had a box on top of the rad which was pressurised by a scoop infront of the radiator, because of the scoop being infront of the rads it created an area of low pressure behind it on the opposite side of the radiator to the box.

This can be applied to any part of the vehicle really the radiator doesnt have to be in the airflow, just have airpressure infront of it and a lack of airpressure behind it.

So say the middle of the front panel has the vw hole cut out, but the back of the rad is open to the road under the cab floor allowing essentially air can more easily pass through the radiator than go through the front panel.

I have that makes sense.

Lots of people make false spare wheels to hold the rad.

Another guy used a second bay ventilation grill lower on the panel which was enough and it looked fairly factory.
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Are you saying cut the hole where the badge is? I've cut the hole now

[Bugsy_malone 666]

It would probably make a bit more sense if there were a few pics of this installed on the van.
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Second Gear All The Way Baby!

Doing Thing Differently.

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[Bugsy_malone 666]

That looks rather neat!

I think that hole alone wont be enough to cool your van, but I think if you were to fit another airbox type grill like the top of the panel, but where you had originally started modding at the bottom of the panel would probably give you enough.

When you look at something like a mk3 golf, the actual area supplying the radiator is about the same size as the bays airbox grill, my radiator pack underneath only has a scoop with an entrance the size of it too, I have never had a problem with cooling!

The area behind the rad looks reasonable.

If I had to replace the front panel on my bus, I think I'd do like your doing
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Second Gear All The Way Baby!

Doing Thing Differently.

[fahtal]

Cool!

i would just go and test it.

take a nice hot day. first drive without the panel(full open raidator) to test if everything is cooling enough and there are no airbubbles. then if that works(the fan should not go on with that amount of airflow) put in your panel.
and test drive again. if your fan keeps goining on or stays on then you have to make a bikker hole.

Mayby make some templates from carbboard of woodpanel. You can also go for the bigger earlybay/split vw logo. it is bigger;)

or if you don`t want to make more holes you can make a system that pops your panel out so air can flow along the edges of the panel.

or even more space style. like an aperture ring of a camera;)

[fahtal]

looking at your pictures a second time..

you have a hole at the logo and a gap/slice at the bottom of the panel? first i thouhgt you only had the logo hole. but the big gap underneath will give you a loot of airflow i think.

but still go and test before you make everything pretty...

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Yes, there's a scoop in the bottom of the panel to direct the air upwards which is the width of the rad (fist pic). Then the hole where the badge is to add more air and help the rising air pass through the rad. was worried just the bottom scoop may only cool the bottom half of the rad. If I need I can always cut a larger hole and fit a early bay badge as you say. Still a far way from test driving though lol,

[fahtal]

I know that test driving is far away. I just wanted to tell not to put more work in it untill you it works ok.

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No worries Its a resto job with lots of extras, so plenty of other things to put work into lol

[Stephaned23]