Brake Ducting article

Saw a link posted on FRRAX forum to this article on Essex that was written/posted a few days ago. https://www.essexparts.com/news-blog/do-i-need-brake-ducts-on-my-track-car

I like the article, good job presenting the info. I'd credit the author but his/her name isn't shown. This is the way I designed the system in my car and (even though) as mentioned in the article I may not actually need it. Will find out when I get the car back on track. I figured it would be easier to build a system while the car was apart rather than try to build the system into an assembled vehicle. The only thing I see missing from the article is a section about the placement and openings for the ducts in a high pressure area.

The article led me to wonder since I have very little Auto-X experience, do the serious players warm up their brakes before a run? When I ran my car on road tracks I'd use the first couple laps to warm up the tires & brakes slowly.

Well-written and accurate. They're not saying ducts are bad, they're just saying do it right ie aim them at the hub so the air pumps through the vanes and has a chance to cool inboard and outboard brake plates.

Solid article!

Penned by Jeff Ritter and Mike O’Neil.  

As far as AX goes, I've never seen anyone warm up their brakes.  
Lower speeds plus less 'racy' brake setups negate the need.

I should really get some pictures of the brake ducts I have for my car since they are *technically* an OEM piece. They were standard issue on any Intrepid put into police use, I picked them up from a member that was in financial strife at the time and liquidating parts. 

DjGreggieP said:

I should really get some pictures of the brake ducts I have for my car since they are *technically* an OEM piece. They were standard issue on any Intrepid put into police use, I picked them up from a member that was in financial strife at the time and liquidating parts. 

That's interesting, never heard of them from factory for the Intrepids. Have you installed them yet? Post a pic here when you can.

Below is a couple pics of some I made I'll test if I need them with the new Bear 6P brakes. !4" rotors all around but the car is 3500+ lbs.  Will check temps without ducts in place when I get it back on track.

[URL=https://app.photobucket.com/u/NOTATA/a/6b6f76c0-5830-42f9-94b2-3399d5fddd0f/p/a49e4876-3a6e-431c-b66a-ad78e0cf0411][/URL]

[URL=https://app.photobucket.com/u/NOTATA/a/6b6f76c0-5830-42f9-94b2-3399d5fddd0f/p/a44c1a00-6d65-4626-9868-af0a729291ec][/URL]

I do have them installed already, I should be able to take some photos of it this weekend and get them added here. 

Okay, Dodge Intrepid Intercepter Brake Ducts.

Not common at all as they are made of ABS Plastic and most Intercepters lead a hard life to begin with and not a lot of jurisdictions opted for the Intrepid over the well established Caprice or Grand Marquis But I digress.

Firstly, here is the overall view of the shape of the ducting. Hard mounted to the underside of the bumper. Fairly straight forward, can be used on any OEM bumper. The strange shaping you see internally is for clearance of the lower rad support.

Here you can see how they are mirrored for each side. They do not fully extend to the brakes directly, but is something that could be done. 

This is an overhead shot I took while figuring out space for an oil cooler after removing the washer fluid reservoir during paint and body, gives a better view of how large the opening they designed for these ducts, all be it they openings are angled. This is also why I decided on angle mounting the intercooler over the giant centre opening.

And finally a view of the front of the car from an 1/8mile fun day. The car is lowered 1.25" (it's probably lower now after settling in reality, was measured at 1.25" after the springs were installed) I will need to put the bumper on the car and take the wheel off to show how it's angled to the front brakes. 

I had purchased them from a member of a different forum years ago. I installed them for a few reasons: 

1) I don't like the idea of hoarding part away with no intention of using them. I bought the parts, I'm going to use them, not tuck them away to have 'RARE OEM PARTS OMG!!'

2) It is a heavy car. A front heavy car. A front heavy, front wheel drive car. A front heavy, FWD, non-ABS car. I figured any extra cooling can't be a bad idea for the front brakes.

3) Dodge will have spent more money than *I* will ever be able to, to develop something for a specific application/specific reasoning. Obviously when pushed hard (police use) they needed to assist in cooling the brakes, I have always wanted to use the car on track and keeping the brakes cooler can't hurt.

Maybe I am waaaay out to lunch on using them, but I haven't noticed any downsides to having them on the car. 

I hope this helps!! I'll hopefully get the bumper on this weekend and take a few photos of how it dumps the air into the wheelwell.

Those are cool looking factory pieces. Wonder if they could be adapted to other models?

NOT A TA said:

Those are cool looking factory pieces. Wonder if they could be adapted to other models?

My E60 BMW has similar pieces. I'm sure there are less obscure donors than a police intrepid in your local junkyard

In reply to AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) :

Unlike many here I don't do much work on "modern" cars so I don't go to any of the pick a part type places. Most of the type of cars I work on don't show up in yards anymore so no reason to go. I didn't even know any newish cars (other than supercars) were equipped with brake ducts from the factory. Looking at the Intrepid ones I thought they looked like they might also be the easy button for someone wanting to get air into rear wheels because they could curve around a fat wheel/tire combo. It'd be great if there was some kind of data base for various factory ducts with pics & rough dimensions. I used some duct parts from the dash vent systems of 80's GM light trucks to mount to the core support in my '70 firebird for the brake duct hoses.

The C6 corvette has them and you can get them new from online pretty cheap. 

In reply to jfryjfry (FS) :

Ya know, I did know there were ducts on some of the recent Corvettes and forgot all about them. Just went hunting around and was reminded that they had rear ducts on some of the models also.