rascal

With all the bits now here I could look into planning out where and how it would all fit into the engine bay.

More research convinced me to mount the rotrex oil cooler in the LHS front fender in front of the wheel, and relocate my current engine oil cooler from in front of the radiator into the RHS fender well area.
like this; (image blatantly stolen from Lokiel)


Two suitable holes in each side of the front bumper (cos racecar) along with some matching ducting would feed both of these coolers nicely.

This also meant that (since I had no aircon either - again cos racecar), there was plenty of room in front of the radiator for the intercooler.

I also liked the look of the over the radiator intercoolers, with their straight shots out of the blower and into the intake manifold.
This removed the need to create any highly complicated cobra snake shaped intercooler pipes, and cut down the number of connections that could possibly leak.

Some thing like this




rather than something like this..

more bends than a yoga class!!


Another long research process for intercooler core sizes, pipe diameters, etc, lead me to choose a suitable intercooler from Cooling Pro, a local supplier here in OZ.
I settled on a 11" X 12" X 3" intercooler with top mount 2.5" outlets .




This would allow me to run a 2" pipe off the Rotrex to keep up the velocity through a 2" inlet 2.5" outlet 90deg silicon bend which joined onto the intercooler.
Then a 2.5" silicon bend off the intercooler straight into the 2.5" inlet manifold.
In here will also be a 2.5" T piece to feed the BPV.

So just three bends in the whole blower-to-intake manifold system, and only a handful of hose clamps reqd, reducing the likelihood of leaks.


so time for some backyard manufacturing to mount it up.

rascal

The rotrex unit was mounted using the provided brackets. I clocked the rotrex from factory to make it a shorter path over the top of the bracket.
Clearance is tight around the power steering but nothing does or can rub.



It uses a fixed idler underneath, and an auto tensioner on top.
This setup makes it almost impossible to get the belt tension wrong, and provide plenty of wrap (over 200deg) so the belts shouldn't slip.

Now the planning for the radiator/intercooler was undertaken.


Some rough measurements proved that the over the radiator mount wasnt going to work with my current radiator/mount setup, unless I wanted to drive around with no bonnet(!) so an alternative option was needed.

Further measuring showed that I only needed to find about 30mm (1 1/4" for you imperial guys) to make it all work.
I couldn't just re-drill the existing mounts lower and fit rivnuts, as I had the large Goodwin Racing heavy duty sway bar mounts,


which occupied the same space as I'd need to use, so some new lowered radiator mounts were fabbed using aircraft quality, military spec materials.
Ok so I just used garden variety 3mm thick steel strips from Bunnings (Oz version of HomeDepot))


Though I added some triangulation to the mounts and they were plenty strong enough.


Then bent up some new alloy brackets on top to hold the radiator in the new lower position



The below shows how tight it is between rotrex crank pulley, sway bar, and radiator fan



With the radiator now sorted, I set about plumbing in the intercooler.

rascal

Initial mockup showed that whilst there was plenty of room in front of the radiator for the intercooler itself, (having moved the previous oil cooler out of the way, and no air con), there was not enough room for the hoses to feed the intercooler from above.
This was fixed with the trusty angle grinder, removing enough metal to allow the pipes to fit through, and some judicious filing and then split rubber hose on the edge to protect the cooler pipes.






As can be seen in above pic, it also gave me juuust enough room to fit the original fan back in, so it doesnt overheat in the pits. (there is barely 1/8" between fan mount and auto tensioner)

Also you can see the straight shot to the throttle body..


On to mounting both the oil coolers.

rascal

Some simple metal brackets bent to shape (again from Bunnings Motorsport depot) held the coolers in the correct spot, and tied in to all 4 corners. This ensured they didnt move at all.
Routed the Rotrex cooler lines through the front behind the headlight to the compressor, and rubber hose offcuts strategically ziptied to ensure they wouldn't rub on the chassis.

The oil cooler hoses are stainless braided so extra care to ensure they didn't saw through anything in their path, which they are notorious for.

below shows the coolers in place minus the radiator


And below is all 4 heat exchangers in their final positions.


Note class regs prohibit me from cutting the radiator support panel to provide better flow to the radiator/intercooler, which would be a much better option.

rascal

Breaking out the CAD skills, (Cardboard Aided Design) I fabbed up various examples of ducting to the fender mounted coolers.
Iteration #346 seemed to work well and would seal up against the bumper when it was refitted.






And as appears to be typical, I don't have any photos of this piece actually fitted behind the bumper.

Maximo

I hope the slower updates mean you've been out enjoying the car! Thanks for the great documentation as I'm hoping to replicate your path to FI track miata fun soon.