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MG MGF Technical - Air scoop for passenger side vent.

Afternoon all,

This is very very much in the early stages at the moment but wanted to look for interest.

Last night I spoke with an uncle of mine who works for a major composite plastics company about the possibility of designing an air scoop for the passenger side air vent.

After posting on here some time back about how I had run an extra induction tube to this vent and getting the response that it was virtually useless, I decided to do something about it. I know of scoops that exist for the Elise but found nothing for the MGF.
The closest was the clear perspex creation of Carl's.

Anyway, at this moment in time, he has my grill and is busy building a prototype for my car but asked me if I planned to produce it as he will keep hold of the mould and do the necessary copyrighting etc.

So, I guess what I'm saying in a nutshell is, anyone interested?
Not sure of prices yet obviously but shouldn't be extreme! :-)

Kris.
Kris Ford

Kris,
I have seen a BRG F at the Chigwell show with an air scoop on the N/S vent, it was colour keyed to match, but, in my opinion it ruined the flowing lines of the car.

I know many modify their cars for whatever purpose, performance, aesthetics etc but this was an eyesore, in my opinion, I'm afraid to say.

I also have a third K&N pipe running from my N/S vent, if it puts a little more cold air into the engine bay / filter then that's fine, but the mesh stays untouched for me.

Adrian
Adrian Clifford

Kris, yes, I would be very interested. Even if it meant bolting it on solely for the purposes of motorsport! :o)
Rob Bell

Hi Kris yeah I would be interested too - even bought a l/h vent off ebay with the intention of making my own scoop!
Blue Pocket Rocket

Here's a link to a pic that was made

http://www.forums.xpowerforums.com/showthread.php?t=18993

Joe one

Hi all,

@ Joe,
Just had a look at the link.
The type I'm planning will be quite different to those and very rounded as I'm trying to keep as much as possible to the lines of the car but thanks for letting me see them.

@ Rob,
One step ahead of you there. :-)
Planning on making them easily swappable (if there is such a word??) for that reason and also, at the moment, I'm not sure of the legalities of having something sticking out of the side of the car? Shouldn't be an issue as some cars come with these as standard but better to be safe than sorry.

@ BPR,
You didn't get the Trophy Blue one a few weeks back did you? I was looking at it for my prototype but forgot last minute to buy it? D'oh! :-)

@All,
Thanks for the responses, initial impression is that I will be having a few made up. Once I've spoken to my Uncle on Thursday or Friday I will be able to give much more detail and hopefully some idea of pricing etc.

Thanks again,

Kris.
Kris

Any idea on likely costs? Count me in for one of the first batch!

BTW what finish are you thinking of for the scoops? Good to hear that you're not going to be following Yellow Trophy's guttering solution - it works but the result isn't all that elegant.
Rob Bell

Yeah I did get that one but it turned out to be Tahiti blue instead but it didn't matter cause it was going to be altered anyway. Like Rob glad its not going to be the B&Q solution!
Blue Pocket Rocket

Could well be tempted.

I'd also be interested to see what you had in mind.

Thanks, Andrew.

AndrewMc

To get a real ramair effect, why not design a scoop, with a mouth, say, twice the area of the K & N tubes, to feed air into the K & N tubes under the car?
KEW

Nice to see this idea/project getting some new breath again.

The last thing I heard about such a thing was from Pascal or one of his friends (XPower Forum) a while ago. He was busy getting the patent and copyright sorted.

The Elise side scoops are very elegant. I guess it won't be easy to find a neat solution for the F.

However I am on the first row to get a set and help you with selling some on the continent.

Looking forward to the first pictures.
Erik

I am very interested in one of the scoops.
d mottram

I might be interested - I look forward to the pics.
Steve Ratledge

bump
d mottram

My apologies to everyone waiting for an update on this!

It has not been forgotten or abandoned, I just unfortunately have had an incredibally (Spelling?) busy weekend and have not had chance to speak to my uncle regarding progress as yet.

I should be seeing him either this evening or tomorrow so will have more info for everyone then!

Many thanks,

Kris
Kris Ford

UPDATE,

Well everything is looking good at the mo!
The mould is done and the patent is pending!

I should have a finished article by the end of next week ready for photographing.

The reason this is taking longer than expected is because my unc is having to develop this during his lunchbreaks, weekends etc.

Once done, I will be fitting it to my car and testing out on the motorway, where I'm hoping to have a friend drive alongside and video the results.

@ Rob Bell,
You mentioned once before that at some point you had tested the airflow around the side vent. Can I ask what method you found the most successful?
At the moment I'm thinking of taping lengths of something such as wool or paper to the side just before the vent so as to be able to see if they are being sucked in whilst going at speed.

Now the bad bit!
The initial price is looking to be around the £30 mark unless more of an interest is shown. The reason for this is because obviously the materials required for the design and mouldings has to be split over the expected total produced and then added to the cost of each unit.

Kris.
Kris

>> You mentioned once before that at some point you had tested the airflow around the side vent. Can I ask what method you found the most successful?
At the moment I'm thinking of taping lengths of something such as wool or paper to the side just before the vent so as to be able to see if they are being sucked in whilst going at speed <<

That's exactly what we did Kris, on a private road with two MGs driving side by side, one with the 'ticker tapes' the other with the passenger leaning out with a video camera in hand!

If you are planning to do this with these scoops, you will have a bit of a challenge visualising what is going on inside the scoop, but seeing what the airflow is doing around it should be pretty straightforward. :o)
Rob Bell

P.S. it may be worth while approaching the established MGF parts suppliers to see whether they'd be interested in taking this scoop on - they may well be able to invest and improve on the economies of scale.

Just a thought...
Rob Bell

May also be worth considering developing a similar product for the TF too ;)
Don't know if there would be any patent issues with these though, as TF200 hybrid had some fitted, but don't know if they were ever patented?
Steve W

If there“s only turbulence, the paper might just stay where it is. Why not stick in a temperature probe and see what happens
david.
David

All good ideas chaps!

Keep 'em coming!

:-)
Kris

I'd be interested in one.

Look forward to the finished picture.
Derren

Rob, if youre talking about using s scoop on your car for sprinting then youd have to run in "specials" - unless you could stretch the interpretation of the wording in the regs so that the 5% extra permitted engine ventilation measured against original bonnett area can be said to apply!

Im interested in one of these. Last summer I had bought a plastic mixing bowl to chop up to make my own! A more elegant solution would be preferable.
marc h

Kris, Roger Parker did an article a while back, in the MGOC mag IIRC, about putting a TF in a wind tunnel somewhere, MIRA?, presumably using the smoking stick thingy. Would be interesting if there are any pics in existance. One thing that did surprise me,( not difficult!)was that the airflow went INTO the boot lid vents, not OUT. Ever since then I've looked at my TF,and, since the side vents are redundant when on the move, I can't for the life of me figure out how the air FLOWS through the engine bay. Then again, if there's airflow through the rad', and the sump gets airflow over it, does it matter? But then, why fit an engine bay temp' sensor? Now I'm getting confused!
roy bridge

Roy,

You're not the only one confused. :-)

The main aim though for my side vent is purely to assist induction for my K&N.

To be honest, I have no idea how this will affect the air circulation through the engine bay but I can't see it hampering anything. (I hope.)
Kris Ford

Marc, I'm going to have to run in RGM anyway, due to the engine modifications :o(

But the scoop is an idea for track days, where there is no regulations regarding intake scoops... :o)
Rob Bell

Just had a thought, and went out to have a look at my car (2001 MGF) in the car park. As i didn't get round to cleaning it at the weekend, it has 2 weeks of grime on it, and i was interested to see what pattern it made round the n/s vent.

although the car is quite dirt, there is a clean area around the vent insert, and around the leading edge of the insert, and the mesh and intake tube behind it are relatively clean.

i would deduce from this that the airflow in the vent area is standing off the body of the car, if there were turbulence, surely the vent area would be dirtier?

my car is unmodified, and i don't know if there would be any appreciable difference to the behaviour of the airflow around the vent if there were a pipe sucking away behind the mesh....

just for reference, my trip to work culminates in a 70mph (ahem) run down the A55, so the pattern will be the effect of high speed running.

hope this helps

mike


mike roberts

Most comments seem to be that little air enters via the scoops in the present standard format. Is the possible reason because, as both scoops are intaking at the same time a positive pressure is created in the engine bay thus defeating a good air intake flow. If one side only was blanked off (passenger side) thus creating a negative pressure and a flow through of air would this help ? has anyone tried this and noticed any results - only a further thought.
(imagine two people blowing down opposite ends of a straw, nothing happens in the middle - get what I'm trying to say ? )
Sorry - I'll get me coat !!
John Mac

I see where you're going with this John but I think that there is so much space and other escapes for air within the bay that this would not happen here.

Also, not sure if this is just the Trophys, but on the drivers side, I have an engine fan which expels air through the drivers side vent. So in actual fact, using your theory of the straw, it would be like blowing in one end and sucking through the other.

But I like your thinking. :-)
Kris Ford

No, I don't think so. Even if there was a "negative pressure" inside, this would just create a slow airflow, a little aspiration, but no FORCED airflow like we want.
The shape of the scoop is the key feature...
Fabrice

Kris - the drivers side fan sucks air in not blows it out!
Blue Pocket Rocket

Yes, that's what I thought, otherwise a "scoop" would be defeating the object when the fan switched on.
Mines not the Trophy but the last 2001 F before the TF.
John Mac

Blue,

Mine definitely sucks air out of the bay. When the fan kicks in, you can put your hand by the vent and feel the hot air rushing out. (sorry, couldn't think of a more technical way to put it)
Now, whether someone previous to myself has played with it or there's just some wierd "stuff" going on I don't know, but if what you say is correct, I think I actually prefer it this way. :-)

Kris
Kris

Kris - are you sure the airflow is coming out? Try putting a piece of paper in front of the vent next time it comes on. It has been designed so that the fan sucks air in and comes out thru the top vents. If it blows hot air out it isn't going to work too well as its against the normal flow of hot air.
Blue Pocket Rocket

Kris

Don't want to criticise at all, but is this intake scoop really a "racing" type accessory? On the move, you know in the "70's", I have never experienced any overheating at all on my bog standard W2000 MGF 1.8i. It's when sitting in stationary traffic or on arrival at home while opening up the garage to put her away, the engine cooling fan kicks in as it should and needs to as no air circulation is happenng through any orifice at that time. This fan stays off when on the move, so surely all is OK?

Cannot comment on actual air intake air temp at speed, but as I say no probs in normal use.

Pete
Pete Tipping

I thought the idea of the "scoop" was simply to bring more "cold" air into the engine bay to aid in particular K&N Filters (or similar)- or have I missed the point here ? (again) !
John Mac

Pete - the air scoop is for the L/H air vent which a lot of people use to supply cold air to the air filter and has nothing to do with keeping the engine cool.
Blue Pocket Rocket

Hi Pete,

I completely understand your point and would not like to ever claim that fitting one of these scoops will "give you an extra 20BHP" like some of the bogus junk you can pick up on e-bay.
But, having said that, as I mentioned before, my original idea was to improve air flow to the Induction kit, in my case, my K&N. Obviously the cooler the air, the more dense it is and the better it helps combustion. So, as I fitted a third tube when I installed the K&N from this side vent, I am hoping that the scoop will "catch" the passing air and help to direct it, via this tube, straight to the filter. This, along with the standard two other tubes, should help to surround the filter with cool air.
To be honest, I don't fully know what the benefits will be, but having some comprehension of the basics of mechanics, this just seemed to make logical sense in assisting the breathing process.

Blue PR,
This is intrigueing me now. I'm almost certain that it blows air out rather than sucks in. I've been sat in traffic before with the roof down, and when the fan kicks in I can hang my arm over the side and feel the hot air being forced out. But I'll give your paper idea a go at the weekend.

Kris.
Kris

I like I expect most others have the K & N set up with the two intake pipes slung under the car, but I also have the third pipe that already existed but no one seems to mention, this is the one that is across the back chassis member that went into the original air filter box. I simply left this in, directed the end of it onto the filter and fitted a 50mm ali tube insert to drop it from the chassis member to under the car. Surely I'm not alone on this one ?
John Mac

Kris, the electric fan most definitely draws cold air INTO the engine bay, and not the other way round.

Often the sensation of air hitting the palm of the hand is misleading - it is probably due to turbulence. Read the archives, this is a debate that has occured more than once! ROFL

Putting a piece of paper over the inlet will confirm - the fan will generate enough relative vacuum to hold it against the grille.
Rob Bell

@Kris: don't worry I needed the paper test myself before I was convinced that the air is sucked into the engine bay. From the experience with my hand on the vent I thought it was different. The test showed I was wrong....

Anyway, I guess we need to have the scoops at both sites: just for the look of it, don't we ?
Erik

Think I'm going to have to admit to being wrong about the fan! :-)
Haven't tried the paper test yet but having heard how people were under the same impression as myself and were wrong, I'll take that as good enough!

I guess it's time for weekly update!

The first attempts have been made!
The first was too thick - would not sit properly over the vent.
The second had "lip issues" - the lip was not quite wide enough to grip the vent securely.
The third we think we have just right! We're actually just waiting for this one to set and then we will know for sure.

The time is getting close gentlemen! You'll know more as I know more! :-)

Kris
Kris Ford

I“m surprised about the speed of development! 2 thumbs up
David

Nice work Kris
Blue Pocket Rocket

Visited the Westpoint Show nr. Exeter today and saw the Hawk Kit car that has fitted two very neat perspex air intake scoops, Iv'e taken a couple of pictures if anyone would like to see them if it should help the ones currently in the pipeline.
From following this thread I'm not sure if the prototypes are in perspex or fibreglass in which case the latter I assume would have to be painted I guess perspex would seem to be the better material choice as they would "blend in"
John Mac

I believe they“re rotation molded plastic !
David Peters

This thread was discussed between 01/11/2005 and 20/11/2005

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