"The Confines of the Engine Compartment"

[Greg Amy]

I agree with you, with the following:

...radiator has to be the forward definition of the engine compartment. Otherwise, you could use the void between the grill and the radiator on pretty much any car to make an effective and never intended cold air intake.

This is supported philosophically, in that the regs do not allow you to make a shorty radiator and leave a hole next to it for air intake. It would be nice, howver, for that to be explicitly clarified in the regs (easy to supplement the "engine compartment" definition within the ITCS.)

Based on that, he Jackson intake is not legal as it extends past the rear of the radiator. Cut it off there and probably legal.

I agree that the intake portion of it should be behind the plane of the radiator. However, there is no restriction to the mounting portion of it needing to be behind that, as long as air is not taken in from there.

GA

[Knestis]

1987-audi-4000q-5.jpg

Audi 4000 5+5, just for giggles...

I miss that car.

K

EDIT - Whoops. Thats a 4000Q but the radiator layout is the same; ditto for the ITB Coupe.

[Racerlinn]

1987-audi-4000q-5.jpg

Audi 4000 5+5, just for giggles...

I miss that car.

K

EDIT - Whoops. Thats a 4000Q but the radiator layout is the same; ditto for the ITB Coupe.

Turd, meet punch bowl.

[Knestis]

Sploosh!

[Rabbit05]

Ha !! Those 5+5s are rare ! Nothing like having the radiator off to the side. The top cover of the radiator makes for a nice tool tray and beverage holder .

[vtluu]

To further muddy the waters...

I've read this thread closely as I had a friendly discussion this past weekend with one of our scrutineers about the legality of the intake I've run for years:

IMG_20140706_090514.jpg IMG_20140706_090457.jpg

It's a modified Racing Beat intake; the latter came with a hole in the back of the "box" for a more stock-like intake routing, which I fiberglassed closed and ran a straight pipe over from the throttle body, through the MAF and into the side of the box.

Inarguably, the intake & intake box are located within the confines of the engine compartment, and aren't a ram air system nor cowl induction. In my case the point of contention is what "source" means. The induction box (mostly) seals the intake filter off from the engine compartment so it draws air from the wheel well. So you could say it's drawing air from outside the engine compartment... but as someone here pointed out earlier, all air comes from outside the engine compartment one way or another.

It would be nice to get some kind of "official" (such as it is) word on this; I haven't contacted the ITAC in so long that I don't even remember how...

[Greg Amy]

It's a gray area that, like splitters, we've all chosen to ignore. IMO, as long as all the bits are physically located within the "confines of the engine compartment", and you're not doing cowl induction or ram air, then it's compliant to the current letter of the regs, despite having been sealed off from the rest of the engine compartment. Its compliance to the spirit of the regs in current context IMO is also OK. But it would be extremely hard to interpret it to the original context of the regs because, as with splitters, they didn't exist back then at our level of competition.

There's no longer any "official" method of getting rules interpretation. You can send a request to the ITAC for clarification (http://crbscca.com) but that clarification is really non-official and will only last through the current year and/or ITAC; all it does is indicate to you how the CRB/ITAC would rule should they be asked during a protest/appeal. The other way is to have someone protest you ($25 and you'll probably get that back) and run it through protest/appeals.

GA

[JeffYoung]

Agree.

I agree with you, with the following:


This is supported philosophically, in that the regs do not allow you to make a shorty radiator and leave a hole next to it for air intake. It would be nice, howver, for that to be explicitly clarified in the regs (easy to supplement the "engine compartment" definition within the ITCS.)



I agree that the intake portion of it should be behind the plane of the radiator. However, there is no restriction to the mounting portion of it needing to be behind that, as long as air is not taken in from there.

GA

[Chip42]

I dislike the radiator being considered a standard part of the outline of the engine compartments due to mid engined cars and oddballs like the 5cyl audis, not to mention 1/2 width radiators found on many hondas and a few other cars.

in the case of the miata - yeah, a fine, common sensical boundary, but I think we should be clear with ourselves that it is not a valid definition in MANY cases.

[JeffYoung]

I dislike the radiator being considered a standard part of the outline of the engine compartments due to mid engined cars and oddballs like the 5cyl audis, not to mention 1/2 width radiators found on many hondas and a few other cars.

in the case of the miata - yeah, a fine, common sensical boundary, but I think we should be clear with ourselves that it is not a valid definition in MANY cases.

This is a pretty easy "know it when you see it" thing though. Something like "within the confines of the engine compartment, which is typically bounded by the radiator (front), hood (top), inner fenders (sides) and subframe or other engine mounting points (lower)" -- something like that.

[Chip42]

definition comes from the technical glossary in the GCR and we just use the term and the allowances for intake ducting in the ITCS. I doubt they will rewrite the definition to suit tin tops because wings and things. better just to, as you say, know it when you see it.