As previously mentioned by myself and other people, a large factor with rotarys is the heat that they produce, this has been delt with to a extent with a larger radiator, bigger intercooler and dual oil coolers.
But the more heat you extract from the engine, the more heat you have to remove from the engine bay, hence the next task i came across was this.
i looked at a few aftermarket bonnets, looked at the aerodynamics of each and most importantly the drag factor involved.
after looking at them all and also bringing cost into the equation i came up with the perfect balance, this is a RE AD9 replica bonnet, theses are normal £1000 for a real one, this brand new cost £250
First thing to do was unwrap it, this took me about 15mins, i have never come across something so well wrapped in my life, at one point i was thinking it will never end, it had 10 layers of protection!
so i ended up with a big pile in the corner of the room
and this is what i was left with.
ok lets have a look at this properly to see what imperfections we can find
tiny bit of discolouration, but then thats why you paint it anyway.
tiny bit of top layer flaked away but paint sorts that.
small chip on the drivers furthest rear vent, its about 1cm in length
checked down the edges to find any major imperfections, luckily these are all on the underside of the bonnet, no chips but just a bit rough.
Came with i suppose can only be described as a 'super *****' raintray screwed underneath, im not sure if it was to protect the edges of the vents in transit or not, removed it as it will stop cooling.
once this was removed you can see a lot more of the mould, i think im gonna cut the raintray up and bolt it back on in its original position but with gaps where the vents are so its a bit neater.
And probably the most important part is the fitment!
Bolted it on and lowered it down for the first time with no adjustments to get an idea of whats happening
then spent a couple of mins doing a bit of adjustment, it seems the bolts for the hinges are maybe 1mm further apart than a stock bonnet so you have no movement there, only movement i had was at the front end, but ended up with this which doesnt look to bad, will look decent when ive put some bonnet catches and its painted!
here is a link to a full 5meg pixel imagine of the last one above so you can see it better, didnt want to include it as its huge, but you should be able look closer with it.
http://img835.imageshack.us/img835/3195/p20081019060001.jpg
from aero testing one thing i have noticed is that now because the air has 2 exits avaliable to it(before it was just the gearbox tunnel) the pipe from the intercooler to the throttle body is warmer as thats in the middle of a vent(hot air flows around it) so ill need to either incorpurate some shielding or wrap it to keep the heat out, even so it hasnt affected inlet temps in boost. Also i know get a lovely heat haze coming out of the vents in traffic.
