zbrewha863

I'm a new owner of a V6 Mustang, looking to set it up for some track duty. I have a Roush Stage 1 bumper on the way, I ordered it without fog lights as I'm planning on using the holes for brake ducts.

From looking around, it doesn't seem anyone has done this yet, but I figured I'd ask. Has anybody tried running brake ducts off of the fog lights? I've seen people use the center opening, but I will most likely keep that free to allow more air into my intercooler & radiator. Any idea of any pre-made ducts that will fit in that opening, or am I looking at a lot of custom work?

cpotts13

I'm curious to know; what are you going to do to make it "track ready"?

zbrewha863

Well first, I never said "track ready", you did. A stock car is "track ready", it just won't perform as well as it could, and may have some issues. I know that a lot of people start throwing parts on a car before they ever take it to the track and really learn it. I do not think that a front bumper and brake ducts falls into the "newb racer" mentality, this is something that I think every track car can definitely use. I don't really like the stock Mustang brakes anyway (coming from an S2000 that outbrakes the crap out of the Mustang), so I will probably be switching out the pads shortly, as well.

One of the issues on almost every stock car at the track is brake fade. I've been checking out threads of V6 drivers tracking their cars, and the main issue (even with the Performance Package, which gives it GT brakes) is brake fade.

Pads help a good bit, but ducting can be a big benefit. My last car was an S2000 that I tracked, and even on that light car with similar-sized brakes, ducting was pretty much necessary for road courses. Also, I didn't care for the fog lights on the Roush bumper, and I think brake ducts would give it an "all business" look -- or it may look like crap, who knows? If anybody has attempted it, I would love to see how it turned out. Otherwise, any input on the idea is welcome.

So any ideas?

cpotts13

Id say if you don't like your brakes go with the svt brake kit. i have seen them go for $800 new take off on eBay. They will be much much better suited for track use.

zbrewha863

That is a nice upgrade, but I'm sure they will still get hot. Plus this bumper is coming without fog lights now, so I at least want to attempt to duct it and see how it turns out. Do you know anybody who makes conical naca ducts?

zbrewha863

Well the bumper is painted, I just need to pick it up from the shop now to get measurements on the openings. I would imagine they're 3" openings, to accomodate Roush's standard 3" foglights, but I don't know. Either way, inching forward here!

EDIT: Bumper is painted and here, fog light openings measure 4.5" in diameter. Custom ducts will have to be made.

zbrewha863

Ok, brake ducts are on the bumper! I ended up going with a set of large plastic brake ducts for the bumper, and not until I had them here did I realize that

(a) they were not shaped perfectly to contor to the curvature of the bumper, but were pretty close

(b) they were way too big to fit at the end of the fog light opening, and

(c) there is no brake duct that will fit without custom work.

Not wanting to fiberglass in some ducts and lock myself in, I tried many different options. I ordered two other sets of brake ducts (none were better than the initial order), and even tried ordering just the aluminum aircraft ducts from an aircraft supply shop. Nothing worked.

So I decided, in a last ditch effort of desparation after 3-4 weeks of trying different options, to use Gorilla Tape (basically very strong fiberglass-like black duct tape) I picked up at Home Depot to try to mock them up and see if I could get it close enough to drill or make some brackets.

AND IT WORKED!!!!

Not only did it mock the ducts up correctly, but it actually held them on darn good with just a couple stripts. So after quite a few layers (applied the same way you would apply fiberglass, criss-crossing the tape), the Gorilla Tape had these ducts on so tight that they can not move at all without taking the entire bumper with them.

Great success!

I know this is not the optimal way to do this, but it was an experiment that just happened to succeed, and some of the best racing ideas come that way. You will get a better result from fiberglassing the ducts into the bumper, but then you're stuck with it. This way is working for now, and if it fails down the road I will fiberglass them in, but these things are on extremely tight and I am happy, after a month, to finally have them on!

Here are the ducts that I used: http://www.ebay.com/itm/-/130716906797

Great product, comes with grill mesh and a two drill templates, great price too. They fit over the stock fog light openings, and the bottom and side edges are contoured extremely well to the Roush bumper. The top is not, and will need some serious work to attach.

Here are the final pics:




I understand that this is not a purist install, and some of the hardcore guys will flame me here. I just wanted to show my experience doing this and relay it to anybody else trying the same thing. I'll have better pics of the whole thing when I do the install (with the Ford Racing brake duct kit), but this is just to give a general idea of how to mock it up, get it to fit.

Thanks!