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 While testing our track car at Buttonwillow, August 2006, we had a misfortune. The car was towed back from Buttonwillow to Los Angeles, some 140 miles away. The misfortune is a failing alternator. This alternator was replaced back in July 2003 and has about 30k miles before meeting its final destiny in August 2006. You can read more about the track report here.
When we install the new alternator, we realized we had to cut away the existing cooling duct on the alternator. The picture of a new Bosch alternator is shown above. The arrow points to the cooling duct. The reason for shaving off the duct is to accomodate the supercharger kit's plumbing system. The original cooling duct was connected to the driver's side brake duct. See the various cooling ducts available for different OEM bumpers:
The principle behind it couldn't be clearer. As the car moves forward, the air channels through the duct to cool the brakes AND the alternator. We don't want to accept the fact that our track driving is the major cause of an earlier alternator failure. If that is the case, then shouldn't race cars be changing alternators every season? Sure, parts will fail eventually but 30k miles is not acceptable. After some research and gathering opinions from various race shops, we decided to find a way to cool the alternator. The solution is so simple that it's hard to believe why we didn't do this earlier:
All we needed is a 2.5" ID fabric duct. We needed the flexibility of channeling the air from the front of the bumper to the shaved off alternator duct. We did some testings and data acquisition and we are extremely proud of this upgrade. This is the DIY . Prepare a 1.5 ft length of fabric duct and a couple of zip ties. The first picture below shows where the duct will draw the oncoming air from. Different bumpers may have different openings. Inspect yours and find an opening. There is a clear path below that part of the compressor that will lead to the back of the alternator. You have to zip tie this section of the duct to something sturdy. Don't let the duct rub against the idle pulley. The zip tie will work. We have tracked the car numerous times and the duct stays in its place.
The nice thing about a fabric duct is that it has a small bending radius. Once you lay the duct from the bumper, through under the compressor, bend it such that will cover the "shaved-off" or what's left-of the alternator cooling duct.
Done. That simple. We can get this 2.5" ID fabric duct for you. We use double-ply duct that has a double protection on abrasion. Email info @ vsetrack.com for information. On Sept 2, 2006, we took the car out to Willow Springs (big track) for some data acquisition. You can read all about it here.
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