Whale tail question

looks stupid

@barncobob posted:

looks stupid

Lol. I was just about to post “The only answer to any “Whale Tail Question” is NO.  But I thought better of it.

If the attached photo is yours it may not have enough square inches of open area to allow enough air in to feed your engine and cool it. if those 3 holes are 4" diameter, you only have about 24 sq " of opening and is, IMHO, the borderline minimum if you have no other openings in your engine compartment.......Bruce

None of the photo's I saved show the top!  I suspect you cut the entire bottom of panel out like the regular Speedster lid.  Perhaps it uses the rear grille from an early 911? Perhaps you could fab something like what's used in 911.

Thanks Wolfgang and Aircooled (Bruce)

The smaller picture of the tail only is what I have. Previously there were 3 fans mounted, blowing air into the engine compartment.

Bonus question: What temperatures are your air-cooled engines running at ?

GT Racing sell this grill for original 911 Whale Tails, I don’t know if it would fit.
https://www.gt-racing.com/911-...tail-grill-part-16g/

If it won’t fit, you could call them and ask for suggestions.

Alternatively, you could check out a sheet metal supply place to see if they had some type of expanded metal that you could make something out of.

Previous attempt

@Tac422 posted:

Previous attempt

That works.

The one I linked is 16 x 3 1/2 but I imagine they have others. They make all kind of Porsche fiberglass bodywork.

It’s where I got my cookie cutter.

FWIW, if a guy was pretty handy it wouldn’t be to tough to build one from scratch. Any metal supplier would have the flat stock and round bar stock to make one.

@Tac422 posted:

I have a whale tail without any filter or insert on the top and am wondering what others have done ? or what's supposed to be there?

On an earlier car with a melted tea tray style spoiler (think swoopy whale tail), I alternated using a rectangular cutout of expanded aluminum sheet and perforated aluminum sheet. Both were anodized black. The idea is to keep most leaves, etc out of the compartment and to let the air filters do the heavy lifting.

For example:  M-D Building Products 57398 2-Feet by 4-Feet EM-2 Expanded Aluminum, Black https://a.co/d/f20Pie5

No comment.

I owned the red whale tailed wide body in the picture above some 10 years ago. It had no filter in the tail and it just allowed air in through the grill as the regular engine compartment cover does. The red car in the picture is a watered cooled Mazda 13b rotary powered car that I was told was one of the very few that CMC built in house for a customer. On this car the whale tail had no effect on the cooling of the engine. I imagine if the car had been powered by a VW air cooled engine it would have run conventional air cleaners and would draw cooling air in through the openings in the whale tail. When I bought the car, I paid $9000.00 for an nice running car that needed nothing but gas. I knew little about what a Speedster should look like and the oddness of the whale tail. Look closer at the pic in the original post and mine below and you will notice the car isn't a Speedster at all. It is a Cabriolet and had nicely done roll up windows and an insulated stafast canvass top the kept the passengers dry when it rained. All in all I wish I would have known how rare this CMC was being one of the few factory built water cooled cabriolets every made. I sold the car to a guy in South Carolina I believe and have never seen or heard from it again except for the pic the posted above. The car had a Harley Davidson motorcycle muffling the Mazda rotary engine. Weird car all the way around. It was a lot of fun though.

Please remember that if you use expanded metal, it can be up to half of the opening is blocked by the screen itself.  Screen is better.......Bruce

I could see getting some stainless steel threaded rods, alum spacers and some flat aluminum and build your own grille - much like the OEM Porsche ones.

@Troy Sloan posted:

No comment.

Any post is a comment.

@Panhandle Bob posted:

Any post is a comment.

If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.

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