[spazegun2213]

Alright guys i figured that will all the discussion about the brake ducts i would install them and post a how to of sorts. I'm going to do this in 3 sections, installing the ducts, installing the hose, and my opinion and possible improvements.


First installing the ducts:

tools:
19mm box wrench
12mm socket
a box (or something to rest caliper on)
loctite

(I have pictures but i dont have them uploaded just yet)
1) You will probably want to put the front of the car up on jacks and remove the wheels.
2) Take the 19mm box wrench and remove the two bolts holding the caliper on. (note on the 05 the top bolt might hit the bottom bolt that mounts the strut to the knuckle, on the 06 there was no problem)

3) Place the caliper on the box so that its not hanging from the brake line and remove rotor.
(as stated, i just used a box)

4) Remove the 3 12mm bolts holding the dust sheild in place.
5) Attach the KBK duct. It mounts with the two lower bolts of the dust sheild. I also used a little loctite to make sure they would not come off.

6) Replace rotor, and caliper. On the two caliper bolts i again used loctite (its better to be safe than sorry when it comes to brakes )

you are now done!!!!

TRM 03-AUG-2006: added to the How-To catalog sticky

[spazegun2213]

installing the hose

This is more of a proof of concept post more than a definitive mounting guide. so take what i say with a grain of salt I offer no warranty of any sort as well

tools:
flat head screwdriver fo tighten clamps
zipties
inlet for the duct (ie jdm fogs or whatever)


instructions are not going to be step by step, but more of a discussion. We tackled routing the hose from the duct to the inlet. Frist we attached the hose to the duct and tried figure out where we could route it at full lock. I realize that "Race cars" will hardly ever see full lock but I know some people (like me) will put these on their daily drivers. We needed a friendly solution for people and we toyed with a idea that poeple could just install them at the track and remove them for the road.

sorry i got a little off topic, but these are problems we face. now, at full inside lock (ie the wheel is at 100% left turn on the right side) there was barely enough room to pass the hose from the duct so that if would not scrape on the wheel. This was the BIGGEST problem we found and even our "solution" may not work on wheels with a larger offset then stock, or wider wheels (but we did not test this today).

what we found that works on the 06 (*should* work on an 05 since the suspension is the same, but i dont know about an 04) look at where the mount for the endlink is on the tie rod.


we found that you can run the hose "under" that like so




you will probably need to zip tie them here. This might get a little tricky as you need to see how much hose is needed at the oppsite full lock and ziptie to that it gets the hose length. we tested this and there is just enough room when the hose is all to accomidate the hose from lock to lock.

next run the hose down the lateral link, towards the rear of the car like so


you are going to need to zip tie it there as well. Any further forward then this and the hose rubs agains the wheel. now, from this location you can start running the hose forward along the subframe like so
http://s21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...t=IMG_2721.jpg

ziptie it as you need. You will be getting short of hose by now, as with a 4 ft section we got to here, and ran out
http://s21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...t=IMG_2722.jpg

you can see that its REALLY close to the front of the car, but to run it into the fog light covers you need more hose. we used the other section of hose so see just how much we would need (note we used a 3 foot section here for a total of 7 feet of hose):


thats a good 1-2 feet more, but that again we did NO cutting, and I'm sure you can make it shorter by cutting. Again this part of the hose does not need to be the high heat stuff, so go to home depot and get some other ducting and use that (thats what we would do)

speaking of cutting, you WILL have to cut some plastic on the 06 to get them to fit (i'm sure its the same on the 04-05 as well). the best place we found to cut was the begining of the fender liner right behind and below the fog light covers.


the piece of black plastic hanging down is what we would cut.

alright now onto the inlet...we didnt have time to figure that out, but it looks llike the 06 fog bezels are about 3". i figured you could take some duct tape and use that to secure the hose to the bezel.

As for the 04-05's I'm still working on a solution, which involes yet another trip to home depot. I try to snap a pic, of the pieces you will need, later


I think thats it. as i said this is all purely a proof of concept as wel did NOT wire this up and try it.

ok i hope you all enjoyed, the nex post will be about possible improvements and inital reactions.

[spazegun2213]

Impressions and Improvements
Alright, the last section has finally arrived!!! In this section I want to
discuss what I think about the ducts.

First this fit and finish:
The ducts are works of art, the welds are all top notch, and the powder coating is perfect. The hoses are included! while many people fault RCE for not supplying enough hose, the high temp hosing they use is also top notch and thus REALLY expencive stuff. you also do not need the high temp hosing for ALL of the intake track. I mean anything 3" and flexable will do and i would rather run to home depot and spend $10 then have full length hosing and spend $50 more. RCE also supplies hose clamps so all you really need are zipties and a little more hose (if you need it).


Second possible improvements:
Now I am NO engineer, so please take this as a ploite suggestion and not anything more. I think that the 3" tube on the duct itself could possible be lengthened and its angle altered. If it were to be perpendicular to the rotor I think you can lengthen where the hose clamps onto. Making this a little longer and at a better angle could solve some of the problems we had with the hose rubbing on the wheel.



this is really the only "problem" we had, other than that it was just tinkering with it.

The only other improvement I could think of was taking what Gary and the ESX crew did to their ducts




I think thats about it. I'm sure I'll add more later. Oh!! one more thing if you you want to know if i would have bought them had i known all this... i would say yes! I track the car enough, and this is a great kit!!!

[AndrewSS]

good write up !

[wdb]

Nice stuff, thanks!

[spazegun2213]

Alright, updated with MORE pictures!!!

[Chris05STi]

Nice write up.....its a great mod for the track sessions!

[Mykl]

Could somebody confirm that with the stock brake cooling ducts that are below the fog light covers for the '04-'05 STi could provide adequate airflow with the appropriate plastic pieces off of an '02 WRX to actually make those vents functional?

[spazegun2213]

Originally Posted by Mykl

Could somebody confirm that with the stock brake cooling ducts that are below the fog light covers for the '04-'05 STi could provide adequate airflow with the appropriate plastic pieces off of an '02 WRX to actually make those vents functional?

i dont quite know what youa re trying to say here.

[Enchanter]

Originally Posted by Mykl

Could somebody confirm that with the stock brake cooling ducts that are below the fog light covers for the '04-'05 STi could provide adequate airflow with the appropriate plastic pieces off of an '02 WRX to actually make those vents functional?

I seriously doubt it. Compare the inlet and exit hole sizes of the OEM 'duct' then look at the diameter of the hose in the RCE kit. There is a HUGE difference. I'd guess that they might work better than nothing, but why not do it 'right'?

[Mykl]

Originally Posted by spazegun2213

i dont quite know what youa re trying to say here.

You know those two small slits at the bottom corners of your bumper? They're below where your fog lights would be if you had fog lights. On the '02 WRX there was a piece of plastic that attached to the bottom of the bumper that turned these slits into functional scoops. Subaru stopped installing those pieces on the cars starting in '03.

Originally Posted by Enchanter

I seriously doubt it. Compare the inlet and exit hole sizes of the OEM 'duct' then look at the diameter of the hose in the RCE kit. There is a HUGE difference. I'd guess that they might work better than nothing, but why not do it 'right'?

The reason I ask is because somebody in the other RCE thread mentioned that there was a nice high pressure area that forces air to rush around the car in that area and that those little slits take in a surprising amount of air. Basically air is supposed to rush into those slits, as opposed to just having a ram air effect if you put them anywhere else.

I'm only asking here to see if anybody can confirm or deny that. I wish there was some way I could actually test for air flow.

[spazegun2213]

Originally Posted by Mykl

You know those two small slits at the bottom corners of your bumper? They're below where your fog lights would be if you had fog lights. On the '02 WRX there was a piece of plastic that attached to the bottom of the bumper that turned these slits into functional scoops. Subaru stopped installing those pieces on the cars starting in '03.



The reason I ask is because somebody in the other RCE thread mentioned that there was a nice high pressure area that forces air to rush around the car in that area and that those little slits take in a surprising amount of air. Basically air is supposed to rush into those slits, as opposed to just having a ram air effect if you put them anywhere else.

I'm only asking here to see if anybody can confirm or deny that. I wish there was some way I could actually test for air flow.

umm, i dont know. that would be really cool if someone could provide some insight into this. also, on the 05's there are the oem ducts with holes in the plastic piece just before the wheel well, on the 06's there are the plastic pieces, but they do not have holes in them. so i wonder why they carried that over.

[spazegun2213]

UPDATE:

I'll integrate this into post 2 but here is how i hung them.

1) with the hose clamps provided clamp the end of the hose onto the duct
2) turn the wheel to FULL outward lock
3) with some zip ties, tie the hose (NOT tight! just to hold the hose) around the control arm (is that what tis called) and the endlinks. you might need to compress the hose a little (into an oval shape) around the end links. I'm sorry the pictures are not the greatest, but they were taken in a hurry.


4) move the wheel to full inward lock and make sure the hose clears the wheel
5) once you are SURE you have no rubing, tighten the ties but again not to much as they need to move in and out as you turn the wheel. you want to make sure they clear the wheel and thats about the only reason the zip ties are here.
6) run the hose toward the back of the car (yes, i said back) and zip tie it to the subframe
http://s21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...t=IMG_2829.jpg
7) run the hose forward as car as you can and zip tie it again to the subframe.

8) move the wheel from lock to lock again and check once you have done that tighten the sub frame ties.
9) go for a drive and make sure you are not rubbing!!

again i cannot stress enough that you do not want to make that endlink ziptie really tight! I did this, and i actually BROKE the hose!

I'm running on swift springs and i have 1-2" of clearence between the hose and the ground.

I'll but up more pictures of the broken hose and under car.

if you have any questions you can PM or email me for info.

[spazegun2213]

alright guys, here is a smaller update. I was at the redline Time Attack this weekend and I ran the ducts with the hoses. I'm really a believer in my setup. After pushing the car for 30 min sessions the Pagid blues and the KBK's and all the other mods really worked. Stops from 130 to 40 were like butter, and the brakes never once faded. The use can be seen on the rotors, but I'm not getting and warping after tracking my car (i logged well over 300 track miles this weekend).

I also drove with the hoses on the street. 30 miles or so around PA. there was scraping over uneven roads. The hoses were real champs standin up to all the abuse.

I think next time I'll bend the hoses "flat" so they will not scrape as much. I'll get pictures up later.

[LOLSTi]

Very informative post! Grea to hear the positive results!