[DeTomaso] Air Flow

Mike Drew MikeLDrew at aol.com
Tue Dec 26 01:01:45 EST 2017


Jack,

I wouldn’t waste too much time arguing with idiots about this. :)

All air is fresh air, no matter where it comes from.  At speed, Pantera intake air comes from beneath the car. In fact the later L-models even had a scoop pointing at the ground behind the passenger seat in the engine bay, and a hose to duct the air into the air cleaner. 

The area above and behind the car (all cars in fact) is a low-pressure area at speed.  It’s a vacuum. It sucks. 

The area under the car is a high-ish-pressure area. As the car goes down the road, air is sucked from underneath the car, past the motor, out of the engine cover screen, where it joins the air flowing over the top of the car. 

At extremely high speeds approaching 200 mph, the vacuum is strong enough to lift the rear end of the car. When a fellow tried running his Pantera at Bonneville years ago, he was simply going straight and the car spun out because of it. Managing airflow both underneath and at the rear of the car became critical to his eventual success. 

Even at only somewhat elevated speeds, if you disconnect your decklid shocks and remove the latch, the vacuum will cause your decklid to float open several inches. The same is true of the front trunk lid. If you leave it unlatched, at 80 mph it will float several inches. 

Cheers!

Mike

Sent from my iPad

> On Dec 25, 2017, at 21:33, Jack Donahue <demongusta at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Could someone please reference and/or sketch the air flow characteristics in the engine compartment?. I’m having a hard time trying to defend the position that air flows OUT of the screen behind the cockpit and not INTO it. The argument, obviously, is; “they wouldn’t put the air cleaner where it is if the fresh air is not going through the screen and into the motor”. ????
> 
> Thanks, 
> #4348
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