Cool Tech's 350/350R Brake Duct Completion Kit

[CoolTech]

Even the GT350/R's little German cousin, the Focus RS employs air deflectors on the lower control arm to re-direct air onto the rotor/caliper. Sorry for the bad pics, but here's a couple of pics of the Focus RS setup. The first shot is from behind the deflector with the camera aiming forward. You can see the vertical rectangular opening coming from the brake ducts at the front of the car. Air is going to be coming out of there and the control-arm mounted deflector gets it over to the rotor to maximize cooling.

The second shot is a quick picture of the deflector - with the halfshaft right in front of it.

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[CoolTech]

@ CoolTech, any chance you guys could be developping a trans cooler kit. That's the kind of thing we need. Thx

We typically are only developing products for cars that we have. LOL, we are probably too slow to do something with a "borrowed" car. I did, however look briefly at the transmission of the tech pack cars. I think the challenge is the physical proximity of the drain plug to the fill plug. So, if you take a traditional approach and pump the oil out the drain plug and push it back in at the top - it's tough to get that "just cooled" oil to circulate.

Back to the brake deflector kit. We developed the kit with the help of a friend who brought his GT350R over after just getting it. We had our RS up on the lift and we were just admiring the brake duct work when he arrived. We took the RS off the lift, and up went the 350R. The owner and I were both convinced that evening that the deflectors had been left off of his car.... a manufacturer's oversight. Upon additional research, neither the GT350 or the 350R come with these.

For those that are skeptical about their functionality - I encourage you to take a look the next time you are under your car. A "picture" is worth a thousand words and I think it is rather obvious that these deflectors would substantially increase airflow to the rotor. Now, why leave them off? Maybe Ford has an objective to get the brakes hotter quicker for either better performance or less propensity for noise? Or, maybe a bean counter figured they could save $4 -$5 per car be skipping the process to tap these holes, eliminating the cost of the deflectors and the 2 minutes of assembly time. Maybe there are other reasons. But, it's hard not to see the increased air flow realized with the deflectors in place.... and for performance car owners, "a cool rotor is a happy rotor!"

 

[Caballus]

Ford did *most* of the job right on the GT350/350R, picking up air with dedicated brake ducts in the front bumper and then channeling that air back through the substructure and to the inside front of the wheel well opening. Kudos! But, as is, the ingested air through this ducting simply blows air on the lower control arm and not the caliper or disc where it could be a whole lot more effective. :frusty: Ironically, Ford did the job right on the Mustang GT with the Performance Pack (6-piston Brembos) as they incorporate an air deflector on the lower control arm to direct air on the rotor and caliper. Pictured below is a wheel of a GT350/R with a deflector from a GT PP car mounted on the lower arm. (But, you'd have to buy both GT PP lower arms to get these deflectors.)



But Ford didn’t quite finish the job on your GT350/350R. The GT 350/350R lower control arms are neither tapped nor do they have an air deflector to get this routed airflow onto the rotor/caliper! What a waste! The channeled air is simply lost.

The GT350 has ducts but no deflectors. The GT has deflectors but no ducts. The GT350 has great braking and does not have brake fade problems, generally speaking. The GT does not out perform the GT350 when it comes to brakes--grab or fade.

Is it not safe to conclude the following:

The ducts work for the GT350, so deflectors are not necessary.

The deflectors are on the GT because it has no ducts

Having both together may be nice, but does not greatly enhance GT350 braking performance

 

[Dig-It]

For those that are skeptical about their functionality - I encourage you to take a look the next time you are under your car. A "picture" is worth a thousand words and I think it is rather obvious that these deflectors would substantially increase airflow to the rotor. Now, why leave them off? Maybe Ford has an objective to get the brakes hotter quicker for either better performance or less propensity for noise? Or, maybe a bean counter figured they could save $4 -$5 per car be skipping the process to tap these holes, eliminating the cost of the deflectors and the 2 minutes of assembly time. Maybe there are other reasons. But, it's hard not to see the increased air flow realized with the deflectors in place.... and for performance car owners, "a cool rotor is a happy rotor!"

So besides how you think the system appears, have you done any testing? Have you collected any data to support your supposition? That's what I think your potential customers are most interested in - including myself.

I've been underneath my car and have seen what the folks from Ford came up with. Ford has also produced some videos showing wind tunnel testing to include brake cooling and the flow of air in and around the wheel well to contribute to the overall aerodynamics of the car.

I've had a great time running my GT350R on the track - VIR Full Course. I didn't notice any fade whatsoever and I'm pretty happy with the way my brakes performed (with G-Loc brake pads and titanium heat shields). The brake cooling seemed to be very effective from the factory despite how it 'looks'.

 

[stanglife]

So besides how you think the system appears, have you done any testing? Have you collected any data to support your supposition? That's what I think your potential customers are most interested in - including myself.

I think you're right on. You'd be surprised at some of the snake oil products being produced and even shady business practices (I have a story that would blow your mind!) from some of the bigger aftermarket companies out there. Fanboys buy parts and don't ask the important questions or apply any common sense. It's so easy for a company to make a part that fits but it's expensive to "prove" that it works, so most of them will never do this. They might show some fancy images of stress analysis or fatigue testing but those alone don't prove that the part works.

I'm not saying that I know the effectiveness of this cooltech kit - just agreeing that most products would gain the needed validity with some solid testing and proof that they work.

 

[Voodooo]

I think you're right on. You'd be surprised at some of the snake oil products being produced and even shady business practices (I have a story that would blow your mind!) from some of the bigger aftermarket companies out there. Fanboys buy parts and don't ask the important questions or apply any common sense. It's so easy for a company to make a part that fits but it's expensive to "prove" that it works, so most of them will never do this. They might show some fancy images of stress analysis or fatigue testing but those along don't prove that the part works.

I'm not saying that I know the effectiveness of this cooltech kit - just agreeing that most products would gain the needed validity with some solid testing and proof that they work.

I agree with you 100%
I would also like to add that it really pisses me off when an aftermarket company sells a part and when that part doesn't fit as it should the first thing they blame is the OEM tolerances.
This is complete BS. I'm a journeyman tool and die maker, I can guarantee you that our tolerances are way more tighter than any aftermarket suppliers. We must comply with QS9000, QS9001, Etc. I'll go out on a limb and say almost all of these aftermarket suppliers do not meet those standards. Unless it's a wheel manufacturer, which has other standards.
We must hold tolerances in as little as .00001 not .030-.062
As long as the vehicle has not been damaged, you can buy any part from a dealer (oem part) and as long as that oem part hasnt been damaged during handling, it'll bolt right on. I can't say that about all aftermarket parts. I don't know how many times I purchased an aftermarket part that I had to throw in the lathe or mill to make it work, or start from scratch and make myself.

 

[CoolTech]

I too have seen my fair share of snake oil products and it is absolutely mind boggling to see how unsuspecting folks can eat this stuff up. I would venture to say that the VAST majority of cold-air-intake kits, as an example, are just complete garbage. Exacerbating this problem is that fact that 90% of the claims are supposedly "proven" with dyno results - very laughable as dyno runs are typically conducted with the hood wide open and all kinds of external fans blazing. So how are we replicating air induction in real world driving??

Another pet peeve for me (I'm getting old and grumpy) is a well-known company with a Japanese sounding name but really just a cheap Chinese parts importer. They develop an oil cooler for one of the Mustang models and replace the OEM oil-to-water cooler with their oil-to-air cooler. Then they "prove" the superiority of their cooler by showing graphs of steady-state driving temps. The oil-to-water cooler (by design) keeps min oil temps right about at water (thermostat) temps (duh!), whereas the oil-to-air cooler has no such minimum constraint. So, they have the OEM graph at ~190F and then they show their steady state oil temps in another graph at 140-150F and they point at how much better their oil cooler is. (There are just so many things wrong with the comparison!) But, owners read this BS and then want to be the first in-line to buy this better-than-OEM oil cooler! Simply un-real!

I would also like to add that it really pisses me off when an aftermarket company sells a part and when that part doesn't fit as it should the first thing they blame is the OEM tolerances.

I agree with this as well - please don't put us in one of these categories without knowing us. We have seen many sales of our brake deflector kit and we will be shipping these before the end of the week– so why don’t we ask these adopters about OUR fitment before we get thrown under the bus?

We have been building/maintaining race cars for quite some time now. We came into the "street car" world with our work on Ford GTs. We are very well known in this community and we have worked on/modified more than 150 unique Ford GT's since 2006. In 2012, we built-up 3 Boss 302 Laguna Seca's to be dedicated track cars. As part of this, we built a killer oil cooler kit that we still offer today. But coming back to this thread subject - for these track cars we used brake ducting right to the rotor (not that difficult considering Ford offered a kit!) Each of our road racing cars has ducting directly to the rotors. Ducting is a PITA and a liability for the OEM for street cars. Fundamentally, the physical ducting needs to twist and turn with the rotor (steering wheel) and typically requires more inspection and maintenance which is par for the course with a track car.... not so much for a street car.

However, more recently, OEMs are getting a lot smarter and they are now managing air flow with ducts and deflectors to get the air onto the rotors... this approach in place of yesteryear's physical ducting. You see it across all car brands producing legitimate performance cars. I showed you a couple of examples. Mustang GT with the PP option. 2016-2017 Focus RS. I've seen many more - C7 Corvette, Ferrari 458, etc. There are many, many more.

Starving off brake fade (fluid boiling) is one of the most compelling reasons for effective brake ducting. But also, lower temps allow for improved pad life - as well as longer life for boots and seals. By track car standards, there should be little doubt that the GT350/R is one helluva heavy car. Regardless of rotor and caliper size (both are considerable in the GT350), we cannot escape physics and there is a TREMENDOUS amount of heat generated to slow this large mass down.

As I referenced in a previous post, we simply invite you to look at your car in this area the next time you have the car on a lift/jack stands, or happen to have a front wheel off. You will be able to clearly see the outlet of the ductwork at the front of the wheel well. Further, you can easily see the proximity and alignment of this duct outlet to the lower control arm. If the objective was to cool the lower control arm, they’re doing a damn good job of it! Like holding your open hand out of the car window, we think it is VERY easy to envision the affectivity of a deflector on this lower arm to direct airflow to the rotor. Hardly snake oil... is the deflector intuitively obvious or not?

As to why Ford did not elect to “complete” this routing? I don’t know. But saying that Ford OEM knows best and always makes the best trade-offs….. tell that to the 2016 Tech Pack owners who have attempted to track their cars.

 

[stanglife]

I too have seen my fair share of snake oil products and it is absolutely mind boggling to see how unsuspecting folks can eat this stuff up. I would venture to say that the VAST majority of cold-air-intake kits, as an example, are just complete garbage. Exacerbating this problem is that fact that 90% of the claims are supposedly "proven" with dyno results - very laughable as dyno runs are typically conducted with the hood wide open and all kinds of external fans blazing. So how are we replicating air induction in real world driving??

Another pet peeve for me (I'm getting old and grumpy) is a well-known company with a Japanese sounding name but really just a cheap Chinese parts importer. They develop an oil cooler for one of the Mustang models and replace the OEM oil-to-water cooler with their oil-to-air cooler. Then they "prove" the superiority of their cooler by showing graphs of steady-state driving temps. The oil-to-water cooler (by design) keeps min oil temps right about at water (thermostat) temps (duh!), whereas the oil-to-air cooler has no such minimum constraint. So, they have the OEM graph at ~190F and then they show their steady state oil temps in another graph at 140-150F and they point at how much better their oil cooler is. (There are just so many things wrong with the comparison!) But, owners read this BS and then want to be the first in-line to buy this better-than-OEM oil cooler! Simply un-real!



I agree with this as well - please don't put us in one of these categories without knowing us. We have seen many sales of our brake deflector kit and we will be shipping these before the end of the week– so why don’t we ask these adopters about OUR fitment before we get thrown under the bus?

We have been building/maintaining race cars for quite some time now. We came into the "street car" world with our work on Ford GTs. We are very well known in this community and we have worked on/modified more than 150 unique Ford GT's since 2006. In 2012, we built-up 3 Boss 302 Laguna Seca's to be dedicated track cars. As part of this, we built a killer oil cooler kit that we still offer today. But coming back to this thread subject - for these track cars we used brake ducting right to the rotor (not that difficult considering Ford offered a kit!) Each of our road racing cars has ducting directly to the rotors. Ducting is a PITA and a liability for the OEM for street cars. Fundamentally, the physical ducting needs to twist and turn with the rotor (steering wheel) and typically requires more inspection and maintenance which is par for the course with a track car.... not so much for a street car.

However, more recently, OEMs are getting a lot smarter and they are now managing air flow with ducts and deflectors to get the air onto the rotors... this approach in place of yesteryear's physical ducting. You see it across all car brands producing legitimate performance cars. I showed you a couple of examples. Mustang GT with the PP option. 2016-2017 Focus RS. I've seen many more - C7 Corvette, Ferrari 458, etc. There are many, many more.

Starving off brake fade (fluid boiling) is one of the most compelling reasons for effective brake ducting. But also, lower temps allow for improved pad life - as well as longer life for boots and seals. By track car standards, there should be little doubt that the GT350/R is one helluva heavy car. Regardless of rotor and caliper size (both are considerable in the GT350), we cannot escape physics and there is a TREMENDOUS amount of heat generated to slow this large mass down.

As I referenced in a previous post, we simply invite you to look at your car in this area the next time you have the car on a lift/jack stands, or happen to have a front wheel off. You will be able to clearly see the outlet of the ductwork at the front of the wheel well. Further, you can easily see the proximity and alignment of this duct outlet to the lower control arm. If the objective was to cool the lower control arm, they’re doing a damn good job of it! Like holding your open hand out of the car window, we think it is VERY easy to envision the affectivity of a deflector on this lower arm to direct airflow to the rotor. Hardly snake oil... is the deflector intuitively obvious or not?

As to why Ford did not elect to “complete” this routing? I don’t know. But saying that Ford OEM knows best and always makes the best trade-offs….. tell that to the 2016 Tech Pack owners who have attempted to track their cars.

I cant really argue except to say that I'm smart enough to know that there could easily be more to it than how it looks. Maybe the rotor design draws in a steady amount of cool air based on wind tunnel testing? Maybe directing air with this device, OEM or not, actually causes some kind of turbulence that reduces efficiency? I don't know but this is the type of thing that would be cool to see tested on track. If you can show lower rotor temps after installing these, on the same track, on the same day, then that's great...but even then, without anyone complaining of brake fade, it seems like this could be a solution to a problem that doesn't exist - even though, logically, the concept sounds great.

 

[Voodooo]

I too have seen my fair share of snake oil products and it is absolutely mind boggling to see how unsuspecting folks can eat this stuff up. I would venture to say that the VAST majority of cold-air-intake kits, as an example, are just complete garbage. Exacerbating this problem is that fact that 90% of the claims are supposedly "proven" with dyno results - very laughable as dyno runs are typically conducted with the hood wide open and all kinds of external fans blazing. So how are we replicating air induction in real world driving??

Another pet peeve for me (I'm getting old and grumpy) is a well-known company with a Japanese sounding name but really just a cheap Chinese parts importer. They develop an oil cooler for one of the Mustang models and replace the OEM oil-to-water cooler with their oil-to-air cooler. Then they "prove" the superiority of their cooler by showing graphs of steady-state driving temps. The oil-to-water cooler (by design) keeps min oil temps right about at water (thermostat) temps (duh!), whereas the oil-to-air cooler has no such minimum constraint. So, they have the OEM graph at ~190F and then they show their steady state oil temps in another graph at 140-150F and they point at how much better their oil cooler is. (There are just so many things wrong with the comparison!) But, owners read this BS and then want to be the first in-line to buy this better-than-OEM oil cooler! Simply un-real!



I agree with this as well - please don't put us in one of these categories without knowing us. We have seen many sales of our brake deflector kit and we will be shipping these before the end of the week– so why don’t we ask these adopters about OUR fitment before we get thrown under the bus?

We have been building/maintaining race cars for quite some time now. We came into the "street car" world with our work on Ford GTs. We are very well known in this community and we have worked on/modified more than 150 unique Ford GT's since 2006. In 2012, we built-up 3 Boss 302 Laguna Seca's to be dedicated track cars. As part of this, we built a killer oil cooler kit that we still offer today. But coming back to this thread subject - for these track cars we used brake ducting right to the rotor (not that difficult considering Ford offered a kit!) Each of our road racing cars has ducting directly to the rotors. Ducting is a PITA and a liability for the OEM for street cars. Fundamentally, the physical ducting needs to twist and turn with the rotor (steering wheel) and typically requires more inspection and maintenance which is par for the course with a track car.... not so much for a street car.

However, more recently, OEMs are getting a lot smarter and they are now managing air flow with ducts and deflectors to get the air onto the rotors... this approach in place of yesteryear's physical ducting. You see it across all car brands producing legitimate performance cars. I showed you a couple of examples. Mustang GT with the PP option. 2016-2017 Focus RS. I've seen many more - C7 Corvette, Ferrari 458, etc. There are many, many more.

Starving off brake fade (fluid boiling) is one of the most compelling reasons for effective brake ducting. But also, lower temps allow for improved pad life - as well as longer life for boots and seals. By track car standards, there should be little doubt that the GT350/R is one helluva heavy car. Regardless of rotor and caliper size (both are considerable in the GT350), we cannot escape physics and there is a TREMENDOUS amount of heat generated to slow this large mass down.

As I referenced in a previous post, we simply invite you to look at your car in this area the next time you have the car on a lift/jack stands, or happen to have a front wheel off. You will be able to clearly see the outlet of the ductwork at the front of the wheel well. Further, you can easily see the proximity and alignment of this duct outlet to the lower control arm. If the objective was to cool the lower control arm, they’re doing a damn good job of it! Like holding your open hand out of the car window, we think it is VERY easy to envision the affectivity of a deflector on this lower arm to direct airflow to the rotor. Hardly snake oil... is the deflector intuitively obvious or not?

As to why Ford did not elect to “complete” this routing? I don’t know. But saying that Ford OEM knows best and always makes the best trade-offs….. tell that to the 2016 Tech Pack owners who have attempted to track their cars.

My apologies, I didn't mean my comment towards you. I never purchased from you before. I'm speaking towards the other brands I've purchased from before. Sorry for the confusion.

 

[CoolTech]

Voodooo/others,

No harm no foul! On one hand, I'm really awkwardly happy with the little bit of push-back as I would like to see a LOT more of these challenges on products. As I said before, the genesis of this offering was born out of our surprise to learn that this part hadn't been inadvertently been left off of his R!!

Many of you have already done brake mods - from titanium shims to aftermarket, more track-oriented pads. Even these mods often require a leap of faith. Each of us has a "reasonability" barometer that hopefully keeps us from making really dumb decisions. It's one thing if we were advocating true snake oil - "just add 3 drops after each oil change and you will double your horsepower", but it's another to have your car up in the air - imagine a deflector on the lower control arm (each of you already has the built in mounts) and ask yourself if the deflector is going to direct a "shitload" (sorry for my scientific terms) more air on the rotor/caliper. If you think it will, maybe you will consider these. Alternatively, if it doesn't appear to you that it would make a difference - by all means, don't buy it!

I sincerely believe that if we were standing around together - looking at these cars and envisioning air flows... I think the difference is compelling - intuitively.

 

[Voodooo]

Voodooo/others,

No harm no foul! On one hand, I'm really awkwardly happy with the little bit of push-back as I would like to see this a LOT more of these challenges on products. As I said before, the genesis of this offering was born out of our surprise to learn that this part hadn't been inadvertently been left off of his R!!

Many of you have already done brake mods - from titanium shims to aftermarket, more track-oriented pads. Even these mods often require a leap of faith. Each of us has a "reasonability" barometer that hopefully keeps us from making really dumb decisions. It's one thing if we were advocating true snake oil - "just add 3 drops after each oil change and you will double your horsepower", but it's another to have your car up in the air - imagine a deflector on the lower control arm (each of you already has the built in mounts) and ask yourself if the deflector is going to direct a "shitload" (sorry for my scientific terms) more air on the rotor/caliper. If you think it will, maybe you will consider these. Alternatively, if it doesn't appear to you that it would make a difference - by all means, don't buy it!

I sincerely believe that if we were standing around together - looking at these cars and envisioning air flows... I think the difference is compelling - intuitively.

I agree with you that the control arm scoop will help direct air to the rotor. I also know that the engineers and bean counters do not do everything that allows top performance. Room is always left on the table. The GT350 is awesome and it's perfect from the factory. But for a higher degree, more can be done. Ford offered the best ever performing mustang at a great price!
Sure they could do more. But more of this and that = more $$$$

 

[xXANCHORMONXx]

There was a video on Netflix about making the S550

It talked about how a certain clip was a certain amount of money leading to a huge amount of money over the production cycle.

So what's a cheap part to us would be 100s of thousands to them

 

[Caballus]

A fundamental question is, "how good is good enough"? If Ford could have made braking "even better" with deflectors, would have mattered to the average consumer who tracks the vehicle? How about the driver who does not track the car? Who is the recommended consumer for the product, given the vehicle's current capabilities (which are notably high)?

 

[65sohc]

I too have seen my fair share of snake oil products and it is absolutely mind boggling to see how unsuspecting folks can eat this stuff up. I would venture to say that the VAST majority of cold-air-intake kits, as an example, are just complete garbage.

I'd like to address this briefly, only because you brought it up and not to start yet another CAI war. On my 2013 Boss I compared the stock CAI to the Steeda with respect to air flow restriction by measuring negative pressure in front of the throttle body using a water column manometer. At WOT stock was 26 inches of water. Steeda was 6 inches. This equates to .76 psi of negative boost, not an insignificant figure. Susequent back to back dyno runs showed a difference of 12 hp.

 

[Zitrosounds]

I cant really argue except to say that I'm smart enough to know that there could easily be more to it than how it looks. Maybe the rotor design draws in a steady amount of cool air based on wind tunnel testing? Maybe directing air with this device, OEM or not, actually causes some kind of turbulence that reduces efficiency? I don't know but this is the type of thing that would be cool to see tested on track. If you can show lower rotor temps after installing these, on the same track, on the same day, then that's great...but even then, without anyone complaining of brake fade, it seems like this could be a solution to a problem that doesn't exist - even though, logically, the concept sounds great.

our cars have directional vane rotors which draw in lots of the air from the duct. I am not saying that the deflector will not help but how much? This mod is relatively inexpensive and worth a try but I don't think it will really make that much of a difference.

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