,
The thing on the left is the factory water to oil, oil cooler. This is a large and effective unit but it does put a lot of heat into the coolant.
Normally the water flow from the unit is directed back to the radiator where the heat is dissipated along with all of the other heat from the engine block and heads. Now the hot water from the engine oil is sent into the axillary radiator/heat exchanger to be cooled before it is sent to the main radiator. This effectively takes the thermal load from the oil cooler out of the system.
Now Howard reinstalled the lower belly pan but we decided to do one more trick to help keep things cool under hard use.
We had heard about a hack to prevent power steering motor from overheating–something that could happen on the track. The mod involves chopping up a brake duct for the C6 Corvette and routing it through one of the lower panels underneath the car.
The duct can then scoop up air from under the car and divert it to the power steering assist motor on the rack.
Here is the C6 brake duct as we got it from the dealer. The Chevrolet part number is 15842373.
First, we cut off an unneeded mounting tab from the duct.
Next, we cut off some excess length from the back side of the duct.
