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Where’s the radiator? It’s in the trunk of course. A big scoop in place of each rear window draws air to the radiator. Cars with the engine mounted up front and transverse tend to have a front heavy weight distribution, so mounting the radiator in the rear helps even out the balance. Plus, it frees up space in the engine bay for a bigger turbo setup and doing things like angling the intercooler.
Looking through the passenger side rear window, you can see some Peterson Fluid Systems components connected by Earl’s lines and fittings. Rally cars spend a lot of time at high G loads and the occasional air time, so it’s important to have a good oil system to ensure the engine is well fed. A fuel cell is mounted where the rear seat used to be which should be a pretty safe place for protection during typical rally car crashes or impacts.
Looking through the driver’s side scoop again, I think that’s a fuel surge tank in front of the fuel cell. Because fuel starvation sucks like oil starvation does.
Yup, the rear wing is big like Texas. Those wing supports mount down straight to the chassis because a typical trunk would break under the downforce. In this case, there’s not even much of a trunk as the air coming off the radiator is dumped out the rear.
I would say the rear diffuser is solidly mounted to make sure it doesn’t break off. Looking up front a bit, you can see a Whiteline rear sway bar is used. As with the intercooler fan shroud, the radiator fan shroud is placed far off the surface of the radiator. I’d guesstimate around four inches in this case.
No Guts, No Gain! Those tires? 300 wide and mounted on Forgestar wheels similar to the wheels on Mike Essa’s drift car. Texas Dave is happy about having the Circuit Of The Americas (COTA) built in Austin as it gives him a good supply of used race tires and is less than a half hour from his own facility.
