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More Fresh Air in Foot well

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Richard Dickinson

Jedi Trainee
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Someone's probably done this before but I haven't seen it. It appears that there is room for a three inch duct to go under the four inch heater duct. This would run from behind the radiator deflector and behind the wing fastener post to the area where the blank covers the holes that were intended for the brake and master cylinders for right hand drive cars. A connecter and damper would have to be fabricated but any A/C any sheet metal shop could do this. Has anyone done this and how well did it work?
 
Richard,

I am not sure what you are looking for.

As previously mentioned in your other thread, a 4” bilge blower, with variable controller, can power the fresh air duct to air out the driver’s foot well. With the heater water turned off, your passenger and driver can benefit from fresh air introduced into the foot wells from the heater blower. But remember, it is not air conditioning and if its 90+ degrees ambient temperature, your foot wells will be no cooler, and possibly slightly hotter, as all this air is passing through the engine compartment before entering the cabin.

Fig%25208.jpg


One last point, the fresh air duct directs air to the back of the dash and a deflector must be installed to aim the air down into the foot well.

Fig%25206.jpg


The BJ8’s, of all the Healeys, provides the most restricted foot well space and will never have the volume of fresh moving air of most other cars (i.e. TR7, MGB, etc.) that have a much more open cockpit with large direct fresh air ducts. If you want cool, consider installing air conditioning as some have done.
Hope this helps,
Ray (64BJ8P1)
 
Richard,

The passenger side is fed by the heater blower. Fresh unheated air would be supplied via the heater blower when the water valve is turned of on the side of the engine. Replacing your present smiths blower with a more powerful unit would push a greater volume of fresh air into your passenger side. My reference to my bilge blower installation was to show how this type of unit could be fitted as a possible replacement for the smiths as well.

Ray (64BJ8P1)
 
When you drive across Arkansas and Texas on the Forth of July you need all the air you can get. The existing system distributes air to both sides through the heater plenum and is not very efficient. You get direct air on the drivers side so why not on the passenger's side?
 
Richard,

When I was rebuilding my V8 modified Healey, I ran 4" aluminum "dryer" ducts through the appropriate butterfly valves on each side of the radiator directly to the top of each footbox.

Image26.jpg


I had a pull-push knob on each side of the dash to control the airflow.

Dash.JPG


I reasoned that because the entire cockpit is a low pressure area, the fresh air would be sucked in and blown in by the high pressure behind the grille, so I did not install fans in the ducts.

My system woked moderately well, but NOT up to my expectations. Given the amount of work involved, I'm not sure that I would do it again.

I have since ditched those ducts and installed A/C with outlets blowing into the footwells.

From MY experience, without high CFM blowers to move the air, it would be a waste of time and money to even mess with it.

Tim
 
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