[lazylongboarder]

Well, i'm not sure about you guys and i agree whole-heartedly with the natural air and front mount radiators, but how is that the "ONLY" way to do things? How has Porsche with all of their new cars being mid engined and rear engined having the radiators side mounted gone wrong? What about Ferrari, koenigsegg, ford GT, saleen s7, Lambo, renault...?

My attempt on the watercooled beetle will be with a 400 hp (at least for the first time around) 2.0 liter EJ20TT (single turbo conversion), so the motor will produce plenty of heat.I'm not worried about having a side mounted setup. Both will be assisted with big *** fans and scoops like the gallardo, murcielago, and renault, but I don't think the radiator/intercooler will be starved for air a bit.

The only difference between the cars I listed above and our beetles is that the front fender is in the way of the rear quarter panels, with scoops and fans, an aluminum radiator will have no problem cooling a a naturally aspirated 13b. sandrails regularly use 13btt's with smallish aluminum rads' mounted with fans being their primary airflow and don't have problems if mounted properly.

As stated earlier its imperitive that the radiator gets air in AND out.

At a show here in utah I saw a VW TDI motor from a 99' jetta in a baja and he had the radiator mounted on the roof with a "shark fin" style scoop being the only air inle for it and used sheet metal to channel air out of the radiator behind the rear quarter windows...stupid, but he said it doesn't over heat.

Point is, front mount is a great solution, but not the only one. Check out the pics and all of these cars use side mount radiators and intercoolers, including the 605 hp Carrera GT, and 630 hp Enzo... so if you can dream it, do it.