Red,


Sorry this is in the 5th gen section, the only place I could find him..
wonder if you could clear something up..my buddy and I were looking at our hoods on our 94 and 97 Z28's. I have done some looking but could not find anything about the heat extractor vents on the top of the hood. In your knowledge were they ever thought of being functional? or any diffrent take on them trying to be? Im not just talking about for ram air use. but cooling or something.

anyone else figure this out? try anything? any info?

Ill post in the apperance section but wanted to see what RP had to say since he would be the one who knew

 

iirc, they were supposed to resemble the hood flutes on the 1st gen camaros
now as to if they were ever thought to be functional, i don't know

 

I believe they were neve functional. AFAIK they always had the plastic covers on them.

 

I know thats why I wanted to ask Red..since he might know something diffrent

 

Those "heat extractors" on the hood were supposed to be functional. But during hot weather testing in Arizona, the heat extractors actually increased under hood temps...so on the production cars were merely ornamental.

BTW, the hood vents toward the front of the Firebird were supposed to be functional too ....but there was some miscommunication between design and engineering...and the vents sat right over some structural components, precluding them from being functional.....so they were blocked off too.

 

Issues with water ingestion........

 

with what Z284ever and Red said I guess this is whats what..

The only reason I ask this is I was thinking of something that would cool down the headers or manifolds..but if it increasses heat..its not worth doing. I wanted to cut a hole in it, put some wire mesh and then some foam to maki it still vent heat but keep water out.

 

well, wouldn't they have found a way to deal with the water ingestion? they did it with the ss hoods so i think it could be dealt with

also, any clue as to why it would raise heat temps?

 

Hey RP, no problems like this on our new 07/08 Camaro I bet!!

 

Sorry to hijack, but...............

How exactly do they handle the water issue with the ram air type hood on the SS. I was thinking of doing a setup like that on my S10 pickup, but wasn't sure how to keep rainwater from getting to the intake at speed.

Any thoughts?

bburn

 

i believe it's called a baffle
i would take a look through a junkyard for a ss (might be hard to find) and look at it's intake setup, or just get a buddy who has one and check it out

that makes me wonder though...couldn't they have just put baffles in the two scoops? unless it took the function away, i would see no problem with it

 

Never had an SS or a Ram Air, but to chime in on the underhood temp thing...I had a 280ZX once, and it had extractors on either side of the hood. I don't know how much cooler it kept the engine bay during operation, but I know for a FACT that the engine cooled off quicker once it was turned off..you could just feel the heat pouring out of the vents..I always liked that function. I believe the later 3rd gen T/A's had extractors on the sides of their hoods as well. But in both cases, the vents were on the sides of the hood, very near the edge on the T/A, but closer in on the 280, but then again, it was a straight six, so it wasn't dumping rainwater on the engine from that position.

As far as the point made about increasing engine temps in hot weather testing, I just don't see how that can be the case. Even the hottest day in AZ couldn't match the, what, 150-200 degree underhood air? I just can't believe that it created hotter temps. May not have helped much if it was 120 outside, but I can't see it becoming worse by having a vent to let out the hot air.

 

You'll note on an SS hood that the air is redirected from the scoop 180 degrees.....also has several drain holes and a baffle.

Water ingestion is a problem and the validation tests are truly something to behold.......

One test was to blow snow into the face of the car for an extended period of time at highway speeds.......

Another was to blow water at high velocity into the face of the car for extended periods of time.

As anyone with a 'phantom' water leak in a car/truck/even house can attest.....it ain't easy to keep water out!

 

I think that the problem would be that the scoops create extra air pressure under the hood at speed, and the pressure is great enough such that it reduces the flow of air through the radiator.

On the note of the validation testing, that is something that I would love to see (or any of the durability tests for that matter).

 

Interesting thread. I always figured that the vents were intended as a styling element from the beginning.


Speaking of rain and f-bodies...

Two years ago I was caught in a flash flood while driving my WS6. I came to this one intersection that alot of cars were getting stuck on, but the T/A made it through. I'm pretty sure that if it hadn't been for the Ram Air hood I would have stalled. Luckily my optispark made it through unscathed too.