I searched, and searched, and searched some more...came up empty. I must really suck at searching, as I can't believe this hasn't come up already.

Does popping out the plastic plates in the psuedo-vents in the hood of my '93 Z actually have any benefit? I'm not intending or expecting it to be any kind of ram air effect (the convulted intake tract that would have to be fabbed to pull air from there would kill any ram effect anyways), but rather I'm just thinking of a way to vent some heat from the engine.

I could very easily just yank the plastic bits out, but would prefer not to find out the hardway that I completely screwed up the air flow making for a light front end at speed, or end up making the car run hotter.

 

Nope, it won't benefit you. Once you pop one off, you will basically notice that there are some very small notches in which the plastic pieces fit into. The holes are so small they won't offer any significant air transfer and cooling.

 

yeah...you'd probably see more benefit from making sure your cooling system was working 110%

not to mention...when viewed from the front...it looks like *** to have the vents out

 

You're looking for some kind of heat extractor. Firehawks have them.