Opening Hood Scoops=Better Cooling?

[pschlosser]

This is not only an old thread, but an old topic dating back to the 1970s. For those without shaker hoods, fresh air doors, or an air grabber hood, this has been an oft-discussed topic of discussion over beer and oil changes.

A few have done the deed and cut their hoods. And in every case I can recall where someone actually did this, they discovered there was little passive air flow through those vents.

In this thread, this was discussed among the posts, the openings are not ideally placed to actually direct air into the engine bay. And this is no surprise, because the hood wasn't designed to be cut up to do this, it was designed for looks. The Mopar engineers were a sharp and competitive bunch. If it was their intent to provide passive cooling, the hood may have been designed a different way.

That said, I recall one guy who made an air box of fiberglass (similar to the 1969 road runner) that fitted to the carburetor and allowed the carb to pull fresh air through the rally hood openings. It was a bunch of work, and he said he couldn't really tell if there was a performance gain.

And for all the work it takes to build something from scratch, to mimic the shaker hood, most opt to just... go with a shaker hood and not reinvent the wheel.

But then, oil changes would be a boring chore.

 

[Ricks72Chlgr440]

This is not only an old thread, but an old topic dating back to the 1970s. For those without shaker hoods, fresh air doors, or an air grabber hood, this has been an oft-discussed topic of discussion over beer and oil changes.

A few have done the deed and cut their hoods. And in every case I can recall where someone actually did this, they discovered there was little passive air flow through those vents.

In this thread, this was discussed among the posts, the openings are not ideally placed to actually direct air into the engine bay. And this is no surprise, because the hood wasn't designed to be cut up to do this, it was designed for looks. The Mopar engineers were a sharp and competitive bunch. If it was their intent to provide passive cooling, the hood may have been designed a different way.

That said, I recall one guy who made an air box of fiberglass (similar to the 1969 road runner) that fitted to the carburetor and allowed the carb to pull fresh air through the rally hood openings. It was a bunch of work, and he said he couldn't really tell if there was a performance gain.

And for all the work it takes to build something from scratch, to mimic the shaker hood, most opt to just... go with a shaker hood and not reinvent the wheel.

But then, oil changes would be a boring chore.

I agree, and was initially looking at whether removing those blocking plates would help exhaust engine heat while sitting in traffic. The consensus is that it does not.