looking at purchasing a ram air hood2 for my bird..... is the air box worth the extra $$$ (anything gotta be better than that stock crap thats there lol) and who's putting out the best hood? r they all the same?

 

I've had 2 Ram Air 2 hoods, one from ASCD and one from Ram Air hoods.com.
Both fit about the same and had the same build quality. The ASCD one has rectangular holes with mesh vents on the back of the cowl portion while the RA hoods one only has some round holes.

We had the airbox on the RA2 hood and I couldn't tell you if there was a difference since we had no base to compare. We did an LT1 swap and used the stock LT1 elbow with a huge K&N Cone filter for a few days till the hood and airbox came in.

If you can afford it, get the RA box and filter, it's not really ram air since the box isn't sealed to the hood but it's a very good cold air setup.

I personally prefer the Ram Air 1 hood, which is what I have now on my 88 Formula.

 

now with the the ra 1 is it a functional hood? i mean could i hook up a air box with it?

 

I can't answer that yet, since I haven't tried yet and don't know if anyone else has. I do have the airbox but I may not have space between the box and the TB for the stock MAF. I was thinking of going speed density so I wouldn't have the maf, but that is a few months down the road.
I may bolt on the airbox and check for clearances today or tomorrow and just maybe the maf will fit.

 

"Ram air" is not functional as "ram air" at automotive speeds anyway, even on stock setups on fourth-gen T/A's and whatnot. The only gains you will see are because it's a decent cold-air setup. See my write-up here for more info.

So basically, you can live without it but it doesn't hurt. Just depends on if you want to spend the money on it. You aren't going to notice much difference, but who knows, you may see a tenth or two over stock ::shrug::

 

I just got a ram air 1 hood installed & Im not to happy with it.
Tere are a lot of fitment problems, when I open & close the hood it bends all over, & on the highway I can see the edges go up... like there is air going under the hood & lifting it. I know its atached good in the center because it wont move, but I guess is flexible enough so that the sides go up the faster you go.
The hoos is from ASCD, is this normal?

If I had to do it all over again Ill probably leave the stock hood because it was hard as hell to get the hood to fit right & Im still not a 100% happy with fitment, but then again maby I had bad luck with my hood or maby Im just to **** about my car.

As for the ram air system, I bought an air box from the ram air 2 & will soon trie to make it work. The only problem I see right now is that there might not be enough space in there so I might have to reshape the box.

 

my RA1 hood is ASCD and fits pretty good and does not show any signs of lifting at speed or bending when opening it.
I've been to 150mph in teh car.

 

Dude, I can see right away in your pic. a couple of places were its not fitting right. (Same places in my car) & I bet you that if I stand in front of it I could point some other corners to you. About the lifting at high speeds is not to noticeable, I would say like a 1/4 of an inch. but it still bothers me, Im not planing on going nowere close to 150mph so if you say youve done it I guess I should not worry about it at a 100mph

 

im reading alot of problems with after market hoods. i have a power bulge now, im having a hard making the step to ra 1 or 2....im confused. hey zepher u have a pic of your ra 1 painted? my bird is the same color as yours

 

Well, I haven't adjusted that hood yet. I picked it up at Hawks Thirdgen from LT1_Guy back in 2003, we took the RA2 off, put the RA1 on and that was that.

my hood is still white haven't felt like getting it painted yet since I plan on getting the entire car done, probably in 2 tone, bottom part of the car red, upper part (above the windows) black

 

So you think that the hood can be made to fit perfect? should I go to a bodyshop place? I had to mess with it for a long time & eaven scratched one fender. It looks ok, I mean you cant tell to mush that is not 100% perfect, but for a fact it dosnt fit like the stock one, at least mine dosnt. but maby because Im not a bodyman.

 

It took hours and hours of work to get mine to fit right. I have the ramairhood.com ram air II. heres a pic

 

that is the straightest RA II hood I have ever seen. well done. :hail:

 

Holy jebus, one that is fitted to the car right! :hail:

In all the ra1/ra2 hoods that I have seen, this is the FIRST one that is fitted to the car right. Nice work!

 

yeah wacky that hood looks great! hey ES87iroc do you have a cardomain page or a website where I could see more pics of your beautiful car? :hail:

 

that dose look good...i dont think my original power bulge fits as good so that lol

 

Thanks! I need to get off my butt and put one of those cardomain pages together one of these days. I have a few pics in reader's rides but they are a couple years old...

 

mine fit good with no work . i'm not sure who's hood it is . when i bought the car the guy had already ordered it and included it in the deal.
mike

 

68-69 firebird hood scoops

 

gumby
do u have a better pic of your hood?

 

They are hard to see at any angle being all black. I use to have silver stripes that made them stand out. How about a primer pic. hood is open but you can see them clearly.

They are functional and mounted as far forward as possible. right at the apex of the hood. so they face front.

 

I know mine isnt on a bird, but it came from fbodymotorsports.com and IMO it was overpriced, overrated and overly-a-pain-in-the-*** to correct. It bolted on straight and didnt have to be adjusted but that hood was so damn wavy it needed alot of work to get it the way it is now....not sure who they get the hood from but I wouldnt recommend them anyways

 

I have never liked the r/a on any 3rd gen ..but wackys is badass!..Im so-o-o-o jealous..you just changed my mind about the r/a hood.

 

wacky that hood fit is awesome . It looks great .

 

Well, it looks like you sure made it work out! I usually don't like the RAII hoods on much anything besides an 98-02 firebird, (paritially due to horrendous fit issues / partially due to the style not flowing with the car it's on) but there are some great fitting hoods in this thread!

 

Thanks for all the nice words about my car!! When I say hours I mean like 80 to 100 hours of work. The hood does move a little in direct sunlight after a little while in the headlight area, but it is fiberglass and fiberglass will flex a little in different temps.

 

I recently had the problem of my RA1 not fitting right nobody has noticed it yet but I will have to live with it. I would have done it over again thought even with the slight imperfections. I had a powerbulge on it before the bulge broke the hood from the power of me ramming some Mazda Millenia that appeared out of thin air

 

thats y im not sure on intalling a ra 1 or 2.....i would hate it not fitting right

btw.....those are all nice hoods:rockon:

 

Hey Wacky i just noticed that went with a first gen 400 block and matched it up to a (looks like a super ram)...Did you have any troubles with matching the intake to the block?

 

The RA 1 n 2 hood hood are "cool" looking but they are a tad obscene in my book.

When in reality they don't even use the entire scoop. Just the first what 6-8 inches. It looks Hugh, but only a small portion is functional.. Also they cost a pretty penny and everyone has fitments problems.

Mine cost $60 for year one, a couple hrs work and some bondo.

And the improvements are fabulous. I can keep my car well below 200F mark and I stay in that warm but not hot, good response range. When before the car got sluggish when 200f+ hot. Danger hot is not till like 260 for me. most run 220+ all the time.

 

Its a chevy 400 not a pontiac 400.( I think thats what your asking.) If not I had no problems. No vortec heads or anything.

 

 

No wasnt asking that..Im building a chevy 406 "509" series :hail:

And was curious how the SR is dealing with the big breathing 400 block.Got any dyno #'s?/1/4 times

If you dont mind me asking ..What heads..cam and headers did you go with?

 

I bought a scoop and done my own ram air hood.

 

Dude! Those line are TIGHT! It shows that if you put enough time in to some thing, it will work.

 

my hood is from hawks, and mine too took many of hours to get it lined up with the body. My biggest problem area was with the front nose between the headlights, actually raised it up almost a 1/4 of an inch along with the headlights. Ended up turning out pretty good though, still could use a little tweaking though.

 

long over due reply, but here is the car painted,

 

And the hood still doesn't fit right.

Not that mine's any better. My Harwood has an absolutely TERRIBLE fit, though I've seen enough that do fit well to know that mine seems to be the exception, not the norm.

 

Its rare to find ANY glass hood that fits right. First of all our cars flimsy *** construction makes the body bend and shift over time, making even steel replacement hoods hard to sometimes fit perfectly. Secondly it's just the nature of the beast with 'glass hoods.

If you don't want to hassle with trying to get an aftermarket hood to fit right, then don't swap your hood out.

 

i've never tried to adjust anything to make it fit better.
Looks like I just need to shim the front bumper cover upwards and adjust the headlamps. but as it sits now it doesn't bother me since it isn't a show car.

 

Here is a picture of my hood. I had the same problems as everyone else with fit issues and getting the waves out. They can be adjusted well if enough time is spent. I added a thick aluminum plate on the underside of the hood to beef up where the striker is. It was pretty flimsy without it and I really didn't trust just the thin fiberglass to hold the hood on at slightly over the legal posted speed limit and I really didn't want to use hood pins. He hard part of the adjustment is getting the nose, headlights, and hood to line up. Like someone said earlier I had to move the center part of the nose up about a quarter of an inch. I used an aftermarket nose so I'm sure that added to my problem. I also spent MANY hours adjusting the headlights to the hood and the hood to the nose. I got it really close but not perfect. Adjusting the latch had alot to do with where the hood ended up sitting both up and down and left to right. I ended up taking the rubber bumpers out of mine while I got he latch right. After that I screwed them in really low and put grease on the top of them to move them up to where they just touched the hood. It takes many hours to adjust everything and to get everything to line up. Hood, fenders, nose, headlights, hinges, everything had to me adjusted and moved on mine. Good luck! It isn't as easy as it looks but the results will be worth it if you take your time and keep playing with it.

Thanks, Martin

http://www.cardomain.com/ride/1181451/1