I have read a few threads about this already. I have the steel behind the vents on the nose cut out. I was wondering however how much air goes through there though. So I'm deciding to take it one step further and build a homemade anemometer to measure the wind speed at two locations. Right behind the louvers under the hood and after that I will build a box that will feed past the radiator support and measure wind speed there as well. This is wind speed and not airflow. I assume that you can figure airflow from the wind speed numbers. Probably have this project done within the week and I will post results. This way it will solve the question if we can use our hood louvers for cold air or better yet ram air. Should work for carb tbi and tpi all the same too.

 

I've often wondered that myself!

 

Been waiting for a thread like this! I appreciate it a lot. Been thinking of making a custom ram air setup out of it if worth it. Results appreciated!!

 

Did some setting up today. made my anemometer using a dc motor and a tail rotor both from an rc helicopter laying around and attached that to my fluke 77IV. Drove around in my wives car while she holding the "fan" out the window she wrote down the voltages the motor read at 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50 mph. So know I will know how fast the air is moving up to 50 mph under the hood. Also made some homemade playdoe (should work to use as a mold once it dries). pics of anemometer and graph indicating speed and voltage.

 

I agree... there's like some 'fact' in myths right... there's some reason we have decorative louvers on the hood of our cars... and not just for looks. At some point in car history. (probably not ours) hood louvers had a purpose. It would be great if they had functionality too.

 

I think today with the wives permission I will mock up a air box out of cardboard and test drive it to see what kind of airflow I get. Researching ramair I doubt it will have that affect since you have to be going 360 some odd miles an hour for it to be effective. But hey cold air induction would be cool to yes.

Update. After constructing a simple air scoop out of cardboard and temporarily installing it and anemometer underhood I got 0 volts on the multimeter. That could mean two things. Either A: I'm getting no air flow at all or B: there is less then 10 miles an hour of air flow going through. Going to Construct a little more complex air scoop and retry. Also might modify the louvers possibly take out the screen and lightly heat and bend up the louvers themselves the catch the air a bit more. To be continued same bird time same bird channel.

 

subed

 

Sorry to be skeptical, unless I'm missing something I can't see it working for 2 reasons:

1. The louvres are in front of the radiator. The area behind the louvres where you would cut out, exits straight into the front of the rad support, in a kind of interlocking structure. You would have to drop the rad and rad support down a few inches to let the air past.

2. The louvres are nearly flat-on to the direction of travel, and present nearly zero cross-section to the wind. So very little airflow even if it could get past the rad.

 

On the contrary Treefiddy. There is a gap between the hood and the radiator support. This was the first thing I checked. It's about an inch and if you cut the hood at the right spot its a straight shot into the engine bay. Yes you are right about the vents being flat-on with the wind. This can be solved by slightly bending the louvers up to catch some of that wind. I have dropped the ramair effect since that will not be achievable. I don't ever plan on driving in excess of 300 mph (the speed at which ramair actually takes effect). However, a cold air system would be nice. For that you need much less air. My next test will be simply removing the plastic screen from under the vents and trying again. Bending the louvers will be the last thing I do and only a little bit at a time. Trying to keep as much of a stock look as I can. Would be nice if I had a wind tunnel and some smoke. Or a couple of Ramfans.

 

Fair enough. Ram air sounded like a bit of a stretch, but if there's an inch of clearance above the rad support, cai should be plumb-able. For that, the natural air speed through the louvres would be irrelevant.

Actually come to think of it I've seen pics - a version of the tpi intake tract that humped over the rad support just like that (attached). You just want to turn it up, rather than down. Maybe that's what GM was intending, but dropped for some reason.

 

essentially yes that is what I am trying to do. Just removed the screens from the vents and nothing broke. I ended up using a pair of percision needle nose pliers to get the speed nuts off and back on. Sadly my little anemometer broke. need to resolder one of the leads on the motor and see if removing the screen increased airflow or not. If not the next step will be to slightly bend the louvers upwards into a little more of the airstream.