Stock Hood "Heat Extractors"

[NoRiceInside]

Don't know if this should be in one of the performance sections, but its for the hood...

Anyway I was reading somewhere about the grills in the stock 93-97 hoods and I read that some people have taken the whole thing out, cut away the junk behind the grill, then bought some MBA polished alumninum grills (which have holes in em) and made these grills functional. Is there any benefit at all? Such as under-hood heat reduction?

[NoRiceInside]

this is what i read:

http://www.mbaproducts.com/images/hood_inserts.jpg

"The factory service manuals refer to these as "heat extractors". Give them the functionality they deserve. If you wish to "cut away" the plastic on your stock hood, place these grill inserts on and give the engine bay "room to breathe"."

[Dan Vincent]

They're not really heat extractors. They don't actually work even if you do cut them out - on the Camaro, they're facing the wrong way, and on the Firebird, they're blocked by the k-member.

[00firebird]

how can they be 'heat extractors' if they dont work in the first place ;)

[98FBird]

closest thing GM had in the picture book to call them... LOL

[img]graemlins/naughty.gif[/img]

[NoRiceInside]

Originally posted by Dan Vincent:
They're not really heat extractors. They don't actually work even if you do cut them out - on the Camaro, they're facing the wrong way, and on the Firebird, they're blocked by the k-member.

k-member? you mean the headlight clip thingy? the k-member connects the front suspension. and if the firebirds grills were made functional they would be too far in front of the engine to extract heat. and my therory is that the cool air going into the engine compartment could displace the hot air in there. if thats what would happen then the firebirds grills are facing the wrong way ;)

[LwnGy83]

I have a 97 and I cut those grills out of mine. It really doesn't do a whole lot, but I figured why have them on there if they weren't gunna do something. They do let fresh air in the engine bay, but that's about it.

[Dan Vincent]

Originally posted by NoRiceInside:
k-member? you mean the headlight clip thingy? the k-member connects the front suspension. and if the firebirds grills were made functional they would be too far in front of the engine to extract heat. and my therory is that the cool air going into the engine compartment could displace the hot air in there. if thats what would happen then the firebirds grills are facing the wrong way ;)

The Camaro ones don't work for reasons of fluid dynamics. I read about it on a post on CZ28 - basically, the bay would actually run hotter since the wrong-way vents impede the regular heat flow of the engine compartment. And yes, I know the Firebird ones are positioned wrong too. Real heat extractors look like the ones on the Firehawk hood.

I meant to type crossmember there, as that's what the steel bar above the radiator is.

[F1GT]

Originally posted by Dan Vincent:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by NoRiceInside:
k-member? you mean the headlight clip thingy? the k-member connects the front suspension. and if the firebirds grills were made functional they would be too far in front of the engine to extract heat. and my therory is that the cool air going into the engine compartment could displace the hot air in there. if thats what would happen then the firebirds grills are facing the wrong way ;)

The Camaro ones don't work for reasons of fluid dynamics. I read about it on a post on CZ28 - basically, the bay would actually run hotter since the wrong-way vents impede the regular heat flow of the engine compartment. And yes, I know the Firebird ones are positioned wrong too. Real heat extractors look like the ones on the Firehawk hood.

I meant to type crossmember there, as that's what the steel bar above the radiator is. </font>[/QUOTE]Thats the upper tie bar. I thought u were talking about the fender initially. If it's in the frt its intaking.
All the extractors I've seen are at the end of the frt clip. The air coming in from the bottom usually, and exiting the rr area of the hood. The other purpose is for fast cars reaching high speeds to let the air out of the engine compartment. I read it in some magazine where they showed, I think it was a corvette, with the hood getting pushed up by all the underhood air.

['94firebirdv6]

yeah i also read that during initial testing, the vents actually caused higher engine temps.....go figure
so they were blocked off for that reason and id say that the GM engineers knew what they were doing so its not a good idea to replace the block off plates w/ mesh