Real hood vents for 63 vette
 

I am building a 1963 corvette retro rod using a 05 LS6, frame by Street Shop in Alabama,using 1996 corvette suspension, mustang rack & pinion & coil overs shocks. The question is I am plumbing the intake to where the fake hood vents are located, I want to make vents like the first working design that they dropped, I think because of heat comming into the cabin or I read in a corvette book that Dontov complained about trash coming into the engine compartment in that book I had a picture of them and I cannot find it. If there is anyone out there that has a picture of these vents or tell me were I can locate one I would greatly appreciate it.

I've never seen any, and in the early days of Bloomington, a lot of prototype stuff used to appear, if for no reason than to show it off.

I imagine they were simply open grills that allowed the under hood air to flow out into the naturally low pressure area of the hood. I doubt they went to the trouble of making ducts that went down to the radiator.

That is something much more advanced than the time period.

If I understand what you want to do correctly, you want to make the fake hood vents functional as a cold air intake setup. When designing the air intake for our 63 I had thought about doing the same thing as one approach. We would have needed to address the method of sealing to the underside of the hood, providing clearance for any accessory components and especially how to keep water out which I'm sure you've considered. In the end I decided to bring the air in from underneath which was involved but has worked out well.

I don't recall seeing the early Corvette designs you mentioned but there have been many "ram-air" type intake systems used in the 60's. I have seen other builders plumb the air intake through each side of the radiator through the radiator support as another approach to cold air.

One of the things which makes these projects fun and the cars interesting is the unique approach people take to achieve what they want. Best of luck in designing your system.

Rich

I don't remember ever seeing it done but is sure is a good idea.

If it was me I'd draw what you want first.Get some good measurement and then possibly use card board or chicken wire to get a basic design the use to line up the intake with the hood.

It will take a lot of fabricating but well worth it.

With my 62 I fabricated a cold air shaker hood scoop from a TA scoop and molded flames into it. Truly functional,cold in when driving and hot air exits when idling.Originally I was going to make it rear facing but was concerned about heat coming in the cowl vent.

Go for it!

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d1...te/Ranken2.jpg

I feed cold air to the carb from the high pressure area in front of the top of the rad and A-C condenser - through the underside of the hood stinger. That gets cold air from the same place as later Corvettes.

I was looking on Hemmings to see what the underside of the hood looked like on a 63 and found this 63. I doesn't have functional hood scoop but does have a LS7 engine and executed to the max.

http://www.hemmings.com/classifieds/...e/1328440.html

The fake vent surface you speak of is not idea for air inlet, as it is a low pressure area of the hood. That may be why it was never used for that purpose on these cars. A better place is the rear of the hood, at the base of the windshield, where the pressure is high.

You could also plumb it from the same hole used to feed air to L84 cars, as that hole was designed for that purpose.

I thought of that and I have an L84 I am in the process of restoring it.
I am a retired tool maker by trade and I built the radiator support out of aluminum an had the radiator custom made and it is longer than stock so I don't have enough room between the radiator and the fender well. These vents were not used as intake as I remember in the article I really don't know why maybe pure aesthetics. Thanks again OG

The 63 does not have air vents in front of the doors and the radiator cannot pass enough air at high speed to keep up with engine demands, so the vents would have made sense for cooling purposes. The GranSport cars used hood vents for cooling.

All five of them also had the fender vents opened up. :thumbs:

real 63 hood vents
 

I thought about this and made some inquiries, with the idea of reducing frontend lift at high speed on a road course. The response was the vents were not made functional since they actually vented "stuff" out and rearward towards and onto the windshield. Reduced visibilty and excessive cleaning were not what the consumer would endure !

C Ya, Joseph Rock
Frankenstein 59 & Grand Sport proto

The change from the Nassau hood with twin, forward facing openings (as in my avatar), to the Sebring hood, with four vertical openings (visible in John's picture) was made so the hoods would stay on the Grand Sports at speed.

The Nassau hood was an aerodynamic disaster; it developed tremendous lift and tried to tear itself off the car.

Jim

Those vents were functional on the original Sting Ray racer from the 50`s.
They were there trying to reduce high speed front end lift because of high pressure air trapped underhood. On the 63 they ended up as "dummies" to look like those on the old racer.
And, as mentioned earlier, it might not be a good idea to have the intake air from a low pressure area.

I would say your right but I am not cutting out the panel below it other than a 3''-31/2'' hole for my intake the vents were leaning to the rear of the car in the pictures that I had, I could face them to the front that might make it work. The article that I had shown a 63 with these in it and it really looked good and I am trying to achieve that look I have already started building them and can put them either way.
Thanks for the info OG

I am not cutting the panel in the hood other than a 3'' 3 1/2'' hole in the hood your right they were facing the windshield I have already started building them and I am making them were they will be reversible I am not to concerned about cleaning them I am designing them were you can take a few bolts and take them out and pull them apart
Thanks for the Info OG

Hello.
I have just finished a 63 swc resto mod with QA1 coil overs on all 4 corners and 94 C4 suspension. After driving it for a few miles and going over rail road tracks, the coil overs on the rear sucked. So, I changed the rear coil overs to the Mono Leaf Spring and put the original half shaft back in, and now it rides a lot better. Just my 2 cents. Let me know how yours do if you dont mind.
George :thumbs:

Those vents are the perfect place to vent a forward leaning radiator to help remove hot air. But on the stock '63 Corvette with the rear leaning radiator, you can only open the rear half of the fake vent or you will reduce cooling instead of improving cooling. This is because the front half will let air bypass the radiator. I hope you know this hood is worth $1000 - $1500 and if you cut it, you have screwed up the value.

As to providing fresh air for the carb, this will only work if you have the car sitting still. If it is moving, and you use a sealed intake duct to the carb, you will disrupt airflow and create issues as it will reduce air pressure on the carb.

http://i40.tinypic.com/i1w7er.jpg

Notice the vents are in a low pressure zone. At speed, you can have as much as a half pound per square inch reduction in pressure. Given you have a need for about 500 cfm of air flow, you need something like a 15 sq. in. opening. Numbers are a bit fuzzy as I did this about 25 years ago and don't remember them exactly.

http://i41.tinypic.com/2cerspx.jpg

The interesting thing in this is how these support a conversation I had with Phil Currin once about how his 1963 IMSA car would lift the rear so much he would lose traction on the rear wheels at the speedways like Daytona and Talladega. See all that low pressure area over the roof, back light, and rear deck?


Bottom line, if you want fresh air to the carb, and maybe a slight ram air effect, either run ducting from the front of the car through (or over) the radiator support or use an air chamber under a stinger hood scope with an opening to the rear near the windshield. You can also cut into the fresh air plenum under the wiper grills to duct air to a sealed air cleaner. This was common on SCCA Camaros.

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/atta...ll5amelia.jpeg

From the air flow pressure diagrams, they probably would have gotten as good of rear brake cooling by simply facing the ducts backwards and drawing air out from the brakes as trying to force it in.

It also explains why they had rear end cooling issues even with the rear oil coolers under the backlight. There is not nearly the air flow along the surface at that point as they thought.

Since they had these air flow studies done long before this version of the Grand Sports ever made the track, I am surprised they didn't realize that.