BUILD-OFF CHALLENGE: Tygaboy's '75 LS3, It seemed a good idea at the time... Options

[tygaboy]

Oh! The carnage! But I am happy with the detail I can get with the plasma. There is a bit of minor clean up to do on the underside of some cuts but overall, it's pretty nice.

[tygaboy]

And the latest, starting with the cut but not yet bent panel.

The plan is that the headlight eyebrows, covers and the vents will be painted black so it'll look different from this, for sure.

Time to sit and look at it.

[Retroracer]

60 degree angle = approved. Just the slightly redundant triangular hole top left needs attention?

- Tony

[914forme]

@Retroracer Tony the design is nice. Chris I would play with the vane angles a bit, and it will allow you to fill the gaps a bit while still pulling the air out. That will keep it from looking like a grate for my grill. Or a trash receptacle at a cars and coffee.

More angle is not better, need design ideas these are proven in SCCA and NASA. Reduce your angle of attack.

Track Spec Motorsports

[horizontally-opposed]

Liking the evolution of this—looks more "complete" and "factory" with the recent tweaks. Rand was spot on, looks like. And I remain blown away by your ingenuity, Chris!

Agree that the little triangle needs to be addressed somehow. Not sure how, though...

[Cairo94507]

I agree with Pete & Tony on the little triangle. Other than that, I think you have a design you can now move to the next step on. To get the whole feel we really need to see the hood with two vents installed as well as headlights and eye brows. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/beerchug.gif)

[tygaboy]

Yeah, I wasn't sure about that corner triangle either. But it was on the last design and I was more focused on the new angles, more vents and new bendy approach. So...

The issue for me is that seems like too big an area to just leave plain. Here it is with nothing and on the right, with a little bit of a treatment to lessen the visual weight of the plain corner.

I spoke with Tony @Retroracer and we agreed that this right hand version would be a good next attempt.

Tony reminded me that my yarn test showed the majority of the airflow is at the rear of the vent so opening up that area makes sense. And from a design perspective, if anyone were to notice, the solid area is now a dimensional match to the other corners.

I think before I build another version, I'll paint the headlight eyebrow, cover and current vent black and see how that changes the overall look.

Onward.

[djway]

The mesh under the triangle may make the triangle less noticeable.
I still think 8 is great;)

[bbrock]

@Retroracer Tony the design is nice. Chris I would play with the vane angles a bit, and it will allow you to fill the gaps a bit while still pulling the air out. That will keep it from looking like a grate for my grill. Or a trash receptacle at a cars and coffee.

More angle is not better, need design ideas these are proven in SCCA and NASA. Reduce your angle of attack.

Track Spec Motorsports

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/agree.gif) I can't help but think those steep angles will create unnecessary turbulence. My gut says less angle will not only look better, but also work better. I also vote for losing the triangle. I think it looks better without.

And I'm still jealous of your plasma table.

[Rand]

We established the top angle. Can the vents match the angle? Don't go crazy with curves on each, just match the curve of the average. Some of the previous angles seemed polar opposite of the direction I was thinking. Vent angles matched to top angle (almost mirror reversed if you can visualize what my words mean... flow flow, same directions flow, vent angles MATCH the curve instead of oppose)...
Oof, bro, you are getting input overload. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[altitude411]

[Rand]

We established the top angle. Can the vents match the angle? Don't go crazy with curves on each, just match the curve of the average. Some of the previous angles seemed polar opposite of the direction I was thinking. Vent angles matched to top angle (almost mirror reversed if you can visualize what my words mean... flow flow, same directions flow, vent angles MATCH the curve instead of oppose)...
Oof, bro, you are getting input overload. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

This is not the design idea, but trying to show the opposite angle that compliments the curves of the hood and front of car.

[Rand]

Ugh, altitude sickness. Let's see if this horrible hack makes some sense... angles left to right... See the difference in angle flow??? Opposing vs. complimenting. Don't judge the edit, it's a quick and dirty to show angle differences. Chris would perfect it.

[Rand]

Sorry man, lol... You'll sort it.

[tygaboy]

When I heard the saying "Everyone's a critic", I thought it was a euphemism.

Turns out, it's closer to literal. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/poke.gif)

[AZBanks]

I think Rand is on the same general idea I had. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/screwy.gif)
The front vane should be parallel to the front edge. The last/back vane should be effectively parallel to the back edge. Each vane moving front to back should angle a little more to go front the front parallel to the back parallel.

Yes, everyone is a critic and we are all jealous of your skills. We live vicariously through you, don't let us down. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/beerchug.gif)

[horizontally-opposed]

This man does have a point. Or 29~ points, actually.

And yet I take a certain (perverse) pleasure in seeing that pile of vents on the floor of @tygaboy's shop in one of the photos above—as someone is trying something new, and something few of us outside of an actual styling studio can. I'd have bailed out a long time ago and just vented to the wheel wells, but as much as I'm a hot-rodder, I'm a bit of a purist when it comes to factory bodywork.

But it's just a hood. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Kinda like that was "just" a firewall. Rock on, Chris!

[sixnotfour]

2 cents for Free... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/beerchug.gif) Lines Lines , everywhere there's Lines

[tygaboy]

Since I have nothing better to do (!) and am always interested in trying new stuff, I figured "OK, lets' see what the @azbanks and @Rand idea might look like. Rand's big red letter "WRONG" aside..." (IMG:style_emoticons/default/shades.gif)

The original straight version on the right, the new one on the left.

So, this new one takes the difference in length of the vertical sides and divides that by seven. Starting with the bottom vane, the distance between its "long side" bend point and the same side bend point of the next vane grows by 1/7 the difference. That 1/7 is again added to the previous distance until all vanes are located.

That 2nd pic is a composite of the top edge from each vane (91.4" radius), showing the unique angle of each.

If you think the vanes' top edges should follow the frame's curve, they can't. If they did, once the vanes are bent into position, the upper edge corners would sit higher than the middle, as was pointed out to me by @dr.tim , back on post #2403.

Anyway, there you go. I'm out of material so it'll be a couple days before I cut anything else.

And I'm with @Cairo94507 Michael, I need to get the vents set on both sides and start looking at a more complete front end view.

[tygaboy]

Here's the composite of the vane top edges.