@sixnotfour - I'll give that a go on the next version. Thanks!

@djway - Glad you're enjoying it. The most recent "horizontal" design uses more and there for less deep vent blades. Once I get an overall design I like, I can tweak to address the niggly things like interference. Thanks!

Loving this. If it moves enough air to cool well, it's a winner. Be careful, you'll have orders!

You need to decide if you want form or function - it is possible to have both but there is a reason I have never seen a race car with hood venting set outside. This tells us something, ehh?

You have the skills to execute something I have always wanted to do but have not - a chambered/funneled closure from the radiator through the hood.
Tony

@Cracker - Tony, so far, my car is "over-cooling" and not getting up to temp. Granted, I'm not on track but indications are that I have room to sacrifice some functional design for form. And you know me!

I'll be reporting back as this does/doesn't work out as hoped.

Have you given any thought to what color the vents would be painted? I think way back in the original rendering they were done in black. It looked really cool from the front! In looking at your pictures you see a lot inside the trunk. How you paint the inside of the trunk will make a difference with those large openings between the vents. Depending on the angle your viewing, the contrast between black vents and body color inside the trunk may be unappealing. Maybe some large black mesh under vents? Maybe paint front trunk area black? Maybe body colored vents and trunk. Anyway some more thoughts. Looking good!

How long before you decide you want them motorised to vary the amount of airflow ?

Seriously though I think they are a little 'chunky'. Particularly in the head on shot - there's too much contrast with the size of the foglight grills ? Just IMO - whatever you do it's incredible.

^^^^^ THIS!

@andrewb @bbrock - Probably no motorized actuation. Well, at least not until I get a working design for a fixed vent.

Speaking of which - I'm not liking the look of a vent that's made up of a a single layer of sheet metal. So it's on to the next revision. This one is a first go at a "frame with vent slat positioners" approach. Once the crossmembers are bent into position, they serve as the mounting surface for the slats, which I can now make from something thicker to get the look I want.

Here's the old vs new look. The new one is wider (same width as the headlight cut out) and a bit shorter. I also moved it up the hood to make it simpler to deal with the hood's support structure. I'm still doing some head-scratching about that. With the vents in the hood, I really don't need to worry about the hood seal, at least not from the fuel tank bulkhead forward.

Another of the current design size and location.

Next I hacked together an initial mock up of a vent slat, just to get a feel for what this multi-part model might be like.

I'm thinking I can shape the slats to overlap the frame, add some style points and help create a bit of Gurney flap effect.

For a first go at what I might really use for slats, I've ordered some 3/16" X 2" balsa wood strips that I'll shape into the individual vent slats, then cover with fiberglass. I think a slat with some dimension to it will address the issue I have with the sheet metal slat look.

Balsa wood and fiberglass -5HP
Carbon Fiber +15HP

Like it, also added the fact that was bugging me, you where not generating low pressure behind the flaps. Would have worked, but this should help draw the air out the vents at speed. Even though you should not have an issue with high pressure of the nose.

Every little bit helps.

BTW, I like it, but would do carbon as you have built that them in the rest of the car. Paint it and show the weave or just keep it black with UV protection. Enbed som captive nuts in the balsa flaps and then use some bolts, Machine screws, etc...

You do know with this design, you could change the stationary flaps for mechanical flaps or servo operated flaps that would open and close as needed.

...and lights! You could put lights underneath that would show when you open the vents.

...and sensors with thermal resistors hooked to the servos that would automatically open them when needed.

* and of coarse obviously turn on the lights...

Impressive work. Great job

Thanks for the suggestions re: heat-sensing, auto-opening, self-lighting vents. I'll see if I can figure out all that...

But for now:
I want to do my best to keep a consistent design theme. Well, at least one that makes sense to me. The interior and other aspects of the car are sorta industrial, what with the stampings and rivets and I think the vents need to avoid looking too refined.

What to do? I put the V1 vent back in place and tried to understand what it was I didn't like and why it looked crude.

I'd already decided the overall shape would change and that I wanted to try a total of 7 vents. Then I zeroed in on the vent's upper edge as needing to be softened; the corners were too abrupt and it had that dead flat upper edge. Neither of those shapes seem to fit.

A minute with the snips and I have a proof of concept re: different corner radii. I didn't even try to address the flat edge. (Pay no attention to the horrid Sharpie lines. I was messing with the idea of a center strake.)

A big improvement, IMO. Certainly worth making one to see it in real life.

Back to the electronic drawing board. It would be perfect if I ended up with this design, what with it being V8!

And to add a slight curve to the vent's upper edge, I couldn't help trying out a radius that pays homage to the car!

Note this version also narrows the gap between the vents' outer edges and the frame and retains a corner notch that could be used to locate a hood pin, should that become a thing I need to consider.

Now to see if I like it in real life.

The latest design just cut. For those who may be interested, here are a couple pics to show what level of detail can be cut with plasma. That's a .1" gap between the frame and vent. That said, it's not like laser cut, but for my purposes, I'm really happy with its performance.

In place. Aaaaaaaand, it's a no! What's wrong this time?

- too large a radius on the vent corners
- too much vent blade above the bend - I think they look a bit tall

The good news is the 91.4 radius looks like it'll work! Of course I'll have to point that out anytime I'm asked about the vents but, how cool is that?

I think I do like the 7 vent look. It's maybe hard to tell in the pics but, overall, I think the scale looks good with the rest of the car. They look pretty cool from most angles, very cool from some!

And just so you know, all these trial pieces have been cut from one piece of 18 ga cold rolled scrap that I picked up for $10. Pretty inexpensive prototyping!

Back to CAD and V9...

I vote for 1 vent per cylinder:)

@djway - Well, there are 8 openings in the vent...

I think this is a bitchin' look from this angle. It's almost there.

Click to view attachment

I'll give you a new idea that fits the theme of the car.

I do not think the gills are adding anything to the look, this gives you a bit more detail, while maintaining a stubble details that make this build so much fun to watch.

Click to view attachment

Gladly grant you rights to this IP

And working on a new medium should provide a bit of frustration to make it worth your while.

Screw that. Let's just have them open and have machine guns pop up... better yet, launch rockets out of them.

On a less serious note - I'm pretty sure the rule is that 3 or more votes for an idea means you have to do it. I count 4 for motorized doors. Like it or not, you have some servo shopping to do.

Servos or not, I love watching your process. You are a true master and a good sport for putting up with us knuckleheads.

@914forme Stephen - I'm not ready to give up on the vents. I do like the mesh look, as you know from my earlier pic in post #3120. But give me a few more tries at the vents. Heck, I'm only up to version 9!

@bbrock - To your "votes" comment: You're a dick.
Seriously, thanks for the kind words, but please, don't you have a car to get running?

Version 9 ready to cut and here's the V8 (on the left) to V9 comparo.
- tighter corner radii
- less vent height once bent (the bend location was moved up the vent blades)
- increased vent size (height)
- outer vent edges clipped so once they're bent into place, they clear the hood's support structure

Hopefully, I'm getting close to something that'll work.

Have you calculated the opening area this design provides you in square inches, compared that to the radiator area and then allow for thermal expansion?
In relation to articulated motorized vents, have you considered getting a Gyro system and using that along with the motorized vents to keep front end lift down? You know this things going to fly Elon is having a gyro sale.

V9 looks much better.

V9 in real life. After working with this "bend-a-vent" design, I think this is about as good a result as I'm going to get. And I think it'll work. I will do a final tweak on the outer edge of the vents where they need to clear the hood support structure. You can see I got pretty close. I'm also going to widen the frame a teeny bit, too.

I figured I may as well give a go to an initial mock up of the vent screen. Before you complain about the material, it's all I happened to have laying around. Think "proof of concept". I only had enough mesh to do a few of the openings.

You can see it's a pretty simple set of Z-bends. The fun part will be closing off the "sides" of the screen, at the end of each vent. I'm thinking I'll fab some "walls" that drop vertically from the frame. We'll see.

And sorta in place. I will say, the mesh does a nice job of finishing the vents. I'm happy with how this is starting to look.

LOOKING REALLY GOOD. I like the direction it's going. That screen really adds pop to it. Will you be building ductwork to force the air into those vents or are letting the air into the front trunk and then exhaust out the vents?

Very nice work, indeed!
Keep in mind that the screen will restrict some air low, which may be significant depending on your selection.
Again, nice work, and acutely interested in the final design.

Andys

Oh yeah. That looks great. I like the screening and the idea of closing off the sides. That is a winning design and I bet you will be getting requests for some of those from fellow large HP enthusiasts for their builds.

The screen looks great!

I really like the screen added to the vents...finishes it off nicely!

Yes on the screen, looks much more finished, and will keep the critters out.

Another day, another design. I won't bore you with the details other than to say I had to make updates to make the "walls" fit the way I thought they should.
I made a template to get the shape of the hood and shaped the initial outer wall piece accordingly.
Then it was tack it to the frame and see what's what. The wall really adds a more finished look.

Yes, another design update will be happening now that I see how this contraption looks like it's going to fit.

Also, once the walls are in place, I have a nice guide to see exactly where I need to trim the hood. For example, I'll remove more of the support structure so it doesn't show under that outer wall, as it does in the pic. Now to work up the other wall parts and get this whole thing put together.

It's turned out to be a lot of work but it's coming along.

It seems like the screens will work at idle but what about when the car is moving how will the air exit are they like louvers.

I would think the angle of the louvers could make a big difference. Hopefully even creating a low pressure area that will help draw the air out when dialed in.

Screens add a really nice visual touch for sure, and the workmanship—as always—is gorgeous.

That could only happen if their is a low pressure area usually behind the lip which allows the air to get sucked out.

Instead of a wall along the inside edge, can you cut the mesh in such a way that you can bend it up at the end to fill the triangular gap?

I'm not thermal or aerodynamic engineer but my thought is the hot air will flow across the relatively flay underside of the hood and the wall you are proposing will disrupt the flow forcing the air to go down to clear the wall and then make a 180 degree turn to go up the wall to exit.
If you replace the wall with mesh, the air has a cleaner exit path.

I expect the effect of the wall will be minimal in the total airflow exiting the vent but it seems an unnecessary disruption.

I think you need to go to the Jim Hall school of aerodynamics i.e. yarn, tape and driving.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0rXyMwFMUI


I would conjecture the air wants to hit the raised louver perpendicular to the air-flow