So I have no heater plumbing or heat exchangers, but the fan shroud still has the two ports on the bottom to feed the J-tube/heat exchanger.

It seems like I would be losing a lot of head cooling air out of those holes in the fan shroud. Did you guys block those openings off, or just leave them open?

Yes I did, I assembled the shroud and filled the holes with latex calking.

One the calking can be removed if I want to reinstall the heater and latex

calking is paintable. Backed the hole with a piece of foam to keep the calking

from falling inside. Use a wet finger to get a smooth finish on the calking.

Blocked off with a cover plate

Not good to leave open...your motor needs all the cooling air you can give it.

I thought Jake or someone mentioned that simply plugging them up creates strange turbulance inside the fan housing which causes more harm than good....

possibly just have a restriction on the outlets and have it blow onto the bottom of the heads????

i read that too.....

and isnt there like a vanagon shroud that has em blocked off? or omitted completely?

Yes, I remember Jake posting that it is better not to block them off.

What if you took the shroud apart and blocked them off from the inside?

that would eliminate the turbulence issue. someone here has done that, he rivited a panel over the cutout for the ducts.