At 03:45 PM 2/4/99 +0000, you wrote:
>Eric
>
>Wouldn't a cowl hood be the most effective design
>from a strictly performance standpoint? It would
>allow hot air out of the engine compartment and
>give plently of room to run with an open air element.
>
>I know from the muscle car days that all the OE
>scoop designs were more show than go ... that's
>why I never got one back then.
>
>If you look at pictures of drag racers, most are
>running with cowl hoods.
Yep, the Dakota pro-stock trucks are using cowl induction, but
the Avengers use scoops. Both a cowl and a scoop will allow cold
air into the airbox. The forward facing scoop by a "ram-air" effect,
and the cowl by vaccum. Originally, I was going to get a cowl
induction, but my conclusion from studying it was that both were
about equally effective on a street vehicle. On a nascar racer,
cowl induction is better due to the higher speeds involved. (less
drag with cowl induction) Since the ram-air and cowl induction
are functionally about the same, I decided to go with the ram-air
because its a "mopar thing" whereas cowl induction seems to be
a "GM thing".
Although its called "ram-air" I don't believe there's really any
ram-air effect to speak of. Both types of hoods are good for getting
cold air to the engine, but its not gonna create a supercharger
effect. If you've seen the new HEMI streamliner, you'll see there's
a scoop up on top of the carb. I seem to recall reading in one of
the mags that there is a "ram-air supercharger" effect of about
.25psi at 300mph. (I can't find that info now though, maybe someone
else can confirm or correct it?) Anyway, if they're only getting a
tiny amount of "boost" at those speeds, we won't really get anything
on our slow 1/4 mile runs. They do an excellent job of providing cold
air though!
-Jon-
.--- stei0302@cs.fredonia.edu ------------------------------------.
| Affiliations: DoD, EAA, MP Race Team, NMA, SPA, USUA. RP-SEL |
| '96 Dodge Dakota v8 SLT CC (14.58@93.55), '96 Kolb FireFly 447 |
`----------------------- http://www.cs.fredonia.edu/~stei0302/ ---'
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Jun 20 2003 - 12:12:32 EDT