Peesonally I prefer the gray hood. But I'm an old goat & always think louvers are a nice old school hot rod touch.

 

Peesonally I prefer the gray hood. But I'm an old goat & always think louvers are a nice old school hot rod touch.

It is less rice than I remember honestly. I think I’m going with a cowl hood. I had another thought after my initial post. Water. That hood would dump water right into the engine bay. I park outside on the street at my condo in Seattle. Lots of rain for the majority of the year.

 

I'd say I like the cowl hood visually more than the raptor hood, but honestly, do either of those hoods even let air flow thru with openings, or are they just a visual thing? I think you need an actual opening for the hot air to escape.



I could see putting vents in the hood, I know Roush makes heat extractors, or even fit something generic off of Amazon? Just throwing out a few options for ya. I've never had good luck with aftermarket hoods fitting very well myself.

 

In my opinion, most of the vents on hoods are for looks primarily. A properly vented hood would be a big scoop up from behind the radiator, like you see on supercars. That way, the heat from the radiator has a direct escape path instead of re-heating the engine. All the conventional vents are back too far to do that.

 

i always wanted to do hood louvers. but i tend to stand on my hood (when stuck in the mud for example) so i never wanted to weaken the hood any more. there was some old threads about doing hood louvers

 

As mentioned any useful venting is usually louvers in the hood surface to allow heat to escape. This is the hood i have and it has 1/4” holes on the back raised cowl section. Not sure how much heat actually escapes but im sure it helps some.

1992-1996 Ford F-150 Cowl Induction Hood | Aftermarket Branded | Key Parts # 1982-037 | Aftermarket

Cowl Induction Style Hood<BR>(Key Parts # 1982-037). Cowl Induction Style Hood. This steel hood mounts using your factory hardware and is intended for restyling purposes and is not intended for improving performance.

www.ebay.com

 

I forgot to mention, a proper scoop behind the radiator has the double advantage of water draining where there's nothing to harm.

 

I have the Steeda Q400 hood on my Mustang and made the louvers operational. Thing is you get a lot of rain water in there when youre driving in it. Now imaging going through mud holes or out in the woods having a little fun.

I like both of them though I would go with the cowl induction. Looks cleaner, not too high and looks good. The louvered hood would look good without the hood pins. Still, cowl induction. Soon as I get ready for body work, I'll be getting the cowl hood too.

 

I have the Steeda Q400 hood on my Mustang and made the louvers operational. Thing is you get a lot of rain water in there when youre driving in it. Now imaging going through mud holes or out in the woods having a little fun.

I like both of them though I would go with the cowl induction. Looks cleaner, not too high and looks good. The louvered hood would look good without the hood pins. Still, cowl induction. Soon as I get ready for body work, I'll be getting the cowl hood too.

That was my logic for wanting the cowl - to keep water out.

 

The area that a cowl hood pulls air from is a high pressure area when you're driving down the road. A hole there will do nothing getting heat out of the engine bay.

Frankly, just run a smaller water pump pulley to spin the fan after if you need more air in the engine bay. If you're having cooling problems it's a different problem you need to track down and better venting for the engine bay won't fix it.

 

No cooling problems. Just trying to release heat at lower temps. I already have an upgraded radiator, lincoln fan, and upgraded water pump.

I’ll be running a York compressor which puts off a run of heat when engaged.

 

I did this on my 78

Bolt-On Hood Louvers I Aluminum Sheet Metal Panel Set w/ Stainless Hardware

Louvered Pair Of Multi-Use Aluminum Panels | 9" x 23.5" | .063" Thick | Relieve Under Hood Heat – Lowering Engine & Transmission Operating Temperatures | Helps Prevent Overheating Engine & Transmission Issues

twistedroadcustoms.com

Tho when I got them they came from Wildhorses, doesn't look like they have them anymore.
Mounted on truck

Not so sure would look as good on the newer bronco but they do work. Took at least 25F out of under hood temps. On here they are centered right over the headers. Being that this truck is painted with spray paint and what not, I made some abs panels with magnets I put on there, when its the rainey or snow. Neodymium magnets hold the panels to hood going down the road just fine. (that would not work on glass hood) you can see panels here.

I feel like I would get extra stock steel hood and do what I want with it. I did not fully cut out the hood under the louvers. I only cut the hood skin, then put holes in the braces with a hole saw.

 

I can't for the life of me remember who did it, but somebody on here added louvers to the hood for that same reason. They also fabbed up some covers for the louvers to block rain.

Edit: I hit post before @CrazyBRONCOguy posted. My gut told me it was his 78 I was thinking of. Glad I was right.

 

The cowl looks best to me, just keep it low like the first hood, don't get one of those goofy super tall cowls. Also would something like a blower motor (think of an inboard boat engine) that you could wire up to a switch and when youre cruising around town you can exhaust some of the hot air out. Just throwing things against the wall, 20 bucks, some wire and a toggle switch and some dryer ducting you could be our guinea pig.

 

Because I’m super anal about fit and finish, I think I’ll get a spare hood and have a one inch or so cowl made. The shop I’m using to finish my build could make it for the cost of the cowl I think. It’s rather have oem fit and not have to worry about messed up gaps.

 

Always thought one of these would look good on bronco

https://www.cjponyparts.com/hood-scoop-fiberglass-unpainted-bolt-on-boss-429-1969-1970/p/HDSC3/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI_ffulu-m_QIVUoJbCh3nxQAeEAQYASABEgLZdPD_BwE

Also kind of neat if you know what it is suppose to be from

 

In all honesty i'm not really sure the cowl induction would do much to vent underhood temps anyway. The theory behind the cowl induction is that little bit of turbulence behind the cowl and the windshield is supposed to actually push fresh air under the hood , but im not sure how well that would work at low speeds...but they look cool.
Go the extra step and make it functional like the old chevelles!

 

Another old hot rod trick is to add spacers between hood hinges & the hood. It creates a gap at the back of the hood to allow heat to escape. Might not be an ideal permanent fix, but a way to see how a little venting back there would affect temps.

 

Ha Ha! I'm guilty of that back in my high school days! I wasn't much of a racer but I thought it looked cool . . .

 

Many years ago, I used to do the true street races with a Mustang and several variations of 302's. 306, 331, 347's, etc. Cars were fox bodies and a few SN95's. All had nitrous. However, every variation of the 347 would run hot during the 20 mile street run. It was stop and go in a lot of places. As a result, I tried a cowl hood to assist in getting the temps down. It provided somewhere between 0 and 0.1 benefit. Aesthetically, they looked good. But, were not too functional. Just my .02.

 

Good to know. Unfortunately the bronco is too wide to fit into my parking spot without getting dinged. So it'll be on the street. water getting into the engine bay is a huge concern. I guess I'll just have to find a way to vent out heat. Maybe some kind of fender vent? The trouble with that is making it not look rice.

 

So what issues is this excess underhood heat causing? What problem are you trying to solve?

Is it raising the engine temp & overheating? Is it just making it unbearable in the cabin to sit there?
It's fuel injected so I don't imagine heat soak, or fuel boiling in the carb is an issue, cuz I've had to deal with that on my Corvette before & that was solved by using non ethanol fuel, which has a higher boiling point.

Just curious your reason for pursuing this avenue, because if it's 180° under the hood, or 205° under there, it's still pretty damn hot. Thats why I prefer boating over offroading in hot dusty conditions, or car shows in hot blacktop parking lots.

 

So what issues is this excess underhood heat causing? What problem are you trying to solve?

Is it raising the engine temp & overheating? Is it just making it unbearable in the cabin to sit there?
It's fuel injected so I don't imagine heat soak, or fuel boiling in the carb is an issue, cuz I've had to deal with that on my Corvette before & that was solved by using non ethanol fuel, which has a higher boiling point.

Just curious your reason for pursuing this avenue, because if it's 180° under the hood, or 205° under there, it's still pretty damn hot. Thats why I prefer boating over offroading in hot dusty conditions, or car shows in hot blacktop parking lots.

No issues so far. I just want to eliminate heat soak. Call it PTSD from my GTO days. Those cars are notorious for heat soak. The cooling system works and it doesn't overheat. I have an upgraded cold case radiator, lincoln fan, and upgraded water pump. I just want to vent some hot air out mainly because the on board air York unit I'll be using puts off tons of heat (at least that is my understanding). Plus the headers put off a ton of heat too.

 

I get the heat soak worries too, we had a 69 big block camaro growing up, headers, shorty exhaust, that thing would bake your calves...you didn't wear flip flops in that car! Also my 87 z28 wasn't as bad, but it had some of the same issues. I tend to THINK that being in a truck, with higher seats, more air able to get underneath the chassis and remove some of the heat, and proper insulation that heat soak issues shouldnt be nearly as bad.

 

One bridge to cross is keeping under hood temps down when going slow.

Another old hot rod trick is to add spacers between hood hinges & the hood. It creates a gap at the back of the hood to allow heat to escape. Might not be an ideal permanent fix, but a way to see how a little venting back there would affect temps.

...This fix only works if you have a crappy fan causing heat soak or overheating at idle or in traffic. There is zero heat coming out of that spot if the vehicle is moving at any appreciable speed. There's a reason that all the OEMs intake the heater air from the cowl and "cold induction" is a thing. At speed the back of the windshield and bottom of the hood is a high pressure area.

Well, he was talking about a low speed heat issue. I was suggesting he try a little removeable spacing back there to see if his theory helped before doing anything permament.

Yes, I understand that where the bottom of the windshield meets the back of the hood is a high pressure location at speed, & that is why cowl induction functions, even though the opening looks backwards. And at speed that wouldn't help remove air from under the hood. But he wasn't having an issue at speed.

 

I've got the steel cowl hood from Key Parts. I am tossing around making some vents to fit into the flat area.

 

Lots of folks not understanding the issue...

Going 3mph in 4 low with long tube headers is a killer, no matter how good your cooling system is. Im running a 3" thick, dual 1" core- triple pass radiator with a high flow water pump. Crawling in moab, i saw water temp in my 300 hit 240°. The fuel in my carb bowls was boiling. My ignition relay was about to melt. This was with a proper fan shroud and a good quality mechanical fan, perched precariously on a 1 lane wide hoodoo. Ended up having to hotwire it around the relay, and cranking the idle up to 2000 rpms just to get it off the trail. That was with Jet-Hot ceramic coated headers. Once i was moving at 20 mph off the trail, it cooled down fairly quickly.

Cracking the hood doesnt help much. Nor does shutting it down and opening the hood. My solution was to wrap the headers, add a dedicated cold air intake sucking through a hood scoop, insulate the fuel line, use a spacer and heat shield on the carb, swap to two electric fans, and add a 14" hole in the hood for a third fan to extract heat. Also added a dual remote oil filter with a cooler installed, bringing my oil level to almost 9 quarts.

For reference, before all of that, i had ZERO overheating issues with normal driving. Never got over 185° on the entire 900 miles out to moab, or back.

 

Lots of folks not understanding the issue...

Going 3mph in 4 low with long tube headers is a killer, no matter how good your cooling system is. Im running a 3" thick, dual 1" core- triple pass radiator with a high flow water pump. Crawling in moab, i saw water temp in my 300 hit 240°. The fuel in my carb bowls was boiling. My ignition relay was about to melt. This was with a proper fan shroud and a good quality mechanical fan, perched precariously on a 1 lane wide hoodoo. Ended up having to hotwire it around the relay, and cranking the idle up to 2000 rpms just to get it off the trail. That was with Jet-Hot ceramic coated headers. Once i was moving at 20 mph off the trail, it cooled down fairly quickly.

Cracking the hood doesnt help much. Nor does shutting it down and opening the hood. My solution was to wrap the headers, add a dedicated cold air intake sucking through a hood scoop, insulate the fuel line, use a spacer and heat shield on the carb, swap to two electric fans, and add a 14" hole in the hood for a third fan to extract heat. Also added a dual remote oil filter with a cooler installed, bringing my oil level to almost 9 quarts.

For reference, before all of that, i had ZERO overheating issues with normal driving. Never got over 185° on the entire 900 miles out to moab, or back.

Yeah thats my big concern. GOING SLOW with long tubes. That is why I am probably going to pull the trigger on the cowl eventually. Stan coated mine in something like Jethot but I don't remember the brand. Unfortunately he shut his business down so I can't ask.

I like the idea of that raptor style hood but I don't want the water intrusion. I have to park on the street and there is a lot of precipitation here in Seattle. Not a whole lot of rain but more misting. I don't want water in the engine bay.

 

i think you might be worried about the water too much.
I have ran a trail truck with zero inner fenders and stuff randomly ziptied to hold it up, with zero issue. Power wash it off and everything. Granted it does look like crap after awhile of getting water on it.

I do think the external fans on the inners would likely be a good setup tho. I have seen similar on motorhomes before.

 

We had a 76 Bobcat wagon when we were younger. 2.8 I believe v6 had to pull the hood in the summer or the damn thing would overheat with all new cooling components. Of course that was back in the day before all the tweekers and Methican-Americans