1969 Camaro Custom Hood Vent Fabrication

[oestek]

This is not really a car build, but we had a customer approach us about building and installing some custom hood vents for his ‘69 Camaro. He liked the style of the vents in the carbon fiber hood on Mark Stielow’s Hellfire Camaro, but these would be steel. Stielow’s carbon fiber hood does not have the same underside structure as a stock steel Cowl Induction hood, so these would have to be a little different to fit into the opening in the structure without remaking the support structure.

Here is the inspiration:





First, Adam made a couple design sketches to land on an idea. The goal was to make a functional vent that would help pull air through the radiator and release underhood heat.

[oestek]

The size and location were plotted on a ‘69 Camaro we have in the shop.









The sub-structure would dictate the position.



Then he used the Mittler Brothers shear and box pan brake to make a “staircase”, which would become the vents.



He made a steel frame and used the Mittler Brothers bead roller to roll a contour edge into the frame. This is for stiffness and style.

[oestek]

Setting the vents into the frame gives you an idea of how the final piece will look.







After some consideration, a revised vent style was quickly made to make the vent angle more aggressive and to have better function.



The trailing edge of the frame was also flattened for a smoother appearance.

[oestek]

The vent holes were cut out, and the pieces TIG welded together and ground smooth.

[oestek]

The hood is a reproduction 1969 Camaro Cowl Induction hood we obtained from Classic Industries.



It’s always good to inspect your parts as soon as they arrive, as large panels are often times damaged in shipping. Our hood was in good shape except for a small dimple in the corner. Obviously, any new panel will need to be bodyworked to fit your car, but if the shipper causes major damage to a panel, catching it right when it comes off the truck is the best way to have the shipper compensate or replace the panel.



The location for the vents was determined partially by appearance, but also because the underhood structure dictated their placement.



The holes were cut in the hood and the panels were tack TIG welded in place. The tack welds were spaced out around the vents to make sure the hood didn’t warp from welding heat.



Adam made a few more laps with the TIG welder to fully weld the vent, then he carefully sanded / ground the welds flush with the hood skin.

[oestek]

Some hammer and dolley work was required to tap the panel flat.

[oestek]

Some honeycomb shaped perforated steel was chosen to use as grille material for the extractors.



A steel form was made the same shape as the opening in the heat extractor and welded to the workbench. Next, some welding rod was formed around the form to shape the rod into a frame for the grille.



The Spitznagel Maxi dent pulling resistance welder was used to zap the grilles to their frames.





A small amount of current is all it takes to cleanly melt the wires together.

[oestek]

The grilles were welded to the bottom side of the vents.





The final product, ready for bodywork and paint!

[dhutton]

That is great. Thanks for sharing.

Don

[oestek]

That is great. Thanks for sharing.

Don

Thank you Don!

[brawls43]

That looks awesome, nice work! Thanks for showing how you did it.

[parsonsj]

I'm digging it. Nicely done.

[oestek]

That looks awesome, nice work! Thanks for showing how you did it.

I'm digging it. Nicely done.

Thanks Gents!

[1968CamaroSS_Sam]

It looks great. Thanks for sharing that with us.

[Cop Magnet]

Very cool write up, thanks for sharing.

[1968CamaroSS_Sam]

Kevin, was those vents tigged onto the hood? Or were they just carefully migged on? Great work by the way. Thanks for sharing it with us.

[Peter Mc Mahon]

Awesome work, thanks for sharing

[Josh@Ridetech]

Very nice work!

[vwmopar]

Man that's sick. I want to do something like that on my d150.

[Buryingthesun]

These look awesome, I really wish thaty I had access to the tooling required to fabricate these.