Engine compartment venting

[Todd in Vancouver]

Hope this is the right section for this but please move this post moderators if you feel it's in the wrong area.

So, I'm part way though mark Stielow's Pro-tour book and have also been reading many of your different posts on-line here on Pro-tour.com. I do not have the mathamatical knowledge or education to totally figure this out so that's where all of you come into play and school someone like me

I have a 1967 Camaro and I noticed that Mark cut two huge vents in his 67 hood for, what I understand, venting of the air coming into the front of the car so it's not lifting the front of the car as it accelerates. I'm sure there is better terminology but hey this is the best I can do. I also noticed the same on the One Lap Camaro but I don't want to post any pictures without the owners consent but I'm sure all of you know what I'm talking about. Now, if I'm not mistaken the late 70's/early 80's Camaro and T/As installed the fender vents for the same reason to help keep the nose of the cars down at higher speeds.

Now, the first thing that strikes me is the size difference between the two. I'm sure there is a mathamatical formula for figureing this out (enter the people smarter than myself) to sort out how big a hole one needs to cut into the fenders or hoods to let the air out so the front of my car doesn't try to fly away while I'm driving at high speeds. Yes, I plan on running this thing all out or I wouldn't bother building it.

So, why am I asking this? because I have an original steel SS hood and there is no way I'm going to cut huge holes in the hood like Mark and One Lap did. But, at the same time I really can't picture installing the later Z28/TA fender vents on my 67. So, what I was thinking was, to take the original '67 grills out of my hood and modify them so they are functional, or even take a set of '68 repos and hack open the 3 big stacks and let that air flow. Question, will doing this make any difference or is it just not enough volume of air to bother? Is there a down side? Has anyone already tried it?



Please feel free to laydown the facts, but please dumb it down for those of us who don't have advanced degrees in math.