[athikerguy4life]

I just added my hood spacers. Went with 1/4 inch because I didn't want it sticking out too much to be clearly noticeable.

Basically all you do is prop up the hood with piece of wood/metal to make sure it doesn't move too much during the project (or have a friend help hold it up). Then use a 13 mm wrench to remove the 2 nuts holding the hood to the hinge. remove the top nut first and then the bottom. The bottom bolt is the one that will really be holding it on. Make sure you are ready because once those 2 are removed, the hinge should just be able to come out of the way. while supporting the hood, pull it apart from the hinge. Then add your washers, push the hinge back into place and replace/tighten up the nuts. Repeat for the other side and you're done.

Here are the pictures:

Before:

After:

The gap:

In all, its about a 1/4 inch gap. Still use all the stock hardware. Just used up a bunch of washers I had lying around the workshop.

I used 4 1/4 inch washers on each bolt. This is about the maximum you can use before theres not enough thread to use the stock hardware. If you wanted a bigger gap, you'd have to use coupler nuts, and I don't know if that's be a good idea because I'm not sure how strong they are. You might be able to add 1 more washer if you really wanted to, but because of the shape of the V's hood, it would look weird with a big gap. I am actually thinking about removing 1 washer from each bolt to make it smaller.

Here's the video:

 

[JoshG]

Looks good. Not a huge difference which is what I like.

 

[athikerguy4life]

Also, I just did a bit more research on the subject of hood spacers and here's how it works: when traveling at speed, the area at the base of the windshield is a high-pressure zone, while the area under the hood is a low pressure zone. So air will actually be sucked into the engine bay. When you're moving at VERY low speeds, or stopped, the hot air will be able to vent out. So in stop and go traffic, it'll be the most effective. Sort of like a cowl induction hood.

It can reduce the effectiveness of your radiator if you use too large of a spacer, so if your car has overheating problems, this wouldn't help, it would make it worse.

 

[Ben_B]

I kind of feel like this mod probably won't do too much...if anything it seems like the high speed aerodynamics might make things worse....looks like it could create a lot of drag because you're basically sucking air down into the car instead of letting it flow freely...similar to how opening your windows on the highway makes fuel economy and performance tank worse than using the air conditioning. As for low speed venting, I've had my hood totally open after running the engine pretty hard and even then it takes about 45 minutes or so to really cool things off substantially. Not really sure what this is actually going to do other than mess up the aerodynamics and make it look like your car is screwed up. I get that the principal makes sense and has been applied by design on some other cars....but I think doing it in this way on a car that is not designed for it is probably just going to mess things up.

 

[athikerguy4life]

The more I look at it, the more i dislike it.. I'm probably gonna take out the spacers tomorrow. I was bored and wanted to see how it looked, didn't really think much about it. Now that I do more research and look at it, idk.

 

[Ben_B]

Nice try though...I always like the idea of something for nothing mods...lets keep at it.

 

[athikerguy4life]

Yeah. I had the parts lying around so i figured I'd go for it. Only took a few minutes of my time, so its not a big deal.

 

[Gwapo1970]

If anything maybe swap the hood for a carbon fiber one that has openings already built in to it.

 

[athikerguy4life]

If anything maybe swap the hood for a carbon fiber one that has openings already built in to it.

Washers=$1

CF hood=$680

This being the maine reason to try washers first. haha. If I had the money, I totally would get the CF hood though.