Making Gen II Fender Vents Functional

This was posted by Pepper K496 in another thread: :supercool:

Pepper K496,8/7/2010 12:53 PT



Fender vents weren't that difficult. Just carefully pry the vent housing from the fender - I used a plastic spackling tool, wide flat and very thin. Once its separated, you can pop the black plastic backing off and replace it with some mesh grill or something similar. Mounting the mesh may have been the hardest part. I cut it so the mesh would slide over the existing mounting tabs nice and snug.



There are a few pieces of thick tape covering pre-drilled holes once you look inside the fender. If you remove the tape you'll find out that there is yet another "inner" fender that still prevents the vents from actually functioning. A hole saw from the inside of the engine bay fixes that. Voila!

Click to expand...

Happy modding!

Some pics to go along with the details above:



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IF YOU WANT TO TAKE IT FURTHER:

Cutout the inside of the Engine bay behind the airbox like so:



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I just have to ask.....



you Say Functional.... Functional to what ??? The intake is somewhere else.......



Do you all meen just into the engine bay ???



I would be worried of rust inside the fender and stuff like that as water and air in introduced into the inner side of the fender from the top....



Just a thought....



Todd Z

Todd..



that makes sense.. haven't thought about that.. hmmmm ????



:banana:

What would it take to actually use the vents as a point for cold air intake?

Thanks Mookie! :banana:



I thinking about some LED's behind the grills so I can be see entering intersections on my way to a call.

My belief is because of the way they are designed, they are most effictive at extracting hot air from the engine bay. Look at the angles on the side edges. This isn't even close to being a NACA duct. If you want cooler air, you need to get into the area behind the bumper and inside the inner fender liner. Just my 2cents worth. Even if its a lot of hot air! BC

I wouldnt worry about rust. Ford has treated the metalurgy they use to 600 hrs of salt spray. Since the late '80s With out primer.

I grew up in the age when stickers, phony moldings and obscenely bright lights were used as a poor substitute for real power. Witness the "screaming chicken" of the neutered Pontiac Trans Am AND the Mustang II. (Forgot about that one, didn't you?)



Please, don't mistake artificial decorations for the real thing. Chances are great that the automaker isn't trying to deny you some great benefit. It's far more likely that the automaker is using flashy but impotent decorations to boost sales. Don't fsck up a perfectly good automobile to "restore" a function that doesn't exist.



My 2000 Mustang GT has faux rear brake vents that can be replaced with functional ones. The "real" ones might give you some advantage...since most braking forces are on the front brakes, common sense says that I might want to do that first...



I can't find any aftermarket brake coolers for the front brakes of a stock GT. The "driving"/fog"/@$$h0le light openings just don't give enough flow to make much of a difference. If you're a serious racer, you'll probably be cutting up the factory stock body instead of buying costly aftermarket parts with no verified scientific testing to show that they make any difference. Caveat emptor.

I guess that all depends, didn't GM make their hood vents on the Lumina Z24 non-functional after people got too much water in their engine bays in car washes?



Speaking of bolt on crap, you should have seen the Escape I passed yesterday, it had every chrome thing you can imagine on it, and some you can't. Brush guards, front and rear, side steps, fake chrome hood scoops, wind deflectors, lights, stickers, right down to these enormous chrome 'Escape Custom' letters that were stuck, not even straight mind you, down each door. The letters were the best, they looked like someone drunk stuck them on and they were about 2"x3" each

Functional becasue the vents in thier current location are not there for BRINGING IN air, but instead used for REMOVING hot air from the engine bay. (much like the 04 cobra extractor hood) And it does a reeally good job if they are made functional!



In ADRENALIN22's case, his STA has TRUE functional vents.

Meaning that the air is not only extracted form the engine bay but has also been made to FLOW THROUGH....bringing air into the filter location through the front grille and FLOWS over the fitler and extracted out the side fender. This in turn allows for a constant cool airflow over teh filter at high speeds. There IS a heat shield on his truck that seperates hot air from the filter side. Notice in the picture the heat shield meets to the side of the engine bay wall in the middle of the opening to the fender vent!



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why not rig tubing from an area inside the bay to the vent, maybe itt wont help the intake directly, but possibly have hot air pushed out?

Hey Mustang guy !! fftopic:



Know the MII very well..... Here is my baby....



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:back2topic:







As for the Post. Doug IF you actually flowed and metered the under hood temps before and after then Great, you know me, Show me and I will gladly beleive.....



I can see that they scavenge air from under the hood, would just have loved to see some actual temperature numbers...



Todd Z

What do you get when you cross a Sport Trac with a 1978 Trans Am? :grin:

Seriously, good job.