Cold air, Ram air, and Aerodynamcs. Thoughts?

[Ben@SpeedTech]

Hey all. I come from a drag race background and understand the advantage of ram air with a carb sealed off to the hood, although I'm not sure if that applies to the G machine world. My car runs a carb'd SBC, and between the taller intake and 5" K&N filter even with a drop base air cleaner it sticks about 2 1/2" above the hood. To save weight I recently ordered a flat fiberglass hood and because I don't like the shape of that brand's cowl ind. hood and I wanted something different I opted to buy a Vette Stinger scoop to mold in.



I had a cheap ABS stick on cowl ind scoop on the car in the past and it worked very well at bringing in fresh air from the back with the carb sealed to the hood. I later put on a Cobra Jet Mustang style scoop for the ram air effect, but I have no way to tell if that short of a scoop is working efficiently and if it messes with aero enough to be concerned about it. I've had the car up to 145 for short stints but don't anticipate going much faster than that. For the most part the car is a daily driver and weekend autocross car, and I may hit one or two Optima type events a year where the car will be on the road course. BTW the hood and fenders will have heat extractor vents so I won't be using the scoop to relieve heat, see below.

I have the option of having either the front open and close off the back for ram air, or close off the front and have the back open to take advantage of the cowl induction effect. I'm wondering what some of you guys have done to get cold air into the motor and why you chose the route you did.