UPDATE: Test of rubber insulator removed from plastic cowl, no hood spacer vs stock setup!
So I've heard so many friggin' things about hood spacers. Some love them, most hate them, some swear by their effectiveness, others throw around physics and logic, but I couldn't find any REAL DATA. Hence, I went out and I tried to collect some of my own. For all you guys to know, performance mods I have include injen sri, ws2 exhaust, nst pulleys, hondata IMG and of course the wonderful Cobb accessport that made this possible!
It isn't perfect but I compared before and after on the same night within an hour of each other at 67 F. Temperature stayed constant here throughout.
The test was done to test the max temperature of the Intake Air Temp (IAT) at idle and how long it took to get there and the average IAT at 80mph (cruise control on flat ground on the freeway for around 5 minutes). The reason for this is because some people have said this vent method might actually hurt effectiveness of airflow out of the engine bay by messing with proper air flow AT SPEED (low pressure, high pressure and all that jazz that I won't pretend like I completely understand).
So, I have the excels sheet that I gathered from my Cobb Accessport , but I'm too lazy because I have nothing to gain by lying since I'm not selling anything.
Caveat: I did the DIY hood spacer from 0720steve (thanks btw) because really, there's no difference between it and the ones corsport is selling. I used 3/8 nylon spacers, but with the washers I also added in, it's about a fingernail's difference from corsport's 1/2 inch spacers as far as gap.
My results:
At idle, the stock hood without spacers took approximately ~20 minutes to move from 95-156 degrees. I messed up my timing so I didn't get the exact minutes and seconds, but it definitely wasn't less than 15 minutes or more than 25.
At idle, the stock hood WITH spacers took 21 minutes to move from 96-156 degrees.
BOTH topped out at 156 degrees after the test. Maybe they could have climbed a couple more degrees, but I wasn't going to sit and waste gas for another 10 minutes, it's not practical anyway since you'll never be stopped in traffic half that long. And any movement quickly lowers and stagnates your IAT.
I have data across speeds, but I decided to take average IAT at 80mph since most people drive around that speed or slower on freeways. At 67F outside, my average IAT was 95.6 WITHOUT hood spacers.
Average IAT was 98.141 at WITH hood spacers!
Yes that's right, hood spacers actually measured nearly 3 degrees hotter!
ALSO, I took the average grams of air per second (g/s) the intake was bringing in when I was cruise controlling at 80mph.
Without spacers=33.43g/s (average)
With spacers=25.60g/s (average)
Hence, at idle, the the spacers were providing less grams of air per second to my intake at 80mph.
Apply whatever margin of error you want, but honestly, I felt that if my IAT wasn't at least 10 degrees cooler at either idle or at speed, I couldn't justify this mod. It's ugly (at least to most), likely slightly more dangerous (it isn't OEM fit and messes with the car's intended aerodynamics), causes more drag, costs you money (no matter how cheap), and allows more water into the car. And frankly, even if I did realize 10 degrees lower with the spacers, that's only, in theory, 1 hp. I was hoping to see at least a significant slowdown in heating up or a lower max temperature at idle.
Maybe the results would have been different if it wasn't so cold out (it was night time), but either way, I've tried it and trying to pass on what I've learned.
Also another caveat nobody has talked about, when removing one of my stock bolts, the female thread part in the actual hood came off! It's weird but I guess they welded in the threaded part of the hood into the hood (since the sheet metal itself is so thin). Long story short, I'm back to stock but my hood's only being held on with 3 bolts now. Grrr. Anyway, you run that risk if you mess with the OEM hood.
Hence, according to my admittedly simple test (although really time consuming!), hood spacers DO NOT WORK and in fact, made things worse. For those who say they feel the heat coming out, I'm sure they do, but if you've ever felt the hood around there without the spacers, you feel a lot of heat coming out anyway. I really don't know how to explain the no-duh logic that a vent should allow lower temps. This is my data and that's all I can bring to the table.
UPDATE: Now, moving onto testing the stock hood vs. removing the rubber insulator on the plastic cowl
The test was done at 64 degrees.
Stock Hood it took 26.25 minutes to rise at idle from 109-156 degrees.
IAT at 75mph=88.6 degrees (average)
mass airflow at 75mph=28.36g/s (average)
VS
Removed rubber insulator on stock hood took 25.93 minutes to rise from 109-156
IAT at 75mph=88.3 degrees (average)
mass airflow at 75mph=28.36
Hence, removing that weather stripping/insulator didn't do squat. Especially because I did it second and it only got colder as the night went on (between 12:30 and 3am).
FINAL NOTE: I can't say corsport's spacers are useless/detrimental. My test was on what's theoretically pretty much the same thing. Still, I'm not here to bash their product or people who want to go with this mod. This is just my opinion. Also if you have any complaints that I didn't do something right and my results make no sense, you may be right, but honestly, I can't imagine my errors could equal significantly slower heating up of the engine, significantly lower max temperature, significantly higher airflow, or anything else to justify this mod to me. Not at this point anyhow. Maybe somebody else will post up their data and correct me, but until then, I'm happy with my properly aligned hood and smooth body lines!
Hope you all benefit from my experience! and Special thanks to my girl, who stuck with me all night and helped me with the spacers! Love you babe!
So I've heard so many friggin' things about hood spacers. Some love them, most hate them, some swear by their effectiveness, others throw around physics and logic, but I couldn't find any REAL DATA. Hence, I went out and I tried to collect some of my own. For all you guys to know, performance mods I have include injen sri, ws2 exhaust, nst pulleys, hondata IMG and of course the wonderful Cobb accessport that made this possible!
It isn't perfect but I compared before and after on the same night within an hour of each other at 67 F. Temperature stayed constant here throughout.
The test was done to test the max temperature of the Intake Air Temp (IAT) at idle and how long it took to get there and the average IAT at 80mph (cruise control on flat ground on the freeway for around 5 minutes). The reason for this is because some people have said this vent method might actually hurt effectiveness of airflow out of the engine bay by messing with proper air flow AT SPEED (low pressure, high pressure and all that jazz that I won't pretend like I completely understand).
So, I have the excels sheet that I gathered from my Cobb Accessport , but I'm too lazy because I have nothing to gain by lying since I'm not selling anything.
Caveat: I did the DIY hood spacer from 0720steve (thanks btw) because really, there's no difference between it and the ones corsport is selling. I used 3/8 nylon spacers, but with the washers I also added in, it's about a fingernail's difference from corsport's 1/2 inch spacers as far as gap.
My results:
At idle, the stock hood without spacers took approximately ~20 minutes to move from 95-156 degrees. I messed up my timing so I didn't get the exact minutes and seconds, but it definitely wasn't less than 15 minutes or more than 25.
At idle, the stock hood WITH spacers took 21 minutes to move from 96-156 degrees.
BOTH topped out at 156 degrees after the test. Maybe they could have climbed a couple more degrees, but I wasn't going to sit and waste gas for another 10 minutes, it's not practical anyway since you'll never be stopped in traffic half that long. And any movement quickly lowers and stagnates your IAT.
I have data across speeds, but I decided to take average IAT at 80mph since most people drive around that speed or slower on freeways. At 67F outside, my average IAT was 95.6 WITHOUT hood spacers.
Average IAT was 98.141 at WITH hood spacers!
Yes that's right, hood spacers actually measured nearly 3 degrees hotter!
ALSO, I took the average grams of air per second (g/s) the intake was bringing in when I was cruise controlling at 80mph.
Without spacers=33.43g/s (average)
With spacers=25.60g/s (average)
Hence, at idle, the the spacers were providing less grams of air per second to my intake at 80mph.
Apply whatever margin of error you want, but honestly, I felt that if my IAT wasn't at least 10 degrees cooler at either idle or at speed, I couldn't justify this mod. It's ugly (at least to most), likely slightly more dangerous (it isn't OEM fit and messes with the car's intended aerodynamics), causes more drag, costs you money (no matter how cheap), and allows more water into the car. And frankly, even if I did realize 10 degrees lower with the spacers, that's only, in theory, 1 hp. I was hoping to see at least a significant slowdown in heating up or a lower max temperature at idle.
Maybe the results would have been different if it wasn't so cold out (it was night time), but either way, I've tried it and trying to pass on what I've learned.
Also another caveat nobody has talked about, when removing one of my stock bolts, the female thread part in the actual hood came off! It's weird but I guess they welded in the threaded part of the hood into the hood (since the sheet metal itself is so thin). Long story short, I'm back to stock but my hood's only being held on with 3 bolts now. Grrr. Anyway, you run that risk if you mess with the OEM hood.
Hence, according to my admittedly simple test (although really time consuming!), hood spacers DO NOT WORK and in fact, made things worse. For those who say they feel the heat coming out, I'm sure they do, but if you've ever felt the hood around there without the spacers, you feel a lot of heat coming out anyway. I really don't know how to explain the no-duh logic that a vent should allow lower temps. This is my data and that's all I can bring to the table.
UPDATE: Now, moving onto testing the stock hood vs. removing the rubber insulator on the plastic cowl
The test was done at 64 degrees.
Stock Hood it took 26.25 minutes to rise at idle from 109-156 degrees.
IAT at 75mph=88.6 degrees (average)
mass airflow at 75mph=28.36g/s (average)
VS
Removed rubber insulator on stock hood took 25.93 minutes to rise from 109-156
IAT at 75mph=88.3 degrees (average)
mass airflow at 75mph=28.36
Hence, removing that weather stripping/insulator didn't do squat. Especially because I did it second and it only got colder as the night went on (between 12:30 and 3am).
FINAL NOTE: I can't say corsport's spacers are useless/detrimental. My test was on what's theoretically pretty much the same thing. Still, I'm not here to bash their product or people who want to go with this mod. This is just my opinion. Also if you have any complaints that I didn't do something right and my results make no sense, you may be right, but honestly, I can't imagine my errors could equal significantly slower heating up of the engine, significantly lower max temperature, significantly higher airflow, or anything else to justify this mod to me. Not at this point anyhow. Maybe somebody else will post up their data and correct me, but until then, I'm happy with my properly aligned hood and smooth body lines!
Hope you all benefit from my experience! and Special thanks to my girl, who stuck with me all night and helped me with the spacers! Love you babe!
