Cowl cover or no cowl cover for track car

[Arizona Vipers]

Any airflow experts out there? LOL. Would leaving the plastic cowl cover piece off have any benefits? Would more heat escape the engine? It looks like it would, but I've heard theories that it could make it worse.
The car certainly looks better with it on. Also it weighs 3 lbs. Thoughts?



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[stradman]

AZ buddy I gotta hand it to you. Your obsession with weight loss goes way above anyone else's and I salute you! Hey I'm sure I appreciate a light car as much as the next guy, but can I ask wouldn't it just be simpler to have bought that CF bodied Gen V race car that was offered somewhere recently? I mean the way you're going you might as well strip absolutely everything out of the car including lights, wing mirror(or change to a very light skeleton one), starter motor, alternator, radiator fan, and change to plastic windows all round etc etc and just make it a pure race car plain and simple, if your ultimate aim is to have the lightest Gen V Viper carcass in the world no?

[ViperGeorge]

There was a guy on here, I believe something like "BlueTA#1" that was having cooling issues with his Competition Blue TA 2.0. I had the same issues. He posted various things he tried to make the engine run cooler. One of the things he did was remove the weatherstrip at the rear of the hood. Not as radical as removing the whole cowl panel but it still opened up airflow some. Can't remember the results but I believe it did help some so I would suspect removing the cowl panel would help more. There was some reason though that people suggested he leave it in place. Can't remember why though. If I get a chance I'll search for the thread.

[ViperGeorge]

AZ, here's a thread on temps. I couldn't find the post about removing the weatherstip but in this one BlueTA#1 does do some other stuff that helped.

https://driveviper.com/forums/threads/9975-Track-Day-Temps/page3?highlight=track+temp

You posted to this thread so maybe you remember it. One thing BlueTA#1 did was put foam blocks under hood to hold it open to increase airflow. He said car ran cooler so removing the cowl may in fact help.

[kriskyk]

Take out your headlights, it's easy, you will get a bunch of more airflow, saves some weight and you'll save your headlights from track rash

[Arizona Vipers]

Take out your headlights, it's easy, you will get a bunch of more airflow, saves some weight and you'll save your headlights from track rash

Yeah they look heavy, but I want the car to look bone stock from the outside. Does anyone know what the lights weigh?

[512BB]

Generally removing the cowl makes the aerodynamics worse as it causes much greater turbulence around the bottom of the windshield which separates the airflow from the windshield with additional turbulence on top of the windshield/roof which will adversely effect the air going to the rear wing. Generally that is not recommended unless some wind tunnel testing is done. On the ACR-E I would not mess with the aerodynamics too much as the rear and front have so much down force and disturbing either front or rear could be quite dangerous.

I have seen folks remove the weather stripping and I have done that on my Vette. That did make engine ran quite a bit cooler (up to 10 F in my case), but you have to be careful as the hood is compressed down towards the center of the hoot as there is no longer any support there. More importantly, if there is any fire under the hood, the flames will immediately get sucked up through that area and could also go right into the heater vents that get their air from the cowl area. That is more of a concern in this case. I am OK with that risk as I have an extinguisher in the car and my car even with bigger radiator and oil cooler, etc. still runs hot (it's a Corvette after all).

Hope this helps.

[Special Ed]

There was a guy on here, I believe something like "BlueTA#1" that was having cooling issues with his Competition Blue TA 2.0. I had the same issues. He posted various things he tried to make the engine run cooler. One of the things he did was remove the weatherstrip at the rear of the hood. Not as radical as removing the whole cowl panel but it still opened up airflow some. Can't remember the results but I believe it did help some so I would suspect removing the cowl panel would help more. There was some reason though that people suggested he leave it in place. Can't remember why though. If I get a chance I'll search for the thread.
I owned that car (T/A 2 #1) for two years. The problem that Karl was having with the car was resolved with a blueprinted water pump from prefix. I have tracked this car for two years and have never hard an overheating problem.

[SRT BILL]

AV, you are trying to lose weight and I dont think you have an over heating issue. why not replace the cowling with a piece of fabricated black plastic or some other light weight product. This could help with the aesthetics of the car making it look mostly stock and reduce a lot of weight. Good luck with your project I find it very interesting and enjoy reading the posts you get.

[Snakebit10]

Once someone starts going to these lengths I think they are ready to just buy a dedicated track car like a Radical etc. Or maybe an Ultima GTR, and just to be different drop your VE 9L engine in it instead of the usual Chevy motors. You would never come down off cloud 9 with a car like that haha.

Too bad they don't have lightweight carbon fiber roll-cages so you didn't have to put 130 lbs back into the car after all your work to remove weight. Admire your dedication to weight loss though.

[ViperGeorge]

I owned that car (T/A 2 #1) for two years. The problem that Karl was having with the car was resolved with a blueprinted water pump from prefix. I have tracked this car for two years and have never hard an overheating problem.

Yes, I know Karl ultimately got a blueprinted water pump that addressed the problem. The reason I posted the other things he did though was because I believe AZ was asking if removing the cowl would help reduce heat. It seems like it would based on Karl's testing with the foam blocks under the hood. Of course the impact on the car's aero (air to the rear wing for example) would be unknown without windtunnel or real world testing. Karl never mentioned whether he noticed any difference in downforce with the hood propped up. The effect might not even be noticeable on a TA 2.0 given it has substantially less downforce than an ACR-E. On AZ's car I believe he is running ACR-E type aero but I'm not 100% positive.

AZ, maybe you could run some track tests with the cowl removed to gauge if it impacts heat or aero. The fire concern mentioned above though may trump any of that.

[TheWessss]

Just another stone to throw out there. Has anyone removed the foam blocks that reside under the engine covers? There is also a 3rd in the the center. I was told that the only reason they are there is for noise reduction. I have to think if they were not there more air flow around the top of the motor. If it helps they combined probably weigh a few pounds.

[Arizona Vipers]

Ok, I'm leaving it on, the car looks like shit with it off. LOL. My end goal here is for the car to be 100% stock on the outside.
And for the record I weighed the headlights they are exactly 10 lbs each. It looks like the lens part easily comes off, I could make some brackets and keep the car stock looking on the outside but still lose 20 lbs off the nose. Nothing is more important on this car for the track than getting weight off the nose.

[Arizona Vipers]

AZ buddy I gotta hand it to you. Your obsession with weight loss goes way above anyone else's and I salute you! Hey I'm sure I appreciate a light car as much as the next guy, but can I ask wouldn't it just be simpler to have bought that CF bodied Gen V race car that was offered somewhere recently? I mean the way you're going you might as well strip absolutely everything out of the car including lights, wing mirror(or change to a very light skeleton one), starter motor, alternator, radiator fan, and change to plastic windows all round etc etc and just make it a pure race car plain and simple, if your ultimate aim is to have the lightest Gen V Viper carcass in the world no?

For me the fun is in the engineering and doing mods slowly over time and watching my lap times drop. And I don't want a race car, I want the car to look 100% stock on the outside. My car will be much lighter than the "carbon fiber bodied" race car when I'm done :)

[Jack B]

Just another stone to throw out there. Has anyone removed the foam blocks that reside under the engine covers? There is also a 3rd in the the center. I was told that the only reason they are there is for noise reduction. I have to think if they were not there more air flow around the top of the motor. If it helps they combined probably weigh a few pounds.

Why not take the covers off entirely?

[Arizona Vipers]

Just another stone to throw out there. Has anyone removed the foam blocks that reside under the engine covers? There is also a 3rd in the the center. I was told that the only reason they are there is for noise reduction. I have to think if they were not there more air flow around the top of the motor. If it helps they combined probably weigh a few pounds.

Man I didn't even know about these. LOL. Thanks!