1970 Barracuda - Rallye Hood Cutouts

(Making them functional)

I've always had something of a problem with the Rallye hood, as found on '70-74 E-bodies. I am of the mind that if a hood has a "scoop", it should be functional. Non-fuctional ram-air hoods, cowl induction hoods or hood scoops have always had something of a "poser" aura for me. (I guess nowadays we would call that "rice".)

However, it didn't bug me enough to do anything about it right away - after all, it *was* a factory option... However, a couple of years ago I saw a Barracuda at a local car show, where the owner had made the cutouts functional and epoxied some honeycomb grille material in place which he had found at a snowmobile dealer. In his case, he had done it because he was chasing a cooling problem. He said that the cutouts made a huge difference in coolant temps. That pretty much clinched it for me - I decided to do it at that point, but hadn't gotten around to it until now.

I kept my eyes open for possible grille material, but was never quite happy with what I was able to find. (I never was able to find any of that black plastic honeycomb material.) What I finally settled on (for now) was some aluminized gutter guard which I found at a local hardware store. It may not be exactly the look I was going for, but I think it will do.

This page will document the steps I took to make the hood cutouts functional. Note: In this case, when I say "functional" I basically mean that they at least do *something* which is more than what the hood does in stock form. I don't plan to hook the scoops up to the air cleaner to make a cold air intake system (future project?), but by opening the hood up a bit, the vents will at least allow hot air to vent while idling and should also result in cooler underhood temps in general.

Click on any pic to bring up the full sized version. Note: it may take a little while for this page to load, depending on your browser. Its set up as a table, and some browsers wait until the whole table has been loaded before displaying it. Just give it some time. :-)

	`Thu 7/29/04` This is what a stock Rallye hood insert looks like.
`001 - 90 KB`
	`Thu 7/29/04` Here is the underside of the hood; as you can see, the insert is held in place with 6 "nuts". (I hesitate to call them nuts, since they are basically just flimsy pieces of stamped sheet metal. It would have been nice if Ma Mopar had used real studs and nuts here, but they didn't so on we go...) (Don't I have a great under-hood paint job?)
`002 - 96 KB`
	`Thu 7/29/04` Remove the nuts and the insert will pop right out like so.
`003 - 101 KB`
	`Thu 7/29/04` There is a plastic "sheild" between the insert and the hood.
`004 - 110 KB`
	`Thu 7/29/04` The fake "grille" comes out if you remove the two nuts at the back of the insert.
`005 - 102 KB`
	`Thu 7/29/04` I've taped off the areas of paint near the middle part which I intend to cut out. This way, if I slip with the cutting wheel, at least I've got a slight chance of not damaging the paint.
`006 - 92 KB`
	`Thu 7/29/04` On the back of the insert, I marked around the perimeter with a wax crayon to give me a better visual reference while cutting.
`007 - 112 KB`
	`Thu 7/29/04` Using an old towel to protect the paint, I put the insert in a vise and made my initial groove with a 3" cutoff wheel.
`008 - 104 KB`
	`Thu 7/29/04` It was necessary to reposition the piece several times. I cut as much as I could with the 3" cutoff wheel, being careful not to let the blade or the shaft touch the paint or the "studs" on the bottom of the insert.
`009 - 76 KB`
	`Thu 7/29/04` Ok, I've skipped a few steps here. After I cut as much as I could with the 3" cutting wheel, I finished up the corners with a rotozip tool. Normally cutting metal with a Rotozip results in MANY broken bits, but I found some high strength ones at Wal-Mart, and was very pleased with them. (I didn't break a single bit during this project, which is pretty rare.) After cleaning up the edges, I cut and bent pieces of the gutter guard to fit behind/under the insert.
`010 - 100 KB`
	`Thu 7/29/04` Here is another view of the inserts and the gutter guard. Basically my plan here, rather than epoxy them to the insert is to have part of the gutter guard lie under the "flat" sections of the insert, so that they are held between the hood and the insert. Depeding on how secure this is, I might use some safety wire or a small amount of epoxy to attach them to the inserts.
`011 - 98 KB`
	`Thu 7/29/04` Now, the hood needs matching holes cut in them. I did this by sitting the insert in place, then using it as a template to trace the pattern on the hood with a soapstone marker. Then, it was the same technique as for the inserts themselves. 3" cutoff wheel followed by a rotozip to finish up the rounded edges. This is a view of the passenger side cutout. I used blankets to protect the hood surface while cutting (especially with the cutoff wheel).
`012 - 64 KB`
	`Thu 7/29/04` And here is the driver's side cutout.
`013 - 69 KB`
	`Sat 7/31/04` I wanted to hit the newly exposed raw metal edges with some clear spray paint to prevent them from rusting, so I taped up the hood...
`014 - 75 KB`
	`Sat 7/31/04` ...and the inserts.
`015 - 101 KB`
	`Sat 7/31/04` I could now spray the edges from underneath the hood.
`016 - 73 KB`
	`Sat 7/31/04` After that, I used some blankets to protect the rest of the hood from overspray, and shot the outside of the hood too. (Naturally, I sprayed the exposed areas of the inserts themselves as well.)
`017 - 86 KB`
	`Sat 7/31/04` My original plan was to powdercoat the grille a flat black, but as I was test fitting the pieces of aluminized gutter guard, the bright silver grew on me! It seems to tie in nicely with the other chrome accents on the car. So, instead of flat black, I used a a chrome look-alike powder. One nice thing about the way I did this is if I ever get bored with the color, I can easily re-powdercoat the grille portion of the inserts, or even just make new ones in a different color, and swap 'em in and out depending on my mood. Its hard to tell in the pic, but the powdercoated "chrome" inserts are a bit brighter than the aluminized finish on the gutter guard. Its very similar, but the chrome pieces reflect the light and sparkle a bit more.
`018 - 116 KB`
	`Sat 7/31/04` To attach the grille to the insert, I used some stainless steel safety wire at the front. In the back, I cut a rubber strip to fit between the insert and the grille, which makes the fit a bit more tight and should prevent any rattling.
`019 - 109 KB`
	`Sat 7/31/04` Here's what the installed insert looks like from underneath.
`020 - 76 KB`
	`Sat 7/31/04` Here's what the installed insert looks like from underneath.
`021 - 76 KB`
	`Sat 7/31/04` Here's what the installed insert looks like from underneath.
`022 - 56 KB`
	`Sat 7/31/04` A picture showing what the inserts look like when installed in the hood.
`023 - 79 KB`
	`Sat 7/31/04` A picture showing what the inserts look like when installed in the hood.
`024 - 67 KB`
	`Sat 7/31/04` A picture showing what the inserts look like when installed in the hood.
`025 - 60 KB`
	`Sat 7/31/04` A picture showing what the inserts look like when installed in the hood.
`026 - 93 KB`
	`Sat 7/31/04` A picture showing what the inserts look like when installed in the hood.
`027 - 67 KB`
	`Sat 7/31/04` A picture showing what the inserts look like when installed in the hood.
`028 - 64 KB`
	`Sat 7/31/04` A picture showing what the inserts look like when installed in the hood.
`029 - 61 KB`
	`Sat 7/31/04` A picture showing what the inserts look like when installed in the hood.
`030 - 64 KB`
	`Sat 7/31/04` A picture showing what the inserts look like when installed in the hood.
`031 - 75 KB`
	`Sat 7/31/04` A picture showing what the inserts look like when installed in the hood. So... Do they work? Visually, I think they look much better than the stock hood, psychologically, the hood is actually doing something now, so that's a bonus. As to wether they keep the coolant temps down or not, I haven't had a chance to drive the car more than a mile or two since the install so I don't know yet. However, when the car is parked, I can feel the heat billowing out of the vents, so they definitely do work from an "expelling hot underhood air" perspective. I'll keep an eye on the coolant temps and report back.
`032 - 67 KB`

This page was last updated Sun Aug 1 02:10:20 EDT 2004