hood vents and cooling

[ironman_gq]

will adding hood vents to my CJ help the engine run cooler. I know it will keep underhood temps down but will it also help with engine temp?

[hugh]

I think so, my cj7 has a 304 and while fine on the trail, tends to get real warm on the highway. I found some abs plastic louvers in the summit catalogue and ordered them. They are reasonably priced, like $20 per pair. I,m not positive but if you can get rid of some of underhood temps I figure it might make it a bit easier on the cooling system to do its job. One guy who came winter camping here a couple of months ago had a similar prob with his 350 powered YJ. Only with the YJ it overheated while running the snow on the trail instead of the highway. Possibly the fact that it averaged about 2 feet deep had something to do with it. Anyway he took the hood right off and she cooled down and gave him no more trouble. I will have the louvers hopefully in a week and as soon as they are installed I give it a good run on the highway and will post the results here.

[tufcj]

I have a set of vents in the hood of my CJ. Each is about 4" x 10", they came out of an early 70s 280Z. Got them at a boneyard for free. I saw coolant temps drop by about 10 degrees after I installed them, so the added airflow helps.

Bob
tufcj

[CJim7]

I added vents when i still had the 258. The 4.0 headswap i did bumped up the running temp considerably and the venting dropped the temp by about 10*
When my 401 is running at operateing temp, i can feel a blast of hot air coming from the louvers.
Does it help cool the engine itself? Yes. Any heat under the hood is dissapation from the engine itself. By getting rid of that heat faster, your not adding to load the cooling system has to handle. Plus, it helps eliminate the oven. Fuel delivery systems operate better under lower temperatures.

*note* This is not a cure for an engine that has overheating problems. That needs to be addressed first.