Progress Thread Komo's 1990 GT - Parts Gathering Purgatory

[FastDriver]

Cowls are actually designed to take air from the high pressure area and feed a closed off carburetor with cold air. I guess they made it into our fuel injected cars because so many like the style. I have mine on for the looks, and weight savings -- it's a Kaenen & is probably the lightest available foxbody hood -- and they can also help when you have a taller motor and/or intake. They definitely do allow the air to vent at idle, as I can see the distorted air from the heat rise. I'm not sure how effective they are at cruise or high speed for cooling the engine bay, but I would imagine they hurt radiator flow to some degree. My personal favorite, and likely to be just about best for the radiator is the '03 Cobra-style heat extractor hood. Can't get over how good it looks on Father Time, too:

It was the right call for Father Time, and gave me the 2" Kaenen Cowl hood to swap out Black Jack's stock hood for free:

If this is hijacking, I'm happy to pull the post back down.

Anyways, I still think your louvers will be better than a cowl hood for radiator heat extraction, and frankly it's more unique & better looking when done right, IMO.

 

[gkomo]

Cowls are actually designed to take air from the high pressure area and feed a closed off carburetor with cold air. I guess they made it into our fuel injected cars because so many like the style. I have mine on for the looks, and weight savings -- it's a Kaenen & is probably the lightest available foxbody hood -- and they can also help when you have a taller motor and/or intake. They definitely do allow the air to vent at idle, as I can see the distorted air from the heat rise. I'm not sure how effective they are at cruise or high speed for cooling the engine bay, but I would imagine they hurt radiator flow to some degree. My personal favorite, and likely to be just about best for the radiator is the '03 Cobra-style heat extractor hood. Can't get over how good it looks on Father Time, too:

It was the right call for Father Time, and gave me the 2" Kaenen Cowl hood to swap out Black Jack's stock hood for free:

If this is hijacking, I'm happy to pull the post back down.

Anyways, I still think your louvers will be better than a cowl hood for radiator heat extraction, and frankly it's more unique & better looking when done right, IMO.

Ya the 03 style hood is fantastic. A new hood just wasn’t in the budget… not that the race louvers were cheap, but cheaper for sure.

“When it’s done right” haha I’ll be cutting up my hood myself so that is yet to be determined!

But I also think they will look good, unique at least for my area… I rarely see foxes let alone any with louvers.

Both your cars look great!

 

[gkomo]

Alright I marked 2”, 3”, 4”, 5” and 6” back from the radiator. Moved the louvers starting at each measurement multiple times, stood back and looked, adjusted again, relooked, etc etc.

Then I thought to myself… what am I doing here? 1” adjustments forward or aft is not going to make a difference for me. So I split the range difference and put them starting on inch 3. Not sure when I’ll actually be able to make any cuts, but this is where they will go:

 

[FastDriver]

Front to rear looks good to me. Maybe a dumb question, but it looks like you're putting them as close to the middle ridge in the hood as possible. My intuition would be to try and space them with equal distance to the inner ridge on one side and to the edge of the hood on the other at their widest point. The earlier pic seemed to do it that way. Seems a purely aesthetic decision to me.

Another thought, those fins dip down quite a bit. I can't imagine there would be a clearance issue underneath, but it's something I'd want to measure to be confident before I cut.

 

[gkomo]

Front to rear looks good to me. Maybe a dumb question, but it looks like you're putting them as close to the middle ridge in the hood as possible. My intuition would be to try and space them with equal distance to the inner ridge on one side and to the edge of the hood on the other at their widest point. The earlier pic seemed to do it that way. Seems a purely aesthetic decision to me.

Another thought, those fins dip down quite a bit. I can't imagine there would be a clearance issue underneath, but it's something I'd want to measure to be confident before I cut.

Only reason I have them placed so close to the stock ‘cowl’ ridge was this photo taken from Racelouvers.com website:



I just assumed that’s where they needed to go. Lol

I will definitely check clearance because yes the fins do extend downward quite a bit. Eyeballing it, I should be behind the supercharger head unit mostly above the discharge piping, but will verify. Drivers side shouldn’t have much in the way I don’t think.

 

[FastDriver]

Looks great! Better than I thought.

 

[gkomo]

Well, just as i mention Fox's are pretty rare in my area, I come across this one going to work:







I'm assuming it was leaving JBA Speedshop as it's basically walking distance from my work.

 

[AeroCoupe]

Its too bad they did not have a picture of that hood from Racelouvers.com showing the underneath side. I am wondering how close they are to the hood structure.

 

[gkomo]

Its too bad they did not have a picture of that hood from Racelouvers.com showing the underneath side. I am wondering how close they are to the hood structure.

Just eyeballing it right now it looks like none, they should go right in this open areas like to the right of my hood light but on each side:



I need to more accurately determine how close they get to the long hood structure the hood light attaches to though.

 

[gkomo]

Got the FiddleFartFab hatch striker on tonight. In hindsight, i probably could have just adjusted the OEM striker to the passenger side, but the FFF piece is nice. Got the hatch to line up pretty perfectly centered and down slightly to help with the 'knocking'. I adjusted the two hatch bushings the best i could so now it shuts centered and doesn't 'knock' when pushing down/up on the hatch. We'll see how it holds up but so far so good.

 

[FastDriver]

Let me know how FF's hatch striker works for you. I think something is wrong with my latch, which pops open on the FF striker, but not on the stocker... it also rattles more. I could probably alleviate that with the stoppers/bumpers but after fiddle farting around with it for too long, I just went back to the stock striker.

Their first door strikers absolutely did not work in my 91, and I documented that, but after running into him at foxtoberfest, last year, he gave me an updated version, and they've been working on Black Jack's doors perfectly.

 

[gkomo]

but after fiddle farting around with it for too long

Haha good one

I think I’m gonna replace my bumpers. Something isn’t 100% correct still as my drivers side bumper I had to adjust further out than the passenger side. Either way, it latches centered and doesn’t knock so I’m happy for now.

 

[gkomo]

Man, MM are my homies, not trying to talk bad about them, love those guys. BUT, my last 4 orders with them either doubled or tripled the lead time advertised and i've only gotten movement after emailing them requesting status. I ordered my 4-point k-member brace on 7/1, heard nothing until i emailed them on 8/1 asking for status. On 8/4 they replied that it was going to powder coating, haven't heard anything since and no shipping notification.

Luckily i am in no hurry with parts, especially just a kmember brace... but this has happened on 100% of my last four orders.

Emailed again for status.

 

[gkomo]

If anyone who jumped on the NPD brass heater core stock a few months back or so... i got a call from NPD today saying that the batch of those heater cores was bad (solder holding the tubes on are faulty). They are going to refund my money and said to just destroy/throw away the heater core.

Just a heads up for anyone.

 

[nickyb]

If anyone who jumped on the NPD brass heater core stock a few months back or so... i got a call from NPD today saying that the batch of those heater cores was bad (solder holding the tubes on are faulty). They are going to refund my money and said to just destroy/throw away the heater core.

Just a heads up for anyone.

Since you got a refund , I'd take it to a radiator shop and have them resolder it.

 

[Noobz347]

Since you got a refund , I'd take it to a radiator shop and have them resolder it.

You mean like, in the US? Isn't that like crossing the streams?

 

[gkomo]

Alright ordered the MM Hybrid Steering shaft. I believe besides PS fluid this is the last thing i needed to refresh the entire steering system.

 

[AeroCoupe]

I’ve posted this a couple of times with regards to priming the power steering system. I will also say that when a pump or rack fails you typically need to replace both as there will be aluminum bass boat glitter in the fluid and that is in the entire system.

What needs to be done in most cases is replace the rack, flush the power steering pump lines, and install a new pump. The system should be hand primed first. Then start the engine with the front end off the ground and properly supported. Turn the steering wheel on way and just bump the stop. Return to center, turn the engine off, and check the fluid. Start the engine and repeat this but alternating which side you turn to until it quits taking fluid. The pump should be just about silent at this point. Get the car on the ground and see how it turns with the engine started. This is the heaviest load the pump will be under.

I’ve done this every time I’ve changed a pump and had zero issues.

 

[gkomo]

Do I need to do a flush if everything is new? Pump, rack and lines will all be new.

 

[gkomo]

@AeroCoupe did you see my post above about the NPD heater cores? I think you bought some of if I recall.