Cutting a Hood for intake clearance

[Chuck Most]

So you have a big, ten-carb log manifold with 2-foot tall slash-cut stacks. Or maybe dual quads on a mile-high tunnel ram. Or a big honkin' Roots supercharger. Maybe you somehow stacked all three of those intakes atop one another. At any rate, now you'll need to do something about that hood, which won't fit over your wicked intake setup?

What to do? You could leave the hood off- works great, and has a difficulty level of -11. You could cut a big, jagged hole in the engine's general vicinity (optional- cover up the hole with a comically oversized scoop). Or, you could quickly and easlily map out the cut so you will have a correctly-sized hole, in the proper location.

You will need to have your engine built, and have the chassis/interior/and body at least close enough to complete to mock them up together. You'll also need to have the position of the engine finalized, if it differs any from stock. This will help ensure the hole that was in the perfect location during the test fits doesn't magically migrate 1/8" to the rear sometime between the last mockup and final assembly.

Here is our mocked up project- in this case a '53 Studebaker with an AMT Parts pack Pontiac 421. Set the engine in place, but DON'T GLUE IT just yet. You'll need to remove the engine later.

Take masking tape and lay it across the fenders, and across the cowl/radiator wall as shown, leaving a bit of space along the sides and back of the intake (a blower in this case). You want a little bit of space to compensate for the hood's arc of motion as it opens (unless you plan on a lift off hood), and to account for the engine's movement on its mounts.

Once that is done, cut away the tape around the engine compartment, along the edges of the fenders, cowl, etc.. Leave the remaining pieces of tape in place as shown, but remove the tape that was over the engine bay, as well as the engine , for the next step.

Lay the hood in place, and using the left over tape on the fenders and cowl as a guide, lay more tape across the hood. The exposed rectangular area is to be marked and cut open.

And there you have it- a neat, properly-sized hole in the right location.

[mannyclub]

Cool tip Chuck! Thanks

Manny

[Jantrix]

Nice work! Great advice.

[Dr. Cranky]

Wonderful, Chuck . . . it's stuff like this that makes this forum ROCK!

[Harry P.]

This has all the makings of a great tip: Simple, foolproof, clever... and it works! Great stuff!

[Nick Notarangelo]

wow that was easy,I like it

[Foxer]

This is SO simple and crammed with common sense!

BRILLIANT!

[Johnag4004]

May I ask what do you use to do the cutting please...

Andy...

[Chuck Most]

To cut the hole, I do one of two things-

I scribe along the rectangular opening left by the tape with the back side of a #11 blade and repeat until the blade is almost through, then pop out the unneeded part. Or, I drill a hole at each corner and use a saw to cut from one hole to the next.

[Greg Pugh]

Cool tip. Thanks!

[crazyjim]

Excellent tip. Thanks.