Originally Posted by RubyRed44

Nice, if it were me though, I would have swapped sides for those vents.... did the instructions say right or left? Driver passenger?

I think the line would have flowed better if swapped

Originally Posted by seer1

I am totally sold on the idea that all the ironmongery I have underneath the Jeep is cutting off the flow of cooling air around the engine, transmission and transfer case. I decided to devote this weekend to making my Jeep really cool. After installing my transmission cooler ht tp://www.jegs.com/i/JEGS/555/60352/10002/-1 I decided to go ahead and knock some holes in my hood. I picked up the medium sized high flow louvers from ht tp://www.raceace.com/products.html#productshood figuring if I totally screwed up that Camp Crocker was beginning to make a pretty cool looking ventilated hood. I have to admit the idea of cutting two holes in the Jeep was a little scary, but stupid is as stupid does so I dummied up and got to it.

The kit comes with some pretty good instructions. The first challenge with the JK is working around the hood braces. It’s hard to see without holding a tape to it, but it’s slightly asymmetrical. [IMG][/IMG] I spent a good bit of time getting things spaced just right. I ended up using a tape and a level and still in the end had to use my thumb for the final measurement.

I felt it would be easier to do this with the hood off of the Jeep. First I disconnected the hood ground and washer line then a #47 torx and a short trip to the gun show had the hood ready to come off. I did it by myself and put a couple small scratches in both fenders taking it off and putting it back on. If you’re concerned about scratches, get someone to help.

Once off, I set the hood upright taking care to level it out. After looking at the hood braces for a bit, I figured the way to get the most airflow was to put them on the opposite sides of the hood from what the stylists say to do. That gave me a few more square inches of opening for airflow. Then using some duct tape to hang the louvers on the inside of the hood I measured, leveled and eyeballed many, many times. Get some good tape. It really sucks when the louvers keep falling off. Nothing about these louvers is square. All of the sides are angled.

Whatever else I was doing, I was most interested in symmetry so I decided in order to keep some semblance of sanity in this I would make the inside edges of the louvers perpendicular with the front of the hood. As the front (top or up) of the hood was level, I used a level to help me tape the louvers to the inside of the hood. Then I measured and tweaked many times.

I took a Sharpie and drew out the opening. By working from the inside of the hood, I could definitely avoid the hood braces. Once the lines were drawn, I drilled ½” holes at each of the corners. Whew! The first one was really tough, but once you’ve drilled one hole, what the heck? I turned the hood around and taped off the hood along the lines from one hole to the next I figured that would cut down on some of the carnage and help the saw slide easier.

I used a jigsaw with a metal cutting blade. The instructions call for a cutting blade on a grinder, but the saw seemed much more fool(read Tom)proof. It cut through the hood easily once I screwed my courage (or stupid) up enough to actually pull the trigger and start cutting.

With the holes cut, I then needed to drill the quarter of a million holes needed for the rivets. Back to leveling, measuring and tweaking. It took me a while to get it as perfect as I could then I taped the louvers securely to the hood and began drilling. [IMG][/IMG]

After painting the raw edges I removed the tape and began riveting. I don’t really enjoy doing that much and it got really bad when the Arrow riveting gun crapped out about half way through. That’s when I read in the instructions: Not recommended for stainless steel rivets. Please check that out before you buy yours. Once the three bazillion rivets are in, it’s time to reinstall the hood and say, “Cool!” [IMG][/IMG]
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I haven’t driven much since doing all this, but I’ll keep you updated as the differences (if any) of all this work I’ve done.