Originally Posted By: daddi
Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
A lot of things on vehicles have become non-functional appearance-only accessories. Large rims with ultra-low profile tires, especially on trucks, fall into this category as well. Large wing spoilers are another. But people gobble it up. Manufacturers sell it because market place wants it. After all,
many of us buy vehicles not only based on performance, utility, reliability, but also based on looks.
Definately a good point though. Wish I had pictures of some of these trucks. They range from ragged out Rangers to nice new hemi dodge's.
I have added a non functional scoop to 2 of my trucks. A 2004 Dodge Ram and a 2005 Chevy Silverado. I do it because I am a muscle car guy at heart and I generally like to dress up my vehicles so they don't look like everyone else has. Also, some of these so called "functional" hoods w/ built in scoops don't do as much as you think. For instance the very popular Dodge Ram SRT-10/Daytona hood that everyone and their brother add's to their 02-08 Ram is not functional unless you buy the parts to make it so and even then due to the aerodynamics very little air enters the scoop. Even that hood is 95%+ for looks.
Buy an afftermarket hood, from say Keystone as an example, that looks great and you would think just pours the air into the engine and you are in for a surpirse. Unless you buy the very expensive ram air kit that directs the air over to your air box it does nothing for you. In the old muscle car days with Carbs, and a traditional top mounted air cleaner assembly with a snorkel(s) facing basically towards the front of the engine or off at a slight angle to one side, the hoods with scoops were much more functional than the ones today for our FI vehicles with their off set, totally enclosed, air boxes.
Air boxes today are closed off from the engine bay and grab their air from the fender well or down low near the front of the engine compartment near the radiator support. Blowing a bunch of air into the engine bay from a scoop or scoops in the hood isn't going to find it's way into the throttle body unless you add the kit that directs that air into the airbox. At best you lower underhood temps marginally. Even on the older muscle cars with scoops in the hood they generally added some type of enclosure to the air cleaner assembly so the air was rammed in. Seldom( sometimes yes )did they set it up so air just went into the engine bay.
I have no issue with people doing what ever they want to their vehicle. It is no different than choices in oil. Use what makes you happy. There is a lot of it I hate like tribal graphics, f art cans, and big Indy inspired wings on little Civics and such but to each his own. The Fast & The Furious was one of the most ridiculous movies ever made(IMO)other than that great Charger Vin had.
I actually like the look of a scoop added to a truck however if it matches a theme for looks. Especially when you consider the cost of a hood with painting and install is going to be $1000+ and a scoop maybe $400 tops. HUGE difference. For me personally however it has to be a scoop that has no visible tape flange. The scoop can be applied with double sided tape but it has to at least look bolted on. Those twin scoops someone else mentioned that are so popular are made by Lund and they have visible tape flanges and I don't care for that personally.
I Ran the OEM Rumble Bee scoop( metal - bolt on )on my 04 Ram...
I also ran an ACS( now SLP )hood scoop on my 05 Silverado that looked really good. Even though it was a stick on the tape flange is hidden and it looked like a OEM bolt on. This is a popular scoop for the new Mustang( this is just a stock photo - I don't have any of it on the truck - also my truck was dark blue and it looked better than the red photo shown ). I may actually run one on my new 08 Ram because I have yet to see one with this scoop. I would be different than everyone else who uses the SRT-1o hood or the Rumble Blee scoop..
Again, to each his own.