Everyone has probably seen the cooling thread in Race Prep(my favorite section) where Emilio outlined the elements needed to keep a miata nice and cool for anything from highway cruising on a hot day to track abuse.

There was a post about some hood louvers which I thought were a pretty cool concept - they ship flat, and you assemble them in a couple minutes when you receive them.

I thought it would be cool to take that louver concept and run with it to design a set that is intended for the Miata hood, NA & NB, with proper placement.

I mentioned the idea and there were a few guys who expressed interest right off the bat. I decided the best thing to do is start a separate thread, and see if there really is enough interest to make this happen.

I started designing and producing some parts along with a partner (Rokomis on this forum) under the name Singulär Motorsports, which you guys will see hitting the market soon

For most parts, we have things lined up to be sold through a larger vendor who is already a big site supporter here. However, for parts that would be limited runs or if demand is questionable, it would make sense to first gauge interest with a group buy.

If enough people are interested in these louvers, I’ll become an authorized vendor for the site and start a group buy thread.
We can also discuss design changes to the louvers as well so we have a design that is exactly what everyone wants.

-Ryan

 

Here is where the concept sits currently

NA and NB designs will differ as the pressure maps are unique for each.
For the NA, I’ve designed a three-hole set up, front edge of the holes sit just behind the radiator position:



For the NB, with different underhood bracing locations and different areas with the highest negative pressure than the NA, I think the best placement will be here (where I added the blue lines):



I’ve also come up with a way to make a cutting template that can ship with the louvres to take the guesswork out of recreating the cut shapes in your own hood, so that would be included.

Please feel free to express your interest and/or input.

-Ryan

 

I would be interested. What kind of price point do you think you're looking at?

 

You have my attention.

 

It's a little early to say, waterjet costs are based in large part by how long it takes the machine to cut your part, and these are quite intricate (and that's not the only cost to take into account)

The 'kit' I'm envisioning would include the aluminum louvers, cut templates, and hardware. I would put an estimate right around $100 to be on the safe side.

The appeal with these in my view is it's a miata-specific part (should fit and look better than universal stuff), designed based on the pressure maps of our hoods, and comes in at a price well under an aftermarket vented hood.

 

I'm going a different vent route for the hood but if some other vents happen to happen then you've got my money fur sure.

 

Trying to picture this in my head. Just behind the radiator would be an inch or two in front of the rear edge of the pop-ups, right? Looks like there'd be plenty of room on the NA for both aerocatches (installed right way or wrong way) and these vents.

 

Plenty of room. At least as far as the NA design is right now, the front edge of these would be ~9" back from the front centerline of the hood.

-Ryan

 

Any thought on making them smaller and only take up the frontmost "section" (not spanning the reinforcement)?

I don't have a cooling problem (to little power and not hot enough climate), but have there been any testing what the minimum effective area is (the first sq inches makes the biggest effect I assume)?

There are always those who want to cut as little as possible and still get a big benefit.

Making the same for the top of the front fenders is not that easy, it won't ship flat at least .

 

Sometimes the sacrifice has to be made ;-). The NB vent placement is based on the pressure map of the hood and leverage the regions with the highest negative pressure. Compared to the NA, the NB hood has much larger areas of negative pressure along the side. A smaller vent would likely still have some benefit, but bigger is almost always better :-)

 

I threw those blue outlines on the NB hood just to illustrate the general area, but in actuality the hole would be smaller than that;

That "frontmost" section on its own is actually not ideal - I looked at that first - the front 2" or so of it is actually forwards of the radiator, so the hole should start at about the middle of that section.

Also, the louvre piece will bend unidirectionally front to back, but not side to side, so its placement needs to be in an area that doesn't have drastic horizontal contour changes. There is a sudden curvature change on the NB hood near the sides which I'd want to avoid, the blue line I drew actually crosses over that, so what I'm envisioning would actually be narrower than that.

Pictures illustrate much better than words, I'll draw it up when I get home tonight but it would actually be a bit smaller than that initial pic.

-Ryan

 

I'd be interested in these as well. Around $100 sounds ok to me!

 

interested

 

Sounds like a great option to me. The stock hoods are usually lighter than the aftermarket ones, so if you can make a functional, yet semi-aesthetically pleasing vent shape, you should have a winning product on your hands.

 

Interested

 

I'd buy but fear I will want something before you get them to market as I am ready NOW!

 

Dude, where were you when I bought that GT500 vent and hacked up my spare hood to fit it all together last year? These could have saved me a lot of work.



But seriously, even though I'm no longer in direct need of these, I might still be interested in a set (depending on price and final product details). After all, I've still got a spare hood.

 

In for superior cooling.

Edit: NA here

 

It'd also be helpful to get an idea of which chassis, NA or NB, people would be more interested. If you can, please post which one you'd be interested in buying!

 

likely in for these