Grille block example - manually adjustable from cabin

[MetroMPG]

Found this over at Teamswift:

TeamSwift • View topic - Aerodynamic Foundation Vent

Member "vance" got the idea from looking at foundation vents (something I admit I'd never heard of - I've always lived in buildings with basements!).

Here's a manually adjustable foundation vent:



And here are some images of what vance made on his car. Not sure, but you may need to log in to teamswift.net to see the full size attachments he posted:

A friend of mine at a fabrication shop took about 15 minutes to load my template into his CAD program, load it into the computer & cut some scrap aluminum into the vent cover & inner door. He gave me some scraps, which I fabricated the aluminum brackets with. I purchase a 5-foot long choke cable (which was barely long enough) that slides the inner cover open or close

Brackets installed...


Rear of custom vent showing slider track...


Installed....


He's pretty happy with the results. You can read his full comments on the mod & its effects and see the bigger pics at teamswift.

[DifferentPointofView]

Nice. I always wanted someone to do that... and it actually work! good job to them.

[trebuchet03]

That can easily be recreated with almost any rigid material

I too have never heard of foundation vents.... I do live in Florida, however..

[Piwoslaw]

Too bad there are no pics of how the opening/closing mechanism is mounted to the vent and to the driver.

Basement vents are pretty popular in the southeastern states (Virginia, Georgia, Carolinas).

[Christ]

Originally Posted by Piwoslaw

Too bad there are no pics of how the opening/closing mechanism is mounted to the vent and to the driver.

Basement vents are pretty popular in the southeastern states (Virginia, Georgia, Carolinas).

It's a manual choke cable, so it has a Z bend at one side, and (on a carb) it gets mounted to a hole in the choke cam, which to me, says it was mounted using some space age material in a futuristic method... or.. maybe he just left a raised tab on the vent plate to hook the Z-bend to?

Just a guess.

[basjoos]

A manually adjusted grill block gives you the best of both worlds. The advantage of a complete grill block for faster warm up times and yet it allows you to open it up for increased cooling on hot summer days and for those slow speed hill climbs. It does needs to to be combined with some means of monitoring engine temps (Scanguage coolant temp, or radiator fan LED indicator) to let you get the best use from a manual grill block. The only thing better would be an automated griill block controller responding to coolant temps.

[DifferentPointofView]

I've always envisioned something like this to use a cable mechanism like your gas pedal does to open and close the throttle plate. of course the pedal is a hand lever in the grille blocks case.

[aerohead]

Had the designers of the vent had to design for houses that move at 100-km/h they would have discovered that their creation had about the highest aerodynamic resistance of any form they could have conceived of.The most basic fluids book would illustrate the extreme vena-contrata entry losses associated with a design like the one depicted.Better it remain on a home rather than a car. If you want to defeat the whole purpose of a grille-block,this would be the one to do.