The main reason to modify a car is to accomplish some goal.
I have two functional goals with this mod. One is to direct the air from
the radiator out of the hood rather than under the car. 
This should add more down
force at speed and keep the car from drifting/floating at greater
than 80 mph (only on the track). Well now that the hood is on the car
I have taken it up to 90 and it "feels" less floaty. I will try to measure the
down force when I get time. See below for details.
Two is to aid in cooling in traffic when stopped. I know, I could just put in a lower temp fan switch, but this way a get a second excuse to modify my car. When in traffic I think hot air will just raise off the radiator and maybe not need the fan on.
Of course when I started I thought this would look really cool. Well I think this will still look really cool when I get done. I still need to fill in the sides and paint it.
I needed another project so I bought a second hood to play with.
It was poorly
painted Metalic-Blue, so I stripped the paint 
off with a razor blade. and started cuttin'.
I put the hood on the car 4/10/2000 unpainted and ugly as ****. With the hood on the car I open the vent up as far as possible without cutting the wall behind the radiator. I then cut and shaped some wood blocks to hold the vent open to 3/4 inch. About three weeks later I started the real cutting. I cut 2 inches off the wall behind the radiator. Then pushed the vent open further. 3 1/2 inches. Yeap, thats a full 2x4 that fits in that opening. The result is in the pictures here. Next I will fiberglass the edges of the opening. This will not interfere with the spare tire or the front mounted battery. When I get that part done I'll post more pics....
The vent is centered on the hood 12 inches back front the front edge. It is 18 inces wide and 5.25 inches deep at the front opening. The top of the fron opening is slightly "v" shaped to match the line of the front edge of the hood. The sides of the vent are 5 inches from the valley on each side of the hood. over head view of vent cut out
How does one measure down force? I plan to measure the distance from the road at speed with the stock hood the do the same thing with the modified hood. Will this work? Yes. the only thing holding the car off the road is the springs. If I measure the difference in compression of the springs with the two hoods I will know how much down force the hood is generating.
