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This "grill block-off" plate was later modified to feed the air filter box. This was deemed necessary after the various heat exchangers were placed and duct work to the hood was laid out. Now a small portion of the original radiator airflow from the upper grill will force feed the engine for a small "ram air" effect. Those bits are shown below.
And yes,
the raw aluminum grill plate will be painted or coated black later in the build, to help "hide" the bits behind the grill. This will give a more subtle and OEM look to the upper grill, at least.
RADIATOR DUCTING FAB (PHASE 1)
There was some initial work done in October to make the intricate lower grill opening duct work. These bits are in front of the radiator and create sealed pathways for airflow to move from the various splitter openings to the 3 heat exchangers and two brake ducts.
This lower radiator ducting fabrication was started in October but only just wrapped up in December. It took many hours. Other than this teaser shot above, I will save the rest of the pictures of this phase of fabrication for a later post.
AIR INTAKE BOX & INLET TUBE FAB
Like I said above, things underneath the hood started to get cramped once the hood ducting was being laid out. The initial hood ducting layout steps began in October, shown below with cardboard and aluminum sheet showing potential routing of exhaust heat. During this step we figured out a number of constraints, so Ryan went ahead and built the intake tube and airbox.
The solution was to bypass all of the possible routes for hood exhaust ducts and push the air filter box to the front in a nice, high pressure zone: the back of the blocked off upper grill. The massive engine setback of this LS3 plus the rolled radiator placement made for a really L-O-N-G intake tube, as you can see.
Brad and I snapped a few pictures of these components as they were being built. The airbox bolts to the grill plate (with weather stripping at the edges for an air tight seal) and the air tube bolts to the airbox, then has a hose coupling at the throttle body. The back plate unbolts from the rest of the air filter box structure, for access to the air filter inside.
That doesn't look like much but there was some thought that went into the air inlet tube and air filter box parts. At right above, the finished parts are sitting atop the mock-up flat steel hood we used for some duct layout work. The mocked up cardboard ducting is shown upside down in that image.... deep ducts.
On some other ducted hood setups we have built before (see above) the hood duct was pretty straight forward - a sealed duct box was built from the back of the radiator to the hood. In that type of layout you re-route the intake air tube laterally and around the hood duct. This setup puts the inlet air filter in an airbox mounted off to the side of the heat exchangers.
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