OK, you asked for it. I am an engineer and here is my opinion.
When you open the scoops on our cars you should install hood locks or some other secondary latch system. The reason is this, due to the location of the scoops on the hood, they can grab a lot of air, this causes a significant amount of up-force on the hood. So you not have the air entering the scoops, the lift caused by the bulged hood, and the air that goes under the nose of the hood. If you look at the hood latch bracket, it has 2 mounting bolts at the top of the core support and either 1 or 2 bolts at the lower bracket attachment to the core support. You will find many of the lower brackets with fatigue failures at the lower bolt area, allowing the hood to lift slightly as the latch an now rotate back toward the windshield under load.
Does that sound far fetched? Here is my supporting argument.
Case 1) As you researched, Ford recommended, and installed the hood locks on EVERY Ram Air car. The latches are functional, and provide a secondary latch at the leading edge of the hood. Every non-ram air car had block plates in the hood scoops and NONE of them got the twist locks.
Case 2) A friend of mine had a beautiful green 72 Mach 1 in high school. He ran with the scoops open and no hood locks. One lovely evening while traveling at about 75 mph on the highway his hood flew open and buried the trailing edge into the cowl and windshield. He managed to bring the car under control and come to a stop, but the damage was not insignificant.
Case 3) I was prepping my car for paint during high school and had the scoops open and the hood locks out for sanding on the hood. This project lasted most of a summer while I ran up and down the highway to a girlfriends house most every day. One summer evening at about 80 MPH on the highway I noticed the hood lifting as I ran at a higher speed and shaking side to side. When I got home and checked the front latch area I found that both of the lower attachment points for the hood latch bracket were torn in 2. I had nightmare's of my friends hood failure and never ran open scoops without hood locks again.
Still not convinced? Ford has a goal to make money. Why would they create the lower part of the hood with the holes for the twist locks on every ram air hood?
Why would they tool up a mold to fabricate the plastic honeycomb block plates for non-Ram Air cars? I mean surely the engine would run cooler if the extra air came in through the scoops.
Why would Ford "include " the twist locks with the Ram Air option instead of making it another buy up option? I mean think of the labor of drilling the hood holes, assembling all the bracketry for the lower lock receiver, and assembling all the hood latch components. All that free of charge. I mean for the mere $115 for the Ram Air option you already got 2-toned hood paint, special decals, a special custom air cleaner, a fiberglass plenum, 2 air actuated flappers. Ford could not have made much money off of that in the first place, so why free hood locks unless it were a safety issue that needed to be addressed.
Food for thought.
kcmash
Don't worry everyone, my wife lets me know I am wrong every day. After 28 years together, I get it!
