Do This Mod If You Track Your C5 CORVETTE! // Functional Fender Ducts 

I was just about to ask how it was for debris. Thx!

i have them on my C5 that iv daily drove year round since i got it in early 2020 and i dont have this issue then again mine also has a screen or mesh on them too so

Sounds more like an ungrateful Neil :)

I remain Grateful. I was inpatient wanting it immediately, but they were well worth the wait. The ducts are well made and fit well and look great. Chevrolet should have included this mod because that dummy opening was reminiscent to to the old straight six mustangs that had dummy hood scoops. When a car has something that appears obviously fake, it makes the car look cheap. People notice these functional ducts and most C5 owners want them. They were easy to install and look like the factory installed them. I am extremely satisfied and grateful, although I cannot truthfully say they provide any real benefit other than improving the appearance. I don't race my car, so my brakes don't heat up to the point of needing further cooling. With 40K on the original factory brakes that still have life left, this was cosmetic for me. Seeing a dummy duct opening bothered me. It didn't really matter, but I found it disturbing.@@erikschmidt476

@@GRATEFULNEIL I completely agree!

Electron is for a paint color is electron blue

No issues with debris,road spray,etc.

I suspected that was the case. For some reason I thought it was on the driver's side. But I guess in hindsight, I don't remember seeing a module when I had the driver's side fender off.

Just nitpicking, but it's not called a Performance Control Module, it's called the Powertrain Control Module or sometimes the Engine Control Module (ECM). And the little black box in front of it is the Throttle Actuator Control (TAC) module.

@@dekesone1 That is good info. Thank you!

is it just me or is that the dumbest place to put a computer module?

@kayvonmansouri It kind of feels like it. I think I might relocate the battery to the truck, and then relocate the PCM to the battery compartment.

That sounds ridiculous, dude lol

I wish we had UTEs here in the U.S. I've always wanted to visit Australia and see the car scene there. Summernats looks crazy fun.

I can't quite tell if that is actually its intended purpose or if that's more of an incidental thing. If it's intentional, then it was just terribly designed, because two of the biggest things the C5 is known for are A.) Floating front-end from high pressure under the hood, and B.) Poor heat management in the engine bay Personally, I lean toward it being an incidental thing, because if it was a purposeful design, they failed miserably.

I like this benefit

That's actually an excellent question. I kind of mentioned this a little during filming, but ended up cutting it out because it was a bit rambly and I didn't think people would actually care that much lol Due to the amount of time TrackSpec spent testing their vents, I suspect it would be an even greater improvement to have them in addition to the ducts, simply because it removes another hard surface for the air to collide with before exiting the wheel well. However, (and I mentioned this in the film I now wish I hadn't cut out), I elected to not do the side-hood-vents because, while I do track this car, it still spends 95% of its life on the road, and I was worried about throwing rocks up through the vents. Realistically, the vents on the hood would do better for evauting turbulent air caused by the rotation of the wheels, (hence why the AMG One has electronically actuated vents in the same place), whereas these vents will do more for releasing air being piped in by the front brake ducts. If you're building a dedicated track car, I highly recommend doing both!

Yeah, unless you're really putting the car through its paces where you're getting your brakes really hot, I don't think you're going to see any difference.

Hmm. That's interesting. Also, good information! I'm not surprised some air can escape through there, though, it does seem like a horribly inefficiencient method of getting heat out of the engine bay. I do still believe those vents are better served reducing turbulent air in the wheel wells, but that is still good info, though!

I definitely appreciate the follow-up, though!

@@ChaseFarrow Ya, maybe, but if you think that air is being forced into the engine bay through the front vents by the movement of the car, the air has to move out as well, around the hood gaps and any other openings around the fire wall. The under side is sealed off pretty well, so the air can be forced out the side vents. I’m a retired hvac tech, so I worked with moving air a lot!😀

@@darrylsjodin7184 Air want's to escape through the bonnet since its being forced upward not downward

@@exoticspeedefy7916 Yes, when you’re sitting at a stop light. When on the freeway, air is blowing through the engine compartment at 60 plus mph, so the air is forced out through every vent.

@@scoutdogfsr No it's not. The C5 was not wind tunnel tested during development. It was cobbled together by four guys in a shed. I don't know where you people get the idea that the C5 was some kind of aerodynamic engineering masterpiece. I love this chassis, but it just wasn't. What little effect the factory vents would have had were incidental at best. Not to mention, the laminar flow alongside the car that you mentioned was pretty much non-existent from the factory because of massive out-washing from the wheel wells. This is an issue with every single closes wheel car. This does fix it outright, but it does help it significantly. The underside aero profile on these cars is a catastrophe from the factory, which is one of the reasons the C5.R and every other track built C5 has most of the same changes I've made, and why GM made so many changes almost immediately after this. Dozens of privateer teams who have spent the last two decades developing these things, (and actually do have wind tunnel data), all say you are absolutely, unequivocally, undeniably wrong. I invite you to check out companies like Trackspec, ElectronSport, 9LR or many of the others that build this stuff. Their wind tunnel data is available to the public.

I had actually considered that. I don't know how I feel about the way that it looks. I was considering putting some satin black wrap on going from the opening of the fender duct to the edge of the fender, (where it meets the door), to try and protect the paint from little rocks that get picked up when the tires are hot.

@@ChaseFarrow If you don't want to change the color, toss a piece of paint protection film on there. It comes in clear (gloss or matte finish) and also in black. It will hold up much better than wrap will to rocks. I have PPF on the front of my Z06. I learned the hard way that rocks won't hold up to rocks very long.

@@BasinMotorsports I actually kind of like the look of the satin. Do you know if you can do PPF film over wrap??

@@ChaseFarrow yes you sure can.

@@BasinMotorsports Hmmm... I guess I have some things to consider lol

They're perfectly fine. Honestly, the only thing that concerns me a bit is when I go to the track and the tires get good and sticky. At that point, it might throw some. If you check out my LS Fest prep video, I wrapped that section before the event just to make sure it would be good.

Not to my knowledge. I can't imagine how they would, especially with the panel that blocks air from escaping out of it.

Youre correct. They vent under hood heat and press This is a bad mod to do.

It took me about a year to finally get my hands on them because they'd come into stock, and then within a couple of hours would be gone. Eventually, I started keeping a tab open on my browser, and every morning about 7:30am when I went into my office to start working, I'd refresh the tab until it I finally caught them lol I managed to pick get them the weekend of Thanksgiving last year, and have been waiting to install them ever since lol

@@ChaseFarrow dang, don’t think I’m that motivated to snag a set. Maybe down the road once she’s sorted out more I might start trying. Gotta torch red Z as well, almost 135k miles, but she’s in the shop at the moment because I did a clutch and rear main on jacks myself and sure enough it’s been leaking ever so slightly. I’ve done all the work on the car myself since owning it so it’s a bummer to not be able to take care of her this time around but hopefully it’ll be fine now, fingers crossed.

@richardelliott8352 There's absolutely no way that the fake vent with a block plate is faster than with it vented. While it's going to make almost no difference in a straight line, venting the fender allows for a reduction of turbulent air inside of the wheel, which makes for cleaner air around the fender area and better brake cooling. Whether it be in a straight line or around a track, (especially the latter), venting is going to be faster. Source: I've never seen a racecar with fake vents.

They don't relieve the pressure or heat even remotely well.

Thanks for stopping by! While I am open about the products that I use, I only link products when I have an agreement with the manufacturer or vendor.

I have a couple of track days coming up, so I'll definitely be able to answer the brake question soon. As for the extraction, they may extract some, but they sure as hell don't do anywhere near enough. These things get super floaty over 130 without a hood vent

@@ChaseFarrow yes, i agree about the floatiness above 130, the C7 was much better at higher speeds

@richarddobreny6664 Yeah. They ditched the bottom-breather design and went to a more conventional means of directing airflow. I understand what they were trying to do, but the original bottom-breather design was deeply flawed. I've had many purists comment on my modifications to the airflow and say "bUt ThE eNgInEeRs DeSiGnEd It LiKe ThAt FoR a ReAsOn." And they're right. They did design it like that for a reason. It just wasn't a good one lol Even GMs factory race team knew that it wasn't a good design for performance. That's why the C5.R wasn't a bottom-breather.

Thank you!

Pls dont blow my cover

Almost certainly not. But I didn't look. It's a Heads, Cam, Nitrous car with a rather large fuel system. Looking at MPGs would only make me depressed. Lol

It looks fine, though admittedly, I haven't put many miles on it since installing, plus the roads in my area are extremely clean.

I'm with you on the fake ducts. As far as functionality, it depends. If you're using them on an exclusively road-driven car, no. They're not really going to add anything other than a neat aesthetic. If they're being used on a more track centric car, they are going to help reduce some of that turbulent air inside the wheel wells, cleaning up the air moving along the side of the car at higher speeds.

@@clxbayt5695 ElectronSport produces them.

@@ChaseFarrow thank you, I was looking for them for my 2000 z51 vette

Not really sure which issues you're referring to. If you're talking about turbulent air inside of wheel-wells, then I don't know what to tell you other than you're wrong, and wind tunnel data proves it. It's not that you've never experienced it. It's that you've never NOT experienced it. All closed wheel cars are susceptible to trapped/turbulent air inside the wheel-wells. That's why vented fenders exist in the first place.

It depends on which C6 brake package you're doing, honestly. If it's the Z06 package, then no, those brakes will not clear a stock 17" front. My very next video is a big brake upgrade, where I talk a lot about brakes, how they work, and why you should or shouldn't do them. So it may have some useful information for you. I will say, if your car is really just a street car that maybe occasionally does some AutoX or spirited driving, you're better off saving your money. You'll get more benefit for 30% of the money flushing your brakes, installing steel lines, going to a DOT 4 fluid, and getting better brake pads than spending a whole bunch of money on a C6 kit.

Unfortunately, the only guys that are going to have them are Electron Sport. They make them in pretty low quantities, so they're really tough to get a hold of.

Yeah, I noticed that with the template. Unfortunately, I have a little gap on my inner fenders as well :/

Fender ducts from Electron Sport USA

ElectronSport USA

IF they are, it's incidental. The C5 is famous for running hot and for building high amounts of under-hood pressure at high high speeds. Either they weren't designed for ventilation, but they just so happened to be a place where some of the pressure can escape, Or, They were intended to reduce heat and pressure in the engine bay, and it's just an unbelievably awful design. Its one or the other. either way, the combination of a hood vent and adding these ducts is objectively better.

Nah. Realistically, the area where you'll see a difference is on the track. There, you'll mostly see a benefit in brake cooling because the air coming in from the front can more efficiently pass over the hot brakes, and then exit via the fender vents un-impeded. Technically, it's going to have an impact at any speed. But you're not going to really feel it on the street.

Thank you! I appreciate that! I'm trying to consistently improve my quality one video at a time!

That's a good question. I'm not really sure why yours would be different. Is it shaped the same??

@@ChaseFarrow My bad. They are plastic but both sides are only attached on 1 side so that they can open and close I guess as when pushed on they are flexible. Something worth looking into. At any rate I like your modifications.

@@GregorioLonewolf Oh, gotcha. Yeah, mine could be pushed too. They weren't rigid at all. From what people have been saying, it allows some of the pressure and heat in the engine bay to escape, but it doesn't do a good job of it at all.

@@ChaseFarrow I totally agree about heat dissipation. Enjoy your Z. I just saw on the side bar that a C5 guy in Arizona (goes by My Corvette Life) put up a similar video he calls C5 Functional Side Cove Ducts.

Trackspec

Just search Electron Sport USA Fender Ducts

Hello, and thank you for your comment. I do not provide links for products unless I have an agreement with the manufacturer. However, they are pretty easy to find using Google!

Do you mean top speed?

@@ChaseFarrow yes

@@ericswild I have not. There aren't really many places to do that. I definitely wouldn't attempt it on the street. Trying to do that while having 2" of ground clearance is a death wish.

​@@ChaseFarrowI thought your mod was to decrease the wind resistance from the tire rotation. I was assuming this was to increase top speed. If that wasn't your motivation is it mpg? Brake functionality? Have you noticed any changes in either? Or was there another reason that I am missing?

Borla S-Type II

Love it. I have an old Borla on my C5Z as well but yours sounds a little throatier. 4@@ChaseFarrow

@@surgicalmotorsports It might be my headers and X-pipe. Have you done your full exhaust?

Good point. I have full catless X pipe but I don't think they are aftermarket headers. I'll throw on the lift and look. @@ChaseFarrow

@@surgicalmotorsports Yeah, headers make a HUGE difference on these

I do too, but I'll probably be undoing them... :(

@@ChaseFarrow Really? Why would you do that? Do they chip easily or something?

​@@extraplain Unfortunately, they are absolute magnets for rocks. I've had the car going on 4 years, and I've had to have them painted more than once. I'm about to put side-splitters on, so I might give it one more go with the red in hopes that the side splitters protect them, but I'm leaning towards going back to the factory black. It really sucks, because I love the way they look color matched.

@@ChaseFarrow Fingers crossed! 🤞

I’m lucky my Z06 is black, so the vents are already body color😀