At just over 110 mph my headlights come up. Unwanted and annoying. What to do?
If I try to pull them up manually, underneath the hood, I do not dare to pull so hard, they seem to be stuck in place pretty good! Also, they don't come up all the way, and it's both the doors and the headlight units that come up. Luckily they still work after this adventure.
PS I drove in GERMANY (I live in Holland)

You could try to slow down a bit! (joking)

Try searching the archives. Along time ago there was alot of talk about this on the forum. It was happening even at slower than light speeds too... I do not recall the solution but several members had headlights being forced up at highway seeds.

Thanx Ross,
I already did the search, but found not much more than modifying the entire hood, or some idiot headlight restraint cables from West Coast Fieros: How is this going to help?? Hasn't anyone tried any 'under the hood' ways of getting rid of the exces air-pressure?

quote Originally posted by joeformula88: At just over 110 mph my headlights come up. Unwanted and annoying. What to do? If I try to pull them up manually, underneath the hood, I do not dare to pull so hard, they seem to be stuck in place pretty good! Also, they don't come up all the way, and it's both the doors and the headlight units that come up. Luckily they still work after this adventure. PS I drove in GERMANY (I live in Holland)

It's not actually the whole headlight mechanism that's popping up..... it's just the headlight door that is opening.

Archie

I think hood vents eliminates this problem but i'm not sure...

on holes in hood?? then try the flush mount headlights! that worked for me. Now I don't have to cut the hood like I was going to do.

I get the same thing at around 100. The headlight door on the hood pops up. I was looking for a solution too. Scared one day its gonna pop up & then rip off the hood. Maybe stronger springs. But the hood vent sounds like a good idea too.

Of course, Flush mount headlights will not pop open.

But, Flush mount headlights don't cure the root problem. The root problem is air getting up under the front end and causing lift.

There are 2 ways to get the air out from underneath the front end, you can pull the hood release or use hood vents.

Archie

You can also adjust the tension on the head lamp door springs.

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I didn't realize the Fiero came with speed brakes! And they're self-deploying--do you know how much something like that costs on an airliner? The software alone---

No, J/K

Hood vents. Definitely. Or you can use some kind of physical restraint, like pins or cables. Or you can find a way to increase the tension in the springs--though this might accelerate wear on the headlight mechanism.

Ed

Hood vents.

Solves the headlight prob, cools better, reduces front end lift at high speeds. All that and they look cool as all hell.

Good all around.

quote Originally posted by Archie: There are 2 ways to get the air out from underneath the front end, you can pull the hood release or use hood vents.

How would pulling the hood release get air out from underneath the front end? Would the hood actually open?

I'd be too scared to try it, but..

quote Originally posted by Wipe0ut: How would pulling the hood release get air out from underneath the front end? Would the hood actually open? I'd be too scared to try it, but..

No, think about it: the hood opens at the rear and is hinged at the front. Air flowing over the top of the hood would keep it down. The air flowing up from under the car won't be enough (or at least I don't THINK it would be enough) to lift the hood up very far.

Has anyone tried this? That's what I think, but don't risk your life based on what I think, because I am human and can very easily be wrong...

...but even if the hood *did* lift up, I don't think the hood could rise far enough to block your vision for long.

Ed

Edit: fixed HTML problem

[This message has been edited by edhering (edited 08-21-2002).]

OK, thanks for all the info. I hadn't realized that just the doors come up and not also the units: It is kinda hard to tell at that speed! Now that I do know this and know that it's the wind pressure that causes the doors to rise, I would still like to know if anyone has tried making holes (what size would they have to be?) in the radiatorcompartment UNDERNEATH the hood, instead of the hoodscoops, which is not only a lot of work, but also involves the original looks of the car!

PROBLEM SOLVED.........
available onlt at WCF

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( the above was the thoughts, views, and opinions of a disgruntled Fiero mechanic, and do not express or
imply those of West Coast Fiero, Fieros West, or any other organization - just that of this poor
bastard )

Eric Nelson
Technician,
West Coast Fiero
310-305-4111

[

[This message has been edited by West Coast Fiero (edited 08-21-2002).]

I'm still trying to get an answer to this:

quote Originally posted by joeformula88: OK, thanks for all the info. I hadn't realized that just the doors come up and not also the units: It is kinda hard to tell at that speed! Now that I do know this and know that it's the wind pressure that causes the doors to rise, I would still like to know if anyone has tried making holes (what size would they have to be?) in the radiatorcompartment UNDERNEATH the hood, instead of the hoodscoops, which is not only a lot of work, but also involves the original looks of the car!

quote Originally posted by joeformula88: OK, thanks for all the info. I hadn't realized that just the doors come up and not also the units: It is kinda hard to tell at that speed! Now that I do know this and know that it's the wind pressure that causes the doors to rise, I would still like to know if anyone has tried making holes (what size would they have to be?) in the radiatorcompartment UNDERNEATH the hood, instead of the hoodscoops, which is not only a lot of work, but also involves the original looks of the car!

Where would you put the holes? The only chioces are the hood or the trunk. The truck is still a sealed area. The natural flow is up. You might be able to drill holes into the front side of the wheel wells but I don't know if that will work.

You might be able to drill holes into the front side of the wheel wells but I don't know if that will work.
Why wouldn't this work? Has anyone tried?

quote Originally posted by Oreif: Where would you put the holes? The only chioces are the hood or the trunk. The truck is still a sealed area. The natural flow is up. You might be able to drill holes into the front side of the wheel wells but I don't know if that will work.

quote Originally posted by joeformula88: You might be able to drill holes into the front side of the wheel wells but I don't know if that will work. Why wouldn't this work? Has anyone tried?

I don't know if anyone has tried it. But under the car is a little spoiler to deflect the air up thru the angled radiator. So the air would pass thru and then deflect off the hood/trunk and then flow out the sides.

Just thinking, it might work since the air passing over the wheel well would create a low pressure area and aid in drawing air out.

quote Originally posted by joeformula88: You might be able to drill holes into the front side of the wheel wells but I don't know if that will work. Why wouldn't this work? Has anyone tried?

The way you're pushing this, it sounds like you had your mind made up before even starting this thread. Why not go out there and try it!

I typed up more, but I'm keeping my mouth shut, so I deleted the rest.

Yeah my headlights normally go up around 100.... but i was doing around 120 the other night down the highway, and yes the left light was up, got home and noticed it wasnt down all the way - i broke the headlight door - one side it broke off the hinge; oh well i got another hood.

About realsing the hood, well think about this, doing 100+ and cop, so you hit the brakes, hood then goes up if the stoping power like overcomes the wind resistence or whatever.. or if you get into a accident and your hood flyes open that outta look real good. haha i dunno about drilling the holes i dont think it would work unless it was a real big hole and thats even if the majarity of the air followed the hole, be cool though if you could vent it to the brakes or something to help with cooling at the same time

Kyle

I don't think anyone has brought this one up yet, what about taking your existing headlight covers off and replacing them with louvered covers? Did I see them on a 308 at one time? That way you could go back to original easily.
Chris

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'87 2.8v6 5spd

hmm... maybe someone could cut up the stock doors, and glass in some turbo sunbird vents, or generic vents from a speed shop etc.. but, putting sunbird or trans am vents in the hood is probably the best option to relieve under hood pressure.

I personally prefer the warber-style vent.. I have a spare hood leaning against my shed waiting for my next Fiero so I can do a nice custom hood.

what about ducting the air down for brake cooling or something? would that work?

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steve@digitalfusion.on.ca
http://www.fieroproject.com

I can't believe no one has said this yet. Put ductape across the light covers to the hood. Then you can go up to about 500 miles per hour and not worry about the lights flipping up! California Kid does it.

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quote Originally posted by KRMFiero: About realsing the hood, well think about this, doing 100+ and cop, so you hit the brakes, hood then goes up if the stoping power like overcomes the wind resistence or whatever.. or if you get into a accident and your hood flyes open that outta look real good. haha i dunno

Um, as for braking from 100+ to 55, there shouldn't be enough force on the hood to make it fly open. As for getting into an accident...if you hit something at 100+ mph in a Fiero, you have bigger things to worry about than your hood flying open!

Ed

My front hood latch didn’t work when I first got my car, I never had any problems with it opening at highway speeds. The only time it would open far enough to worry me was when I went over a large bump. (Speed Bump)

quote Originally posted by joeformula88: You might be able to drill holes into the front side of the wheel wells but I don't know if that will work. Why wouldn't this work? Has anyone tried?

It would have to be drilled behind the headlight housings or else it wouldn't do anything.
GM already vents the air from behind the radiator out through the front wheelwells, but apparantly it isn't enough.

quote Originally posted by yellowfieroarri: I can't believe no one has said this yet. Put ductape across the light covers to the hood. Then you can go up to about 500 miles per hour and not worry about the lights flipping up! California Kid does it.

Speaking of Cali Kid, has anyone seen him on the forum lately? I havent seen him since JEDI's Pictures of his car vs the stinger.....

Cory

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88 GT Fully stock and looking good. Loves 100 mph twisties.
84 SE 4 Speed, PISA WAD, Door Panels, Digital gauges, short shifter, Corbeau CR1 racing seats, black carpet, red floormats.. More to come.
84 SE Auto, Parts car, anyone need any parts? Or the whole car can go.

I popped the hood and drove it like that for about 100 miles in Montana - about 75mph. It was kinda scary at first - since I popped it at about 40 or so. I was checking to see if it would lower the radiator heat - I found it didn't really do much unless the ambient temps were low enough - less than 60 anyhow. At that temp and below it was as effective as having the engine fan on...

Vic

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'86 GT on the road for the summer!
'85 SC running smooooth. (SOLD!!)
'86 Gold SE V8 - how do YOU smell melted wire!
'85 Silver SE V6 - automatic for the kid!

Down to three - I think that's enough...

I would cut out a 3" round hole under the hood in the headlight area, Run a clothes dryer hose from there to a hole of same opening at the back of the fender through a scoop( like skitime has on his car)routeing it will be up to you!

And the vent thing on the covers has been done by fieromomo (not sure of the name right now) only his were not funcional, they just glassed to the top of the headlight. I would say to get those and cut out the vents, then replace the light doors.

Of course the flush lites worked very well also!

Stick with Archie = smart man! AND I think he was joking about the hood latch at speeds!

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[This message has been edited by revin (edited 08-22-2002).]

am I to assume that folks would rather start cutting random holes into thier cars than to simply install headlight door restraints?

quote Originally posted by West Coast Fiero: am I to assume that folks would rather start cutting random holes into thier cars than to simply install headlight door restraints?

do these restarints keep the door closed, or just keep you from breaking them when they whip open? The picture makes it look like they just keep the door from getting broken. We want something to keep it shut.

I have Turbo Sunbird hood vents. I got my car up to about 120 and the doors didn't fly up, but my driver's sail panel almost flew off . (That one is an aftermarket POS)

I actually lost a sail panel on the way to a race. It was an OEM too.

quote Originally posted by revin: Stick with Archie = smart man! AND I think he was joking about the hood latch at speeds!

Actually, I wasn't kidding. The Root cause of the headlight doors coming open is the buildup of air under the front end of the car. This also causes lift as noticed in a "Lite" feeling of the steering at 100+ speeds. The next time you're at 100mph and the steering is starting to get lite, pull the hood release and you're steering will feel like a 200 pound fat lady just sat on your hood.

You can tie your headlight doors down with some cable from Home Depot, you can tape them down or you can mount flush lights but none of those get rid of the "Lift" that caused the problem.

In the past (when I don't want to modify the hood) I've used a hole saw and put 2 3" Dia. holes up high on the front bulkhead just behind the radiator and another hole in the trailing edge of the spare tire well. That worked pretty well but I haven't done as much testing of that method as I have the hood vents.

Hope this helps

Archie

quote Originally posted by yellowfieroarri: I can't believe no one has said this yet. Put ductape across the light covers to the hood. Then you can go up to about 500 miles per hour and not worry about the lights flipping up! California Kid does it.

You are wrong. DEAD wrong. My friend John at Bristol Aerospace used to use Ducttape to hold the fins down on his test-rockets.

Why?

Because it CONSISTANTLY peels off at Mach 3.

NOT 500mph

I've contemplated a solution that would SEPARATE the area around the radiator from teh area of the headlights with some sort of wall. a piece of fiberglass with a rubber pad on top. that way, the air pressure on on the radiator and is blocked by the wall so that it can't get into the headlight area. It won't affect the exterior looks, it should be fairly easy, and you don't have cheezy peices of picture wire flapping around chipping your paint and scratching your lenses.

Having said all this I have not tried it yet but I've just been inspired.

quote Originally posted by joeformula88: You might be able to drill holes into the front side of the wheel wells

I've done this to my car. The excess air vents out into the area in between the fender/wheelwell and trunk. The air then dissipates out the bottom and can even travel as far back as the gap between the fender and front door (it's open there too). I didn't want big ugly holes, so I got these vents from the junk yard from a Camaro(?). They are about 3"x5" rectangular vents that GMs use to allow passenger cabin air to vent for that "flow through ventilation". There're all different shapes and sizes.

On the passenger side, I mounted it on the side vertically. I think this looks best. Unfortunately, you can't mount it this way on the driver's side becasue a headlamp motor relay box (?) is mounted there.

On the driver's side, I mounted it on the bottom below the headlamp to allow the air pressure to escape. There are already drain holes there to allow rain water to drain. You could mount the vents under both headlamps.

I tested these by driving about 90mph into a 50mph headwind and they DID NOT pop up.
The car also runs cooler now!! It works, and is "hidden".

[This message has been edited by fierosound (edited 08-22-2002).]

Fierosound:
This is what I was looking for! Thanx a lot, this is a neat solution to the problem.

A (W)HOLE lot better than what West Coast Fieros come up with. I frankly cannot believe that a self-respecting Fiero Club comes up with an idiot solution like that.

Oh well, thanks again for all the serious input!

fierosound, you car continues to amaze me!!