I have been seeing a few replacement hoods for the RX 8 on ebay. One that I really like has either 4 or 6 vent/slits in the hood. Has anyone installed one of these? Will they help keep the engine bay cool, or are they only aesthetic?

 

be very careful about the ebay hoods....some of the fitment is crap and materials are crap.....make sure its made by a reputable place....the aluminum hood is real close in weight to the cf so its mostly aesthetic....mine is the same as the oem but cf so i cant tell you about heat dissipation but i just wanted to warn you

 

in hot weather, i can see the heat coming out from the hood
but i'm not sure will it help keeping it cooler or not

 

look into the veilside hood... its a really good lookin hood that's vented and doesn't look too radical and out there

 

when pulling in the garage I pop my cf hood to let out the heat during these hot Tx. summers but, yeh, I know ,waste of my friggin time but what the hell,it can't hurt,right?

 

I wouldn't say so, I've noticed a difference in mine doing that. if you don't it's like sticking your car into an oven with the door closed, if you open the door the heat has somewhere to go. I'm actually considering buying some sort of large fan to circulate things and help it out a bit