Tuesday Tech: Hoods and Hoodscops

Bronco owners know that Ford designed at least one flaw into the classic Bronco....hood clearance. 

The stock air cleaner element didn't sit on top of the carburetor, it had to sit to the side.

This meant that any Bronco owner adding taller intake manifolds or carburetors had to find room.

So today we will look at what options are available and what others have done to make a home for their air cleaners.

We will start this out with the James Duff hood bubble/scoop.. I cannot say for certain that the Duff hood bubble was invented by James Duff, but he sure did make it famous.

When building my Bronco back in the 80's I bought my fiberglass hood scoop from Duff. His shop was on the other side of Puget Sound from my home in south Seattle.

The hood bubble comes in a couple of varieties, some have panels indented into the front

You can also buy a whole fiberglass hood with the bubble built in, almost all of the K-Bar-S shop built Broncos had one of these hoods.

Next up is the High County hood, it uses a chevy style cowl induction scoop.

This hood was created by Alan Dunn and the team at High Country Performance 4x4 in Englewood, CO.

I first saw it on Alan's 1967 Bronco nicknamed Crazy Horse, when it appeared in all three 4x4 magazines back in the late 80's.

Wild Horses 4X4 bought the rights and molds to the hood when High Country switched their focus to Jeeps. This was my favorite looking hood for Classic Broncos....

There are different variants avaiable

I think this next one is from Rocky Roads

More cowl induction style hoods

you could of course, just buy the scoop and attach it with rivets or bolts.

This is my new favorite one, the Wild Horses Buckeroo Hood, it is reminiscent of the hood found on the Shelby Mustangs

Wild Horses also sells this hood they call the GTX, it looks like the Boss 429/Cougar Eliminator scoop

Again, you can buy just the scoop, these bolt on from below.

Then we have these high-rise hoods, they simply exaggerate the raised area in the stock hood, they come in different heights.

Another version from Tom's Off-Road

A similar high rise hood with shark gills

Another one in the design stage

This next one is from Jeff's Bronco Graveyard

Another one off design

Not sure if this adds any clearance or if it is just for looks and air flow

One Bronco owner retro-fitted the Ford Cobra-Jet shaker scoop onto his Bronco

My Father used a fiberglass Mopar Six Pack style on his Bronco

There are others you can buy, another popular one for old Ford is the Teardrop bubble, made famous by the Ford Fairlane Thunderbolt drag cars.

I didn't post links to the individual vender's hood and scoops, instead I will post links here to their websites where you can browse the selection for yourself.

Jeff's Bronco Graveyard

Wild Horses 4x4

James Duff

Tom's Bronco Parts/Tom's Off-Road

Fiberglass Specialties

Andys Auto Sport