Today I cut out the new openings for the enlarged cooling air inlets. I then sanded to remove the existing gel coat that had been applied to the outside of the nose cowl in the areas where I will be applying new fiberglass layers.
The foam molds were marked and rough trimmed to final size but I found there were many areas where the foam was really too porous to lay glass over. I will be applying Bondo to these areas and hopefully by this means create a smooth finish to apply fiberglass over.
I started with 66 square-inches of opening and my new openings should give me about 95 square-inches of cooling air coming into my engine compartment, which is a bit better than the 88 square-inches that I'd determined was the minimum size.
