Chief Engineer Says Supra's Blocked-Off Air Vents Can Be Made Functional / Functional vents possible?

[johnny_10196]

Tetsuya Tada, the engineering boss for the new Supra, explains what happens when you remove the blocking plates from the scoops in the Supra's hood, fenders, and doors.

The 2020 Toyota Supra's bodywork is shot through with air scoops—in the front and rear bumpers, in the hood, even in the doors. On the production model of the car, almost all of these slashes and vents are blocked off with black plastic. But in a conversation with Tetsuya Tada, the chief engineer for the new A90-generation Supra, we learned that there's a way to make these decoy vents and scoops functional.

Speaking through a translator, Tada explained how Toyota built a Supra race car midway through the development of the production model, the first time the automaker had tried such a strategy. Feedback from the race car influenced the eventual design of the street-legal model, including those myriad vents and scoops.

"If you look at the vehicle today, there's holes all over the body," Tada said. "They're just capped on the production car. Those are for the racing model. When the customer goes and converts it to a racing car, or adds those necessary components, those caps come off very easily. So, it's already pre-made, ready to accommodate."

As Tada explained, there's a little more to it than just pulling the block-off plates. Racers and modifiers will have to decide which scoops to use for what purpose, adding ducting as needed for cooling or aerodynamic functions. "The holes are there to be used," he said. "It depends on what category you're racing in. It also really depends on how the customer intends to use the race vehicle."

https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-sh...04043/2020-toyota-supra-air-vents-functional/

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[Australian of The North]

[content removed]

 

[BPEK Supra Interactive]

Here's an article I read when someone interviewed the Chief Engineer about the vents. It's a short read but at least the vents are removable. I'm strongly hoping for the aftermarket community to make use of the vents if that's the case.

Short quote from the article:
"If you look at the vehicle today, there's holes all over the body," Tada said. "They're just capped on the production car. Those are for the racing model. When the customer goes and converts it to a racing car, or adds those necessary components, those caps come off very easily. So, it's already pre-made, ready to accommodate."

https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-sh...04043/2020-toyota-supra-air-vents-functional/

 

[Redphaser]

I was hoping that would be the case. I generally despise fake vents but if they at least serve some purpose, even if it’s not on the road version of the car, I can let it slide.

The real travesty is they’ve revealed it but I still can’t touch one, yet.

 

[DesmoSD]

It seems a bit vague. Just like the Tacoma's hood scoop, LC-500, RC and Camry have similar fake vents, they too pop off but leave the mounting holes. You're going to have to take off the bumper and then what? Is there ducting? Are they going to work like BMW's air curtain or Porsche GT3's brake cooling ducts?

Sure they'll offers some venting depending on which class they allow. I still don't know how the door vent is going to work? Unless you're going to have cut sheetmetal since it'll be a "racecar".

 

[McWicked]

The car already has functional front ducts...

 

[Captain_Kirk]

I Just Don't Believe What the Toyota Supra's Chief Engineer Says About the Fake Vents

https://jalopnik.com/i-just-dont-believe-what-the-toyota-supras-chief-engine-1831838527

Look, I’m not trying to be a jackass here or anything, and I fully realize that I’m just some drooling simpleton that writes about indicator lamps and Tetsuya Tada is an incredibly smart and skilled Chief Engineer for one of the largest carmakers in the world. But I can’t change what I saw. So when our good pals at Road & Track reported that “The Toyota Supra’s Blocked-Off Air Vents Can Be Made Functional, Says the Chief Engineer,” I had to re-examine my Supra fake vent take and see what was really going on. What I found was that I’m in the awkward spot of disagreeing with the Chief Engineer about his own project.

Where do I get balls like that, you may be wondering, quite justifiably? Well, it’s not so much about balls as it is holes, specifically the lack thereof. Here’s what the Road & Track story said:

“If you look at the vehicle today, there’s holes all over the body,” Tada said. “They’re just capped on the production car. Those are for the racing model. When the customer goes and converts it to a racing car, or adds those necessary components, those caps come off very easily. So, it’s already pre-made, ready to accommodate.

Okay, so, based on what I saw on the car itself, these statements are simply not accurate at all. There are no easy-to-remove “block-off plates” on any of the fake vents. The plastic covers that mimic the look of a vent can be pried off, sure, but you’re just going to have some sheet metal behind them.

Here, let’s look at two of the vents, the ones on the hood:

...and here’s a shot of the hood from the underside:

Image cropped from larger picture
Photo: Motor Trend Canada (https://www.motortrend.ca/en/news/six-secrets-2020-toyota-supra/)
There are no easy-to-remove block-off plates. If you were to pry off the plastic covers on those hood vents, you’d just find yourself with a way to allow air into a shallow volume surrounded by the sheet metal that forms the under hood structural supports. That’s it. It has no use as an engine vent.

Sure, I suppose you could Sawzall a lot of that material under there and carve yourself out a heat-extraction vent or whatever you want, but you could do that on literally any car, ever.

The same goes for pretty much every other fake vent on the car. Like these vents on the doors

Here’s what’s behind those doors, which you can see in this, um, Schmee video walkaround:

Behind those door vents is just a normal doorjamb. There’s no air intakes or holes, covered by knock-out plates or not. That door vent does absolutely nothing, and even if you were to punch that whole vent open, it would still do effectively nothing beyond, I guess, keeping your door latch nice and cool.

The blocked off panels on the side front grille areas (not the little teardrop below the headlamp; that still appears to be fake even on the racing one) are the exception here; you could likely pull off that whole plastic grille part and replace it with an open mesh, like in the racing edition did:

Also, when they do need more airflow, like at the rear to give an exhaust for air trapped in the wheel well, the racing version of the Supra uses a completely unique rear bumper skin to accommodate it:

The point is, the fake vents on the production car are in no way just useful and ready-to-go by just popping off some covers, as R&T reported Tada said. Maybe there were translation issues? I don’t really understand why the engineer would say something so counter to what reality appears to be, so I reached out to Toyota about this, too.

Here’s what they told me:

“In speaking with our Sr. Product Planner, there are some vents that could likely be altered for airflow, but others are probably best left as they are.”

I think that’s about as close as a major automaker can come to saying that something their engineer said to the press isn’t really true.

So, to all of those who commented on the original story and pointed me to the Road & Track piece, I’d just like to say that I took what you said seriously, and looked into it.

And I found that these vents are still fake.

 

[ichitaka05]

Not a fan of posting in sister site, (prefer to stay in my comfort area) but I'll add my 2yen to this topic because, I did ask same question to Tada-san. (which you can find the interview in one of Guff's post)

Anyways, to all the people really believing that keeping stock fake vents and just pop em off will make real vents is a bit crazy. 99.9% behind most of those fake vents, doesn't have some kind of cut or vents holes to vent some air (which I'm assuming, but prob I'm not far off). Why? It's not necessary for daily use drivers. K now, for ppl or should I say "racing team", even they do come with those parts, they are not necessary, because they'll make themselves. They can make it lighter or better design parts. BUT able to have vent spots are different story. They need to do extra test to see where to cut in the panel to make it functional vents without losing down force &/or air flow. If Supra engineers have already made those vent area, all they need to do is cut/pop off that spot and make it functional vents. They don't need to worry bout losing the air flow and so on.

I'll admit, door's fake vent is questionable... BUT Tada-san said all the vents are make with purpose, so I'll believe it. On previous car he designed had fake vents on the fenders (if you own 86/BRZ knows what I'm talking bout). After cutting and DIY, guess what? It's fully functional vents without loosing the exterior OEM design. Is it coincident that fake fender on 86 happened to make it to be legit vents? Or was it part of their design plan? Chances are very high they designed it on purpose.

One thing I've found out after talking with Tada-san this week, Tada-san and his team doesn't make or add pointless/nonfunctional stuff on their cars. They're passionate and take pride in their work. It might be nonfunctional in one person's view doesn't mean it's not for others. They think for normal owners to all the way to racing team who gonna be driving and racing this car.

Maybe I was convinced too much from talking w Tada-san... or maybe I'm just drunk. IDK, I'll let you guys be the judge on that.

Another thing is stop reading Jalop. They can't even talk with Tada-san when he was right in front of them. Yes, I saw some of so called "car journalists", which almost all ignoring the presence of Tada-san, Toyoyama-san and several important staffs that are involved in this Supra project (except most of Japanese writers), instead they just make 1000000 pointless article to just get extra click on their site.

 

[DesmoSD]

Not a fan of posting in sister site, (prefer to stay in my comfort area) but I'll add my 2yen to this topic because, I did ask same question to Tada-san. (which you can find the interview in one of Guff's post)

Anyways, to all the people really believing that keeping stock fake vents and just pop em off will make real vents is a bit crazy. 99.9% behind most of those fake vents, doesn't have some kind of cut or vents holes to vent some air (which I'm assuming, but prob I'm not far off). Why? It's not necessary for daily use drivers. K now, for ppl or should I say "racing team", even they do come with those parts, they are not necessary, because they'll make themselves. They can make it lighter or better design parts. BUT able to have vent spots are different story. They need to do extra test to see where to cut in the panel to make it functional vents without losing down force &/or air flow. If Supra engineers have already made those vent area, all they need to do is cut/pop off that spot and make it functional vents. They don't need to worry bout losing the air flow and so on.

I'll admit, door's fake vent is questionable... BUT Tada-san said all the vents are make with purpose, so I'll believe it. On previous car he designed had fake vents on the fenders (if you own 86/BRZ knows what I'm talking bout). After cutting and DIY, guess what? It's fully functional vents without loosing the exterior OEM design. Is it coincident that fake fender on 86 happened to make it to be legit vents? Or was it part of their design plan? Chances are very high they designed it on purpose.

One thing I've found out after talking with Tada-san this week, Tada-san and his team doesn't make or add pointless/nonfunctional stuff on their cars. They're passionate and take pride in their work. It might be nonfunctional in one person's view doesn't mean it's not for others. They think for normal owners to all the way to racing team who gonna be driving and racing this car.

Maybe I was convinced too much from talking w Tada-san... or maybe I'm just drunk. IDK, I'll let you guys be the judge on that.

Another thing is stop reading Jalop. They can't even talk with Tada-san when he was right in front of them. Yes, I saw some of so called "car journalists", which almost all ignoring the presence of Tada-san, Toyoyama-san and several important staffs that are involved in this Supra project (except most of Japanese writers), instead they just make 1000000 pointless article to just get extra click on their site.

Go, you should post here more often! We can use your insight!

Nobuo-san explains about the vents.

AM: Can you explain your thought process around the nonfunctional grille areas and add-on door-seal panel? Were those strictly for design or is it something that you thought maybe could be used later?

NN: On the technical side, we did some tests with them open and without. Many things. But for the production model, it turned out that closed is better, but it’s been incorporated in so that later on, let’s say if you wanted to add cooling ducts or for racing purposes, that option is available and it’s already incorporated into the design.

 

[mas921]

Not a fan of posting in sister site, (prefer to stay in my comfort area) but I'll add my 2yen to this topic because, I did ask same question to Tada-san. (which you can find the interview in one of Guff's post)

Anyways, to all the people really believing that keeping stock fake vents and just pop em off will make real vents is a bit crazy. 99.9% behind most of those fake vents, doesn't have some kind of cut or vents holes to vent some air (which I'm assuming, but prob I'm not far off). Why? It's not necessary for daily use drivers. K now, for ppl or should I say "racing team", even they do come with those parts, they are not necessary, because they'll make themselves. They can make it lighter or better design parts. BUT able to have vent spots are different story. They need to do extra test to see where to cut in the panel to make it functional vents without losing down force &/or air flow. If Supra engineers have already made those vent area, all they need to do is cut/pop off that spot and make it functional vents. They don't need to worry bout losing the air flow and so on.

I'll admit, door's fake vent is questionable... BUT Tada-san said all the vents are make with purpose, so I'll believe it. On previous car he designed had fake vents on the fenders (if you own 86/BRZ knows what I'm talking bout). After cutting and DIY, guess what? It's fully functional vents without loosing the exterior OEM design. Is it coincident that fake fender on 86 happened to make it to be legit vents? Or was it part of their design plan? Chances are very high they designed it on purpose.

One thing I've found out after talking with Tada-san this week, Tada-san and his team doesn't make or add pointless/nonfunctional stuff on their cars. They're passionate and take pride in their work. It might be nonfunctional in one person's view doesn't mean it's not for others. They think for normal owners to all the way to racing team who gonna be driving and racing this car.

Maybe I was convinced too much from talking w Tada-san... or maybe I'm just drunk. IDK, I'll let you guys be the judge on that.

Another thing is stop reading Jalop. They can't even talk with Tada-san when he was right in front of them. Yes, I saw some of so called "car journalists", which almost all ignoring the presence of Tada-san, Toyoyama-san and several important staffs that are involved in this Supra project (except most of Japanese writers), instead they just make 1000000 pointless article to just get extra click on their site.

QFT
This guys glass is half full.

 

[Captain_Kirk]

 

[DesmoSD]

^There's @ichitaka05 at the 8:08 mark

 

[AsupramkvC]

Too many fake vents

 

[Goose]

Too many fake vents

The vents just need the plastic piece removed and a piece to direct the air and they'll be fully functional.

 

[Daigor]

The vents just need the plastic piece removed and a piece to direct the air and they'll be fully functional.

Regarding the Vents. I have said this before, it is NOT as easy as removing the plastic piece to make them functional. In a couple location of the Vents you will need to Cut into the Body of the MKV in order to make them functional. Ex. the Hood and the Side Door Panel. I think Tada-San may have missed that crucial detail when he made that statement that they are easy to modify to make them functional. Here is an in depth look at the Vents.

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