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Hey Novusuhu, I agree that our C3s tend to get pretty dang hot under the hood! It seems a lot of air piles up under the hood with no where to go.
I liked your idea to cut the cowl, but that being said, I'm not sure how well it would work. The cowl area at the base of the windshield is a high pressure area (thus how "cowl-induction" intakes work). The reason the C7 style vents work is the area just aft of the nose is a low pressure area. This essentially sucks the air out. I suspect the cowl area, being high pressure, would/could prevent air from escaping.. or perhaps even allow some back flow into the hood area, perhaps making the problem even worse!
Check out this CFD of a NASCAR, which shows the low pressure area roughly where the C7 vent would be, and the high pressure area at the base of the windshield.
one thing this illustration suggests to me is the hood vents that you see on many turbo cars might be more effective than I believed. Not only are they placed in a lower pressure area, but also up high where the hottest air will tend to collect.
