XRI Cowl Question

[TChandler]

I was looking at the cowl on my 95' Merc 200 XRI the other day. And I noticed that the vents located on the front corners were really not vents. I then begin to wonder how air enter the cowl. Air happens to come in towards the back. Have any of you performance guys cut the vents open that I'm talking about? Seems to me with the motor having air forced into the cowl would help performance. Same principle as ram air for cars.
:cool:

[Techno]

My 2 liter cowl has what looks like a plate at the front covering a large hole, the air goes around the plate. Someone also opened up the fake vents.
One thing to consider is the pressure flows at speed. An intake facing the windshield is under pressure but gets clean air(air free of bugs). So you can get pressurized flow if you take it from a pressure buildup area, even if it doesn't look like it's under pressure. A few pieces of yarn taped around the cowl will show the true airflow, These vents might be in a suction area from the boat.
I've wondered about overpressurizing the cowl and blowing it apart. I think this would be the use for the cowl vents if you had a forward facing hole for the horn.
I think the ECU is dumb and can't take advantage of extra air but I'm not sure about that.