Many aftermarket hoods, especially for sports cars, make use of large cowls, ram air vents, and most commonly heat extractors on the sides of the hood.
I'm a techie and we're always spending insane amounts of money to improve our computer cooling systems, as improved cooling directly correlates to higher stable processing speeds. But does this hold true for cars? I thought that most engine cooling systems were efficient enough to keep an ICE at optimal temperature in all normal conditions. Do these heat extractors actually provide any practical benefit?
I'm specifically interested in the affect on newer vehicles (2010+) but any historical information would be interesting as well.