Aeleven

I was thinking of getting C-West FRP Front Hood w/ Louvers or Hasemi - Vented hood. Does anyone have any info on these hoods. Do i have to use hood pins with these hoods? Are FRP hoods good or bad. I want to paint the hood the same color as the rest of the car and dont want to deal with painting carbon fiber. Where can i get the best price on this hood?
C-West



Hasemi

THE TECH

iTrader: (154)

There is no difference between painting FRP or carbon. Both are prepped the exact same way.

You need to use pins on all aftermarket hoods.

mich

iTrader: (5)

go for the cwest. that hood is pimp!
...its really expensive though.

i would buy one, but for now, id rather put that money into suspension, or other stuff.

i will eventually buy that hood tho...i hope.

JDMZ-33

+1 Cwest

Aeleven

Will the paint adhere to the Carbon Fiber in the nooks and crannies areas like the vents, also is there any way around the hood pins, Ive other Z's with aftermaket hoods without pins? I heard i could get the pinless hood keys, does anyone have that here.

Does anyone here have the C-west hood, if post pictures so i can check it out.

Jim@Showstoppers

iTrader: (157)

You can easily paint carbon fiber just like any other matieral (fiberglass, urethane, etc). Hood pins will always be recommended with an aftermarket hood. I know plenty of people, including myself, running Seibon hoods with no hood pins.

Some nice hood pins are aerocatch. http://www.aerocatch.com/

INTENSEPOWER

iTrader: (208)

Hello,

While I agree that the "correct" thing to say is that hood pins should be used on all carbon fiber hoods, on grade A hoods (C-West, VeilSide, Seibon, Top Secret, Ings) it's never a rule of thumb that they are indeed "required". The most important factor in determining if the hood pins are necessarey are found after the hood has been installed. If the fittment is like oem (the sides have are equal length from the fenders, and the front is snug against the bumper/weather stripping) then there is no need for hood pins; for daily driving. Obviously if you are habitually taking the car well above 100mps, then you may want to reconsider, as hood pins will provide that warm, fuzzy good feeling of security. This would of course apply to tracking the car alot as well, whether it be road course, time attack, drifting, or drag.

The major reason that hood pins are recommended is because on lower quality hoods (grade b, etc) the fittment is usually suspect and at high velocity there have been incidents where the carbon fiber "skin" has actually seperated from it's fiberglass skeleton, propelling the skin to smash into the windshield, over the car, into another car's window, etc etc etc.. this is largely due to that fact that the hood fittment is poor -- I.E. - there is a large gap between the bumper/weather stripping and the hood. At high high speeds the force of wind will put so much force on the under side of the skin that it will cause it to literally seperate from it's skeletal structure. The posibility of this happening doesn't exclude grade A hoods, but is a generalization, and one that I believe is widely accepted.

I've personally never had hoods pins on any car/hood that I've ever owned. On my Z, I've had Seibon TS for a year, (the first owner of the car had the hood for a year before me) and now VeilSide V2 for about 14 months. The car has always been daily driven, with now 55k miles (50k of it w/ cf hoods).

I agree with the above posts regarding painting of carbon fiber hoods. Do it!
Here's mine (VeilSide V2 CF custom painted 14 months ago):

http://www.intensepower.com/inmodahi35.html

Darrrrrrren. (is positive that a more physics-minded person could illustrate the mechanics of this..)