The customer Adam (Z1 Performance) keeps referring to is me. I picked up a TS hood from him as part of my spring car show mods.

I intended to keep it as a surprise to show off at the first shows of the season, but since it won't be mounted for those shows, I'll air my opinions now.

First, to back up what others have said, the hood really is awesome looking. It is well constructed and after some work, looks terrific on the Z.

Closing the Hood
I have the same fitment problems everyone else has had, though. Would not close with the vent covers in place. I did not consider this an issue as I have no intention of having the covers on. I don't drive my Z in the rain.

Even with the vent covers removed from the hood, my hood would not close properly. First up, I have the Crawford strut bar for use with my Crawford plenum. The hood simply is not cut out for this. We had to remove the strut bar to allow the hood to latch. Even then, it rubs the battery and fluid covers. The hood latches, but bows up oddly making it appear to fit poorly.

We finally were able to get a smooth closure by having the the strut bar and aforementioned battery and brake fluid covers off the car.

Fitment
The hood did not align properly fresh "out of the box". We did have to grind out one hood hinge bracket to move the hood slightly forward on the driver's side. This took care of the uneven spacing between driver and passenger fenders AND helped with some places where the hood still appeared to be bowing just a little.

At the front, my TS still does not align properly with the bumper... it sits back from the top of the bumper 1/8 of inch, maybe just a little more. HOwever, we did not mount the hood with the front weatherstripping or the hood "bumper" adjustments. We're confident with these on, it would clean up the front alignment issue.

Overall
Overall, I think the hood is nice. I still like it. It's just not a "finished" product in my opinion. With some additional attention, I think we can get it to work.

On our end, we plan to fabricate some custom Battery and Brake Fluid closeouts. This will allow us to remove the "raised" stock plastic pieces, addressing that issue.

For the strut bar, we're going to cut out the support structure on the hood to accomodate the Crawford strut bar, then reinforce the hood at other places.

In the meantime, I have put the stock hood back on my car. The paint on the new hood has to cure before we can polish it out good anyway. Once we can do that, we're going to make the necessary modifications and put it back on the car. Hopefully in time for ZDayZ!!!

 

ricky, we should meet up some time. how far are you from va beach? iv never entered a show before, but the car is spoken for at the one in va beach this summer. my local speed shop that i got most of my parts from (www.autosolutionva.com) is putting it in their booth, but im down to do some other shows. its my daily driver though, im not sure its "show quailty"?
cat, yes there are "black holes" in the mesh. i took those pics lastnight, so they didnt show up too well. ill shoot a few daytime pics this afternoon before i start my own seibon thread.

 

I'm in Fairfax, about a 4.5-5 hour drive depending where on the beach you are.. I'm planning to do the PA and Baltimore HIN shows, and few other shows in DC/Richmond/PA/MD..

 

sounds cool man, well have to keep in touch for sure! hey if anyone folowing this thread is interested, i just put up a BUNCH of pics in another thread! check it out, and let me know what you guys think! later.

https://my350z.com/forum/showthread....641#post739641

 

http://www.everything350z.com/ubbthr...psed_5__1.html

 

the link above is a pic of my VS style hood. The fit could be alot better. I had to move the hood latch up to make the hood close. Disapointed in that.
For those of you that have hood pins, do you still have to have the latch at all? Maybe this could be the solution. I slotted out the hood brackets and slid the hood toward the drivers side to center the hood out. Now all i need is to get the damn thing to latch without having the hood bend.
I have to say i get alot of looks from this hood but for 750.00 it could have been better fitting.

 

Just a quick update that we got my hood installed tonight, along with the Veilside rear valence....I am a happy camper right now

It took a bit of work to get the hood to sit where it should, but its very close to being perfect - at least as perfect as I am willing to try to make it for now. I was able to use both battery and master cylinder covers, though I have left the undervent covers off the car for now (I will try to install them tomorrow). Basically had to do what others here suggested - move the main latch upwards and over a bit to the drivers side, and slot the drivers side latch slightly with a drill to give us some lateral movement in the hood. Once done, it latched fine, lined up well. It does have a slight bow in the passenger side right around the strut tower area-guess thats the price of going aftermarket. Mine does not hit the strut brace nor any other underhood part at all thusfar. While I am sure hoodpins would make the passenger side sit nice and flush with the fender line, in all honesty I do not want them nor do I think the hood needs them. Having worked with these (Seibon) hoods before, on a variety of other cars, I have never once had any issues with the latch. If you look at the hood latch, it is integrated into the hood, just as it is on the stock hood.

In any event, thanks to DeeZee, mcduck and everyone else who gave me the pointers to get this on and installed....you can count on pictures tomorrow. I "might" be a first here though, in that I painted my hood (silverstone)

So now, the exterior mods are:

Veilside v1 front lip urethane
Veilside v1 rear lip urethane
Balsarini rear spoiler
C West PFRP sideskirts
Seibon TS hood (color matched to car)
Work Emotion wheels (18x8.5 front, 18x9.5 rear, matte bronze)

Next up on the mod horizon is getting the Kinetix plenum installed (its been sitting here for weeks), finally installing the coilovers (Cusco Zero 2), and the 5 Zigen Pro engine damper just arrived yesterday (going to paint it before it goes on the car).

The exterior mods are finally nearing an end - I am totally smitted with how it looks right now

Adam

 

Awesome. Pics!

 

sounds great man! happy we could help! let me just say one thing though. im not worried about the latch "letting go" im worried about stress over itme seperating the latch from the hood itself! sure it will still be latched to your car when the latchless hood says hi to your windshield! you can produce ALOT of wind shear between your hood and bumper at 140mph! just a thought. happy you like the hood, ill leave you alone about the pins now! i caint wait to see it painted. i bet it will look HOT! (almost as hot as mine! j/k!!)

 

pics are on their way shortly - just gave her a wash. I really want to try to figure out how to get that one "hump" near the passenger side strut tower to ease down - I swear a centimeter lower and it would be perfect!

I tried removing the battery cover, and removing the small rubber "guard", all to no avail - hood sat exactly the same.

Perhaps shim the driver side a bit with some washers between the latch and the hood? I am thinking out loud since I am here at the shop alone today..........no one else to bounce ideas off of

 

Maybe the first to post pics, but I painted my Brickyard as soon a it arrived! As soon as the paint fully cures, we are going to give it a high polish and do the custom stuff to get it to work with my Crawford strut bar... then on the car it goes!

Did you mount the stock weatherstripping on your Siebon hood (where it meets the front bumper)?

Can't wait to see your pics!

 

Andy - yes we put all the rubber back onto the Seibon hoo - just needed some drilling to punch the holes into it

got some good pics to post later on tonight