Ok, weight reduction time! But more importantly, safety time. First off, hood pins are a very good investment into the car’s safety, but frankly, they look a bit tacky to me. Not to mention since I plan on painting my hood, they are gona look way out of place. So the first question would be how likely do carbon fiber hoods break? I plan on babying mine of course. Is fiberglass tougher? I’m assuming both weigh the same, so my decision will be based on which would less likely to need hood pins. Plus, are there any other ideas to securing the hood?
I have a couple of friends who have carbon hoods, one uses hood pins(Mazda 6), and the other doesn’t (Sunfire). I also have a friend who has a fibreglass hood, no pins, (87 Monte Carlo SS), but he had to remove the hinge springs for it, now using a prop rod, like we do. I’m pretty sure that you can mount the stock latch on most cf and fg hoods, from what they’ve said. I do know that the guys put their stock hoods on for winter, though.
Here is the deal… all hoods pritty much come with a lach bar. The question becomes how much do you trust them. Ultramac puts 400 miles on his Z a day and he has a CF hood. His hood has no problems, and he does not use hood pins. On the other hand, I have personaly seen two hoods blow back into the windshield, and the after effects of three others. All of wich had either CF or Fiberglass hoods and no hood pins. Persnaly I hate the way hood pins look… but it keeps it down… so that counts more.
Thing to note, these numbers are just the small amount of people I know or seen on the road, nuthing more or less. I am sure there are people that are just like mac… I just haven’t met any.
Jen has had a CF hood on her car for a long time, no pins. We’ve never had any problem with it.
You have to use hood pins on a carbon fiber hood , it can flex and break right off the hood latch .
I have had plenty off freinds with composite hoods. Out of the 12 I can name off the top of my head, 7 has hood pins, 4 dont, and 1 is not happy. Hood latch gave out, took out windshield, put a creesed dent in the roof, destroid the hood, and cracked his moon roof. So as of two days ago the new count would be 10 with pins, 1 no car, and 1 car not moving till he gets pins.
Why take the chance.
It all depends on the strength of the latch. This guy I know had to replace the hood latch when he got his carbon hood since it was cracked straight down the middle
That is one of the reasons I like the hood pins I chose, they have a wide surface area.