Project 300ZX [8] - New hood

My new hood has arrived!


I ordered from ExtremeDimensions, and the hood itself is from Carbon Creations. They had a nice free shipping offer on Ebay that I think was more convenient than getting a used one (I saw a couple for $200-ish, with some dents), paying for shipping and then repairing it... would probably be the same price or higher. Let alone a new OEM one which will set you back some $750 plus shipping... ouch!

As you might guess from the brand, mine is a carbon fiber hood. Wow. A few years ago it seemed like such an exotic material, only seen in F1 cars. It's my first close-up experience with this material. Although manufacturers claim their products to be "100% carbon fiber", it really isn't all carbon nanotubes; it has to be combined with some kind of polymer or other materials to give it rigidity, in addition to its natural tensile strength and low weight.

What you see in the first picture above is the back side, which is lined with some kind of plastic (I'm guessing it's "duraflex" which the manufacturer also uses for bumpers and other body parts). It's also partially shrouded by some white foam that protects it.

From what I see, the part is a completely bolt-on solution, meaning you don't need to trim or modify it in any way, just replace the old one with this (you need to reattach windshield wiper hoses and such, but even a hood latch is attached to it, so it's only trivial work).

Here are some more details I was able to get without completely removing the item from its packaging, since I'm not going to install it yet. I think I'm going to wait until the paintjob, either just before getting the car to the shop, or actually painting and then installing it. Whatever the experts at the shop recommend.





As you can see, the surface has some kind of glossy clearcoat or eposy resin, I'm not sure. But I understand you can just paint over it (I would guess you need to sand for adhesion, but other than that it should be no problem).

The only problem is storing the part until the paintjob, resisting the urge to install it! I may have to do other work to distract from it. Like re-wrapping the steering wheel. See you next time.

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