Even though the clearcoat looks like it's smooth, it's actually raised a bit by the weave of the CF underneath it. It's nearly invisible when clearcoated. In fact, I always suspected that's why people started to clearcoat them in the first place. It just became "stylish" after a while. Once you put a color coat on though, without ALOT of primer and block sanding, that "basket weave" pattern becomes very visible. IMO, it looks pretty cheezy, but to each his own. Just so you know going in.



I'm just an old fossil, and prefer the painted look. If I ever made the move to a vented aftermarket hood I'd definitely get the MS style. But since I'd want to paint it body color, I'd look for one in gel-coated fiberglass. Other side benefits are that it's usually cheaper and I'm personally alot more familiar with FG and gel-coat and could do minor repair if needed. Once (visibly) damaged, I understand that CF is almost impossible to cosmetically repair.

 

Yea i leave all the paint decisions up to rob, if he doesnt think itll come out good, ill get rid of it and buy a regular FG MS hood, this one just happened to be a good deal at a good time. I personally am far from a fan of carbon fiber.



In other news, i clay barred and waxed the car today....if it wasnt for all the giant keying/gouge marks on it it would look great.



reallllly should take a pic lol, damn im lazy.



kevin.

 

Do you find the Hood tends too flap about quite a bit at speed if you don't use Pins?

 

mmm guess from the pics in here I have a MS knock off hood.. I ordered this off of yahoo auctions($400) here in japan and was planning on painting it if it looked like crap. But whoever did it, did a very nice job, so we left it alone.



I always use pins on any of my hoods.. ive seen stock hoods come un-hooked and slam into the windshield. Would storngly recomend getting Top Secret hood pins or a set of stainless steel ones. The cheap ones you see on a lot of car rust up fast and just plane suck.



As for helping with heat.. really couldnt tell you. we changed out my radiator, added bigger oil coolers and a few other things when we painted my car.

 

yes... definately use hood pins. the front outer corners start to lift at high speed and is rather un-nerving. There was also a recall from Mazdaspeed about the latch plate breaking.

 

you can tell that you're getting flow from the hood on days when the ground is wet and its not raining, and you have to keep wiping your windshield cuz water keeps coming out of the vent.

 

Yea I've got the hood on now, definitely gotta gbet it painted cause the yellowing is obvious but it seems to fit pretty good otherwise.



It has pins on the corners behind the headlights, sparco hood pins, those went in pretty easy, and i can feel the heat coming out of it just when i park it, plus it does look nice, not gaudy like some hoods.



I think it was worth it.



kevin.

 

Pix?

 

soon, gonna try to get the camera today sinc ei have time to kill



kevin.

 

pics.... NOW! damn it