Making a Fiberglass hood

[Garret]

Well today I was about to do some work on the spare hood I have, making some vents as well as lightening it when it dawned on me that this is a heavy chunk of metal, anyone have any experince or tips for me to try and make a fiberglass hood for my car? Doesn't have to look to pretty just do the job

[t3rse]

buy some mold release from synair. coat your spare hood four or five times to make damn well sure everything is coated. get your mat and resin and lay it out, do a few layers. when it's hard, gently pry off and now you have a mold. repeat in mold to make hood skin.

[BadAssPerformance]

yep, thats pretty much it... i got a guy line dup to make a prototype carbon fiber hood, still waiting tho.

[Garret]

Well I guess I'll give it a shot then

[ShelGame]

My brother-in-law sent the hood from his Cordoba drag car out to be acid dipped. They took 14lbs out of it. Nearly half the weight.

A fiberglass mat/polyesther resin hood won't be too much lighter than stock, I don't think. If you make it with just a couple of plys of woven glass, epoxy resin, and vacuum bag it, maybe.

[daytonajesse]

http://www.hairyglass.com/daytona.html

[glhs142]

good call on the hairyglass.

[mcsvt]

Price looks pretty decent on the Hairyglass. Anybody ever use one? What the quality like?

[BadAssPerformance]

I talked to them... gotta mod it cuz it is +6" for a RWD Daytona

[mcsvt]

O ok, so it would be more fun just to make one :)
Add that to the list of things to do when I have a garage...

[turboshad]

Carbon fibre and fibreglass techniques are very similar. Check this guys sight.

http://www.turbomustangs.com/techarticles/PBcarbonfiber.php

DJ

[daytonajesse]

I talked to them... gotta mod it cuz it is +6" for a RWD Daytona
I didnt know that, you would think they would mention it! Do you know if the other parts are different as well?

[JacksRage]

Well I guess I'll give it a shot then

I'd like to see this when you're done, something I've thought of doing myself. I just relied on rear panel oxidization for weight reduction.

[mech1nxh]

Carbon fibre and fibreglass techniques are very similar. Check this guys sight.

http://www.turbomustangs.com/techarticles/PBcarbonfiber.php

DJ

now that is excellent info....my compliments!! I would wager the parts are
stronger than the "alloy " thin metal on current vehicles

[BadAssPerformance]

I didnt know that, you would think they would mention it! Do you know if the other parts are different as well?

They told me all of the front end parts are +6", so hood, fenders, and front clip.

[daytonajesse]

Thanks :thumb:

[cj011]

Go with either carbon fibre or kevlar, but the best would be a mix of both. I made old school vw fenders out of carbon fibre. I didn't even bag it and it weighs around 2 pounds for the whole fender. I couldn't even bend or try to break it with my bear hands.

[PUNKSLIP]

Once you apply the mold release, and start laying down the glass, keep in mind as you go that once you pull the glass away from your doner hood, what will keep it from losing its form and from twisting. It would be a good idea to, once you have a few layers down and let them set up, to add in some ridgidity, like some balsa wood structure, or even cardboard that once incorperated into the mold, will prevent twisting and deformation. It would be kind of like what we already have in our stock hoods.
E-mail this guy, he will be happy to share what he knows about glass, turbos, and hot rods in general. http://www.webspawner.com/users/earlyhemibill/index.html.

john

[Koreth]

I've a few questions about those hairyglass.com parts. The first one is, all their 84-87 stuff doesn't look at all like my '87 Shelby Z, but their 88-91 stuff does. Did the styling for the 87 Shelby Z become standard for the 88-91 cars, or did the 87 shelby Z have some sort of strange setup somewhere between the 84-87 and 88-91 styles?

Seccond question: I noticed the parts listed on the hairyglass site seem to be lacking the holes for mounting things like head/tail lamps, etc. Plus I don't see how one would be able to bolt those various panels to a stock body. Are the parts shown there for tube frame/chassis race-only type vehicles?

[daytonajesse]

They are meant for race cars, I dont think having all those panels would be legal on the street. But Im sure with some thinking you could adapt all the parts to work.