Anyone skinned/gutted a stock hood?

JKady

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Building on a super tight budget, so $500 for a glass hood may be feasible for some, it's not for me. I've seen this done on other cars, wondering if anyone has removed most of or all of the structure in a stock SN95 hood to lose weight. The plastic they're made out of seems as rigid, maybe more than regular sheet metal, so I'm not super worried about strength (it would be pinned on like a race weight glass hood after the job was done). More looking for info/pics from anyone that has done it or has experience working with this plastic.
 

RichV

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SN hoods are all fiberglass right?
 

ttocs

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there is some metal on the hinges and the mounting flange but yea they are fg. I did see someone made a cut, pulled it up and then reglassed it and it would work if its done right and save some $$$$ at the expense of time.
 

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I've cut a lot of the bracing out of my cobra hood to clear my intake and supercharger
 
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JKady

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SN hoods are all fiberglass right?
I've been told otherwise but they're at very least composite except for some aftermarket crash replacement steel hoods I've seen. The cross section where the inner layer of mine is cut doesn't appear to be fiber (looks like someone had an awful looking scoop in store for it from the shape/placements of the cuts). Regardless of what it is, the things are unbelievably heavy for not being a steel hood and I'm on a mission to eliminate nose weight and get the car balanced out a little better. It's an all-arounder street car, not a dedicated track or strip machine but the lighter I get it the more fun it is to drive. Problem is right now most of the weight I've lost is out of the back of the car, making it even more nose heavy that it already was.

I'm talking removing the whole inner structure and mounting what's left via pins or dzus's

How much flop (if any) has been created with the reliefs you've made Musturd?
 

ttocs

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after my wreck last year I can say with 100% certainty that its fb. When it was bent it cracked it and you could see the fibers. How much are you wanting to cut out either size or weight-wise? There is not a huge amount on the bottom to begin with and not sure how much you will gain in your quest at the risk of the hood skin delaminating. There is an SN I have seen here/there around my town now that the skin came off of and I am dying to get a pic as it looks funky as hell with the hood bracing in place but no hood.
 
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JKady

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after my wreck last year I can say with 100% certainty that its fb. When it was bent it cracked it and you could see the fibers. How much are you wanting to cut out either size or weight-wise? There is not a huge amount on the bottom to begin with and not sure how much you will gain in your quest at the risk of the hood skin delaminating. There is an SN I have seen here/there around my town now that the skin came off of and I am dying to get a pic as it looks funky as hell with the hood bracing in place but no hood.

Delaminating the hood skin is essentially what I plan on doing. I basically want to make a lift-off hood from the stock skin (with the scoops shaved) held on with pins or dzus fasteners. My weight loss goals are whatever I can get, hoods and trunk lids aren't structural, they don't need to be that tough.
 

stock

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SN95 hoods are not fiberglass. They are SMC (sheet molded composite). I don't have any experience "gutting" one, but I cant imagine itd be hard. I also cant imagine it would be any more flimbsy or unsafe then any cheap fiberglass aftermarket skin that would be pin on only. Im not sure what youd really gain from the work though, maybe 10lbs tops? Seems like a lot of work for nothing personally.
 

ttocs

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interesting like I said when mine was wrecked last year you could see all the fibers as though it was a traditional fiberglass hood. Does this need any different prep or chemicals to glass to it or is it just a fancy name for a fiberglassed hood?
 

stock

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When they break/crack and people see the strands, the majority assume its fiberglass. SMC is similar to fiberglass in the way it is composed of resin and strands of fiber, but it is not fiberglass. SMC uses much longer stands and it is set in a different resin that gives it much different characteristics than fiberglass has. Compare the bottom side of your stock hood to the bottomside of a true fiberglass hood, SMC resin cures with a much smoother straighter top/bottom then fiberglass does. SMC is also lighter and more rigid then the same thickness of fiberglass. It also does not deform and shrink with age like fiberglass does.

If its an OEM part made in the last 20-25 years, and it looks like fiberglass, its almost always going to be SMC. Fiberglass is old school and is not the most suitable material for anything in the automotive world, except making lightweight racecar parts. Our 94-98 cars have a SMC hood, headlight mount panel, side scoops, Apillar trim, Sail panel covers, and the license plate surround. 99-04 cars even had a complete SMC decklid.

The repair process is fairly similar, depending on what youre repairing. You most definitely need to use SMC specific products for a correct repair. The idea behind repairing SMC is to retain as much of the damaged pieces as possible, and use the specific epoxies to fill in the areas that "cracked out".
 
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JKady

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SN95 hoods are not fiberglass. They are SMC (sheet molded composite). I don't have any experience "gutting" one, but I cant imagine itd be hard. I also cant imagine it would be any more flimbsy or unsafe then any cheap fiberglass aftermarket skin that would be pin on only. Im not sure what youd really gain from the work though, maybe 10lbs tops? Seems like a lot of work for nothing personally.

10lbs off the nose of a poorly balanced car like a v8 Mustang, especially for free is far from nothing. I want to get this car down around 3000 pounds on a very small budget. I can't really afford to add lots of horsepower, but making it lighter is often cheap or free. And you can add all the power you want to a heavy car, it won't drive like a light car.

Thank you very much for the material info! I knew I had read on here that there was a name for that composite.
 

wmfateam

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Balance is very important, I would take 10lbs of the front and add 20 lbs to the rear. Front to rear, and side to side balance can do wonders for turn in, mid corner and exit. Carrying speed through a corner is worth it's weight, eh, in exit speed.
 

ttocs

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10lbs off the nose of a poorly balanced car like a v8 Mustang, especially for free is far from nothing. I want to get this car down around 3000 pounds on a very small budget. I can't really afford to add lots of horsepower, but making it lighter is often cheap or free. And you can add all the power you want to a heavy car, it won't drive like a light car.

Thank you very much for the material info! I knew I had read on here that there was a name for that composite.

I assume its for a track car? I really am not sure I can see cutting 10 lbs off it myself as we are not talking metal here and 10 lbs of composit materials seems like it would be a pretty big pile.
 
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JKady

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Balance is very important, I would take 10lbs of the front and add 20 lbs to the rear. Front to rear, and side to side balance can do wonders for turn in, mid corner and exit. Carrying speed through a corner is worth it's weight, eh, in exit speed.
Move weight to the rear, yes, ADD weight? Other than an eventual cage... never! The balance has been thrown even more by the fact that the quick and easy weight loss in these cars all comes out of the back (rear seat, spare tire and jack, mott bar, spoiler etc...)


I assume its for a track car? I really am not sure I can see cutting 10 lbs off it myself as we are not talking metal here and 10 lbs of composit materials seems like it would be a pretty big pile.

Just a daily driven hot-rod/canyon runner/stoplight dragger. SMC is heavy stuff, the stock hood weighs about 40 pounds from what I can find. The way I'm doing this, the whole inner structure is out, the hinges are gone, and the latch mech is gone as well, so not all the weight I'm taking out is just the composite in the hood. And hey, it's better than coming home from work and sitting in front of the TV.
 

ttocs

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that is true that if you take off the hinges and stuff you could get 10 lbs. I could see it for a track car but for a street car not so sure.
 

Wild Horses

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Been tossing ideas around about weight loss myself. Thought about this as well. I remember seeing a crx back in the day with just a metal skin. It was wavy and looked horrible. But as was said in previous posts, it probably wouldn't be much different than the cheaper FB aftermarket Pin-On style hoods. The pin on cowl hood it had on my fox body was prob a $150 hood new... No idea. It was cheap and for a race car. But it was LIGHT.... VERY LIGHT. Battery in the trunk yet? That's a great mod for balance and fairly affordable. The copper 0 gauge is pricey.

If this was done right I can see it working.
 
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JKady

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Battery will be in the trunk after I get myself a lighter battery. Likely going with a replacement for a miata. Not the absolute lightest thing in the battery world but I just don't trust a powersports battery like the PC680 the Honda guys use in a V8 daily driver, especially with it getting cold out. The Miata battery ought to be a good balance of cranking power and light weight.
 

RichV

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Big ticket items, it's worth it. But street vs track is the tadeoff.

AC system
HVAC box
stock seats replaced with race seats
dash skeleton
rear seat
sound deadening
stock k-member

But the more you remove, the less streetable the car becomes. IMO the hood is not worth the time alone. In my race class if you make 1HP or 1Tq over limit you have to add 10lbs. So using that calculation, every 10lbs removed is like gaining 1hp.

Honestly I'd start saving for a HCI or PI swap.
 
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JKady

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AC system is out (didn't work anyway) race seats are in, air injection and cats are out, rear seat is out, sound deadening will be out when I get the time to pull the trashed carpet out. Tubular K and arms is on the long list of wants. This isn't a race car built for a specific class, in all likelihood it will never see a track and "streetable" is a relative term. I've daily driven cars with no heat, daily driven stuff with no heat and no wipers and holes in the floor. A late model Mustang with no sound deadening and no AC is worlds better than those. Let me put it this way, the 10-15 pounds is worth it to me, I didn't ask to be talked out of doing this or if it was worth it on a CMC car, I asked if anyone had done it.
 

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