Aftermarket Hoods? Thoughts and suggestions?

"Shour, Aloof and Obnoxious" (shour)
10/22/2015 at 14:42 • Filed to: MIATA

Hello again, everyone. Hope everyone is Livin’ La Vida Oppo today.

At 157,000 miles, State Farm values the Shourmobile v4.0 (a.k.a. “the other woman”) at $4300, which is still pretty good for a 14-year old NB with that kind of use. Her engine still runs like a clock, and everything internal is great (I admit, the suspension is worn, and that was going to be my next maintenance stop). But the cost to repair ludicrous hail damage on the aluminum hood (when added to the fender/deck damage) is high enough that State Farm is declaring the car a total loss.

Luckily, Texas does not consider hail damage severe enough to require a salvage title when the car is totaled, so she remains a perfectly well-running, clean titled car, which I can still re-insure. In theory, SF could total her again after another hailstorm! I still want to keep her and drive her for many years to come, and here’s what they offered. Payout for the loss is approximately $3800, and I can buy her back for $1600. That means I keep her and get $2200 for the remainder of the loss, but I get no help in repairing the hail damage. (I will likely put the cash towards a 2nd gen Lexus LS400 as my DD, and keep the other woman as a weekend driver/project car.) Overall, I’m pretty satisfied with how this all turned out, praise God, as I don’t think it could have worked out any better aside from SF not totaling the car and paying for repairs.

So, looking to the future, I am of the mindset that it is more cost effective to replace the damaged hood, rather than seek repair. It seems my best options are OEM aluminum (preferably used, because new OEM is often astronomical), aftermarket steel (heavier, throws off the balance of the car slightly), or aftermarket CF or fiberglass (light, inexpensive). Does anyone here have experience with these, hunting for such, buying online, etc? How are the fit and finish on the aftermarket jobs? Do they come with the hardware for windshield sprayers, or can they be modified to fit them? (Kind of a must in the desert southwest.) Easy to install? Fragile? Good or garbage?

Hit me with your billy-club of knowledge and experience, Opponauts. Vomit your wealth of information into my brain like Ace Ventura on the mountain. Best Bond and sexiest Bond girl for your time.

DISCUSSION (11)

crowmolly > Shour, Aloof and Obnoxious
10/22/2015 at 14:45

Used stock, unless you can afford a higher quality fiberglass or CF one. I have had nothing but bad experiences with cheap fiberglass.

SidewaysOnDirt still misses Bowie > Shour, Aloof and Obnoxious
10/22/2015 at 14:47

No cosmetic repairs. Put all of the money into suspension and rip out everything you don’t need. Because racecar.

SidewaysOnDirt still misses Bowie > crowmolly
10/22/2015 at 14:48

It’s light. There’s that. I’ve seen people make their own thin fiberglass body panels and while they’re flimsy and don’t look great, they aren’t load bearing and weigh 1/3 as much.

bob and john > Shour, Aloof and Obnoxious
10/22/2015 at 14:50

exocet miata.

just do it.

jokes aside, look for a high quality CF one and use hood pins

TheVancen- In Pursuit of a Greater Payday and Car Parts > Shour, Aloof and Obnoxious
10/22/2015 at 14:50

Dont know about Miatas, but the CF hood I have coming for my SHO is real nice. $400 before shipping, (exactly what I payed for the car to begin with ironically,) and the one on the SHO I saw at a show a couple years back looked factory since he painted it over. Left the underhood portion bare though. Looked sharp. Mine needs the new hood because the factory fibre glass one is cracking two.

crowmolly > SidewaysOnDirt still misses Bowie
10/22/2015 at 14:51

And that’s all, IMO.

I’ve had hoods that were off width-wise by 3/4”. That’s a good panel gap at the nose, and 3/4” wider at the cowl. Bad news. Not to mention unfinished undersides and waviness.

Google searching could probably clear up who to buy from I guess.

RallyWrench > Shour, Aloof and Obnoxious
10/22/2015 at 14:54

Get the biggest cheap Pro-Stock hood scoop you can find, screw it on there and call it good.

RazoE > Shour, Aloof and Obnoxious
10/22/2015 at 14:58

Cant grab another stock one at a junk yard for $50?

Needmoargarage > Shour, Aloof and Obnoxious
10/22/2015 at 15:07

Shipping is what will kill you on hoods. Additionally, almost every affordable OEM style replacement hood made by the aftermarket will fit like garbage and frustrate you. Yes, they usually they have holes for windshield wiper nozzles and at least an attempt at a hood latch mounting solution, but you will have to fiddle with it for quite a while to get it to work and probably won’t be satisfied. Fiberglass and CF hoods have the same characteristics but you get to worry about fun things like delamination unless you shell out $$$.

If I were you, I’d just keep the old hood on it for the time being and scour Craigslist and Miata forums until somebody parting out a car locally comes up.

banjo cat ghost of oppo past > Shour, Aloof and Obnoxious
10/22/2015 at 15:17

The shop working on my car scratched the shit out of the hood either pushing it around or backed someones tailgate into it, not long after I had an auto school paint it British racing green.

I always wanted a carbon fiber hood anyway because the stock steel hood seriously weighs something like 90 pounds and required a solid clean & jerk to prop up. It is not a one-hand job for anyone .

For the record I do think about the stock hood’s robust structure as likely one of the few safety measures that came with my car.

Via forums I found a bloke near the Niagra-Buffalo region who wanted a stock hood to sell with his abandoned project. Not every business will pass a car with a CF hood. I drove 4 hours and bolted it up in his driveway with his help, glad that while my car was rough, didn’t look discarded, multicolored DSM rough ...with cloth interior. I could sense the feels of a project abandoned, and was saddened.

While it was a quality, shiny VIS hood, the doofus poorly installed these fugly rusting auto-zone hood pins that cracked the clearcoat around the cuts when the hood came with the stock latching mechanism!!

Now I have to cut them out and replace them with aerocatch units.

Big suprise when we bolted it up...it didn’t fit right. There was a huge gap on one side like we had left a wrench atop the engine and while it locked, it didn’t depress all the way with that satisfying click, so it looked ajar. I said screw it I’m driving back at night anyway.

Anyway it fits now and I got what I wanted-I can lift the hood with one finger. Unfortunatley this most recent-brokenness it was left out without a car cover so the hood is completely hazed over. The only restorative option is to sand it and re gel-coat it with boating products which I will devote a post to.

So ends my carbon fiber hood odyssey.

SidewaysOnDirt still misses Bowie > crowmolly
10/22/2015 at 17:36

Oh yeah, most of the aftermarket ones are sketchy as hell. The ones I’m talking about are custom made in a garage from a mold of the hood and extended slightly and cut to fit so the panel gap is nonexistent. They’re secure. They just don’t look that great and you can’t lean on them. I’d love to do a full aero treatment on my MR2 out of fiberglass with extra engine bay cooling worked into it.