Good to know. Thanks for the heads up. Are you seeing many issues with their hoods? I cannot imagine there is too much to screw up on a single piece part and the people I talked to who had their hood said it fit really well.

 

Havent heard anything on hood's. It was the rear diffusers. Fitment was always good but there were quality issues with the weave and dust particles in the clear coat. I mean....when I ordered a rear diffuser from them like 4 yrs ago for my old g, everything was good. If you want to get alot more feedback, I'd post in the strictly infinit sedans fb group.

 

I vote for an easier option, buy vents.

All of these options look like they had looks as a priority and function as secondary. Nothing will fit as good as an OEM hood.
How much is this carbon painted going to run you. In my opinion the design of the hood makes it to where it looks superior if its matching with the rest of the car, that's why carbon on black looks so good.

 

I come from the honda world and this was a quite a fix for under hood temps and air pressure in the highway. I wonder if the G37s hood webbing would have a nice asymmetrical shape you could use as template

 

Vents would be my preferred option and I have seen a number of S2000s with those vents. However, I ran this option past my body shop and I ran into two issues. They were afraid that cutting into the factory hood, especially aluminum makes it very wavy and weak. The other problem was that there were really no good options for placement with the structural supports underneath.

However, looking at that S2000 picture gave me an idea. I have been looking at getting a vent and trying to make it fit my hood. I am going to take another look at the bracing under the hood because maybe I could find areas to cut out and put mesh underneath like the S2000.

 

My initial idea was to buy a stock hood used, cut it up to fit vents/ducts/whatever, and then make a mold of the modded hood and build a part out of carbon or actual fiber. Or hell, kevlar.

Now I'm considering vents like the inserts you can get for race cars, in an oem hood (but keeping mine in the attic).

The problem I see is that you want a path for airflow from the back of the cooling module through the hood in a low-pressure area. There isn't really anywhere to drop a ramp down into to achieve that. I'm almost thinking that you'd need to tilt the OEM rad/ac/oil/steering coolers forward 20* or so, and have the vent where the radiator/front bumper cover panel is now.

TL;DR: there ain't really enough room in the engine bay as designed for airflow to be coaxed out the top.

 

There are some, unfortunately due to the webbing not being the prettiest it can be difficult to make it look good.

 

(attrib to Rochester for the image)

It looks like there are factory fold-lines in the hood bracing for pedestrian safety.

It looks like there are three decently sized areas that can be cut out along the leading edge of the hood. BUT, those are over the radiator top plate and won't pull any actual air. Or do I have the spacing off?

Also, idle thought - are the oem hoods aluminum or steel? If steel, easy enough to weld additional bracing if needed. If aluminum, much harder but still possible.

 

I got in touch with Autokits X via their chat and asked lots of questions. They were quick to respond and even sent some good pics. They said everything transfers over from the oem hood and there is no gap at the front of the hood (I have heard this from their customers too). I really like the design better than the Carbon Creations TS-1. The Carbon Creations hood is cheaper and has bigger vents, but just doesn't look right to me. Has anyone seen either of these hoods in person that can tell me more?

If I do go with Autokits X, what do you guys think of 1. Keeping it all carbon (and maybe wrapping the roof to match) 2. Painting all but the center of the U shape on the hood 3. Painting all but the side vents

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Also on a side note, the last car has blue calipers. I was thinking of painting my calipers blue. I think they look decent on this car. The only other car I can think of with blue calipers is the BMW M3/M4 and I think they look pretty good there too. Thoughts?

 

I put in the order for the Auto Kits X carbon fiber hood today. I plan to paint it like the picture below. It will be another month or so before I see the hood. I think leaving the center in carbon fiber will look pretty sharp. If I am looking at the picture correctly it seems like the "U" shape tapering up to the windshield will have a very similar width and color to the sunroof so it should look good. I will definitely be doing some experimenting with this once it arrives. I just hope it helps with the under hood temps at track days. The last time I was at Road America I had one session where the oil got a bit too hot.

 

does the black middle section serve any function?

 

Functionally, there are two vents on the inside of the "U" shape that are always open to draw air through the radiator more effectively and reduce front end lift.

Visually, the whole hood is carbon fiber which would probably be too much on my white car, but I like how it is painted on this car. My other option was to paint the entire hood which looks weird, or paint everything but the side vents, but that also looks a bit strange to me since the vents angle out toward the top.

 

I'd be interested to instrument the bottom of your hood on a track day. Run sensors down each side inboard of the fender, one right behind rad/in front of engine, and a few over the top of the engine and then datalog to find the hot spots. That's where you'd want your vents.

With headers, I'm guessing the hot spots would be rear of the engine bay on either side of the engine, or right behind the radiator.

 

That's a good idea. Unfortunately, there are very few vented hood options for sedans and most of them are hideous. Logically, I thought the same thing about locations for heat to escape and came to the same conclusion that the sides of the engine near the headers and behind the radiator would be the best spots. This was the only hood that had vents specific to those areas so I have to think some decent engineering went into the design. This also seems to be the only hood that does not have a big gap at the front, which would be a big issue for me at speed.

 

Agreed.

You know what happens when you assume...

Hood gap is likely a problem for anyone that goes 75+ - so anyone with a highway commute. I'd considered these and I still might if I get a nonmetallic hood. Right now the only way to get what I want is to build it myself, I fear... with a kid, too many of my projects languish unfinished as something more important always comes up. It's why my car has had no interior for almost a year after solving the leak. Sigh.

One of the first track-only FDs I ever saw had the oem hood with louvers pressed into it along the sides and front - https://www.trick-tools.com/tools/Louver-Press kinda thing. Pricey but kept stock hood integrity and he could add vents where needed, bracing aside. I think vents on the inward curving surface of the hood sides would look good and vent OK - I can't seem to find aerostatic information on the V36 platform. I'd still like ramps coming from the radiator, but I think you'd need to re-engineer the entire cooling package to make that work. Having said that, not unrealistic for a track toy.