Hail damage invoking new hood and the start of body modifications
 

We had some pretty serious hail here. Not enormous, but heavy and my car got pretty damaged. The insurance company cut me a pretty sizeable check to get repairs done, but I can pull most of the dents myself, so I'm gonna do that.

However, my hood is all kinds of screwed. So I'm thinking about getting a carbon fiber one. I've seen that other people here have carbon fiber hoods with venting and I like the looks (provided it still has the "rotary symbol" ridge in the hood as well). Some of the pictures I've seen here lead me to a question though.

Will I actually need hood pins? Some users here have CF hoods and no pins in them, but the manufacturers of the hoods say to use pins, even though they have oem latches. I don't race, but I do like acceleration.

I'm planning on getting a lip to match as well, since mine is cracked anyway thanks to the wheel well lining falling out and getting caught on a concrete wheel stop. When I reversed, pop went my lip.

So instead of paying a ton to get an OEM hood in velocity red, i'm going to go ahead and start adding CF to my car. I plan to get a CF trunk lid as well. I like the 2 tone black and red interior, so I think I want to make the exterior match anyway.

What do I need to keep in mind with a CF hood? Care tips and ways to protect it would be appreciated. Who is a better company to get a hood from? any suggestions?

So, basically: Hood pins necessary? Care tips? Best place to get one?

For anyone interested, I was able to take a video of the hail that ruinated my car. You can see her out in the parking lot in the video. It makes me cry to see her so full of dents, but I'll get her taken care of. This has prompted me to finally get into doing the body mods I wanted to do though, so it's not too bad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHCeHsPZ2os

Thanks for any help! :)

hood pins are only necessary if you're going to track your car. I've had my Seibon hood for a few years now with zero issues and i'm running pinless.

either get it clear coated with a good uv resistant paint or clear bra. The gel coat of the hood will start to break down over time and will discolor.

best place will depend on what kind of hood you want. Figure out the hood style, then start calling/emailing vendors. Give our forum vendors a shot, they pay money to advertise here and keep this board alive. You can also check to see if there is anyone local to you that is a distributor for the hood you pick. The shipping on a hood is pretty steep.

Awesome! thanks for the tips! I won't be going on the track anytime soon. If i ever decide to, i'll look at getting hood pins then. :)

The fiancee doesn't like the black/red look, but she likes this one. Where would i find a hood like this one? is there a way to get one in aluminium? Or is that more likely painted CF?

https://www.rx8club.com/attachment.p...1&d=1303846639

EDIT:

The hood is the Seibon RS. Me likey!

I have the same hood, painted galaxy grey. Left the edge CF

Attachment 245929

I used forum vendors. A bunch of them are Seibon distributors. I was lucky that another forum member wanted the same hood so we bought two at once and saved a bunch on the hoods and shipping.

go to the vendor section, send out some emails get the best price. You can also check Seibon's website to see if there is a distributor local to you if one of our vendors isnt already.

Never seen hail here in Vegas... not yet, i hope not. Baseball sized hail could do heavily damage to vehicles and such.

Baseball size hail ruins stuff. the hail I got was merely golf and moth ball sized, and it still did 3800 dollars in damage to my poor baby.

I will post pictures of dents if it gets sunny today. They haven't photographed well so far, since it's been rainy and cloudy.

Love it, if you dont mind me asking, how much did the paint job cost?

Ended up being around 600. My car was already at my body shop due to some ass-hat hitting my drivers side rear quarter panel, so i had them do the hood on my own dime while it was there.

Paint is a spot on match which for a car that was already 3 years old is pretty impressive.