Heycoop Racing

Anyone had previous experience, or any thoughts about removing the bonnet skin. I'm thinking of doing it (saves about 10lbs?), but wondering whether the bonnet will stay down. I have two clips, plus the factory part it clicks into (i'm useless with knowing proper names of things!).

Thanks.

dirty19

iTrader: (1)

Might flapp about if you take out too much

suldy

i did this on my ek. no flapping for me. i shaved about 8-9 pounds with mine, and i left a good amount of meat around my factory hood latch.

2fast4u831

I took quite a few out to clear my swap(h2b) I have 2 hood pins up front. Never had a problem. The heavier stuff is on the outside and I wouldn't cut much of that since it is where it needs to be rigid. This is on a 94 civic.

smokin rubber

after you gut the hood as shown take a can of great stuff spray foam and fill the remaining channel gaps and the rigidity is almost as good as new

Greyout

Are those spot welds that got drilled? How hard was it to keep from damaging the outside surface?

I want to try cutting the skeleton off a CF hood

Robin6

^^always thought they were glue spots and not weld.

powerneedy

depending on brand you might be pretty disappointed in removing the skeleton on the fiberglass hood with carbon veneer. They are typically thin and not rigid enough and will have it stress crack.

2fast4u831

glue spots. You have to be very careful not to cut through the hood. I did it with an angle grinder if my memory serves me well. lol.

fasterthanueg

iTrader: (1)

My friends cf hood seperated at 130 on the freeway as he forgot to put the pins in so it was just factory latched

10cjennings

iTrader: (1)

yeah. angle grinder worked well for me, just went slowly to make sure I didn't cut into the actual hood at all. I only cut out a small section tho, so can't comment on how cutting out a lot affects the hoods structural integrity.

Greyout

I was thinking of a prepreg or "dry" hood, not a FRP or Fiberglass hood blinged up with a sheet of CF.

It would suck though to ruin a very expensive hood.

FWIW, I was watching a Grand Am race a while back, and one of the ST cars was in the pits with the hood up... One of the guys was holding it up on one side, and the other side was sagging down. When he would move the hood it was very floppy, like it was made of cardboard.

Obviously not made of cardboard, but i think a floppy hood is what the cool kids have.

powerneedy

If you think a vis or seibon hood is expensive then prepreg or vacuum infused epoxy foam cored hood even if you do it your self right is as much or more than that easily. Floppy hood you speak of can be an assortment of things. If the hood design is not a complex curve it still with be slightly floppy. But it simply could be they used a massed produced carbon err frp hood and removed the whole skeleton. Just because its in grand am doesnt mean its all top dollar stuff.

Black R

I recently bought a 6 Lb FRP homemade hood for my EF from a roadracer on here - can you get a stock hood that light?

Robin6

Metal for me...cutting a whole in it for a vent is most likely my path.

Nothing wrong with a non metal hood, esp if one is trying to save weight, but there would be other areas to lower weight than from the hood prior. just saying.

powerneedy

I will have to re weigh everything for an exact number but I do remember it being close to 55 pounds off the front with hinges and latch removed and a 8 pound hood in place. Most mine are between 6-7 pounds. Sun roof cars can save about the same weight and my roof comes in at a 4-6 pounds depending on models. Those are vacuum infused epoxy and foam cored for rigidity. I would suggest if you guys are wanting to save weight and not have some sheet metal flopping around I would find someone to build a quality part up to the task. It will save a lot of headache in the end.

Black R

Powerneedy, do you have a website?

joel n

I plan to remove basiclly all the structur of the hood this year. Got 3 peaces of alloy 1 cm wide and about 2-3mm think and making a X-brace under to hood with a strip at the back to hold it in place. There 3 strips i have and weight about 2-3 pounds. just going to rivit it all on. Its a racecar not a show car. We also plan to do the same to the Targa roof (del sol) and trunk. My guess is the trunk of a del sol weights about 60LBS. can most likly pull 40 or so off it. I also found a EG civic were they cut the extra out of the hatch and droped about 5 LBS. There is most likly about other 40 LBS in extra brackets inside most honda. Unless its a full interior car.

Greyout

Oh I know. My point was only that if you are worried about making your hood too floppy, it seems to me a floppy hood can be run on a track car without problems.

pr0gre551ve

it's not worth to cut the oem bonnets just buy the CF or kevlar ones if you want to go super weightlight.. I already done this to mine (oem 99-00 Civic facelift bonnet). My plan was to repaint it due some minor damage dealt by small rocks, scratches.. and to do work good i always make sure to lightened things. I cut almost the whole skeleton from the bonnet, left only the structure at each side! I can say that the bonnet is not much weaker now.. it's still does not flex, if it's not pressed with some force by the hand. I can't say the bonnet is now messed up, NOT! i did the cutting work very precisely, now looks kinda "s2k bonnet" and will look pretty ql when the color matched!
what i want to say is that i'm not happy with the weight savings, with all the cutting done to it i removed only 1.030 kg (2.270 pounds).

I did cutting like this.




- not worth it lol

flip_nl

As for skinning pos. cf hoods:





Saved 2.8kg.

joel n

Since this is back up, I can say yes it's not worth it.lol. I cut everything but the area were the hinges bolt on. Now we have 4 front hood pins to hold it down and a 8 inch long block of 2X4 to hold the back of the hood up. With just 2 pins it was flopping all over the place and lifting in the middle at the front edge. Put 2 pins in the middle and it was much better, but still moving around a lot. So we put a block of wood at the back of the hood. Pushes on the cowl. Looks bad *** as it is domed, but still weights 15LBS. I left about 2 inchs around the trunks edge and it's super strong and still frigin heavy.

So in the end we cut about 15 LBS off the hood, and trunk to save weight, and can't use a hood prop now because the hood is supper flimsy. Lol if you don't want CF or FG, go for it, but leave the outer 2 inchs so it doesn't flop all over the place like ours dose. We only see about 180KPH or so on our track, top of 4th gear. Go to a longer track and get well into fifth gear and I can see the hood being pushed down. It only comes back up if you push it back up. I'll try and post pictures tomorrow.