my approach to hood clearance *write up*...

[AK_CRX]

I have run into quite a hood clearance issue with my F2D setup. To give an idea, my intake manifold protrudes about 1/4" out of a ghetto hole I cut, and my valve cover has made about 5 dents in my hood. The hoods constant contact with my valve cover makes for the most unpleasant vibration I've ever felt in a car. you know that buzzing feeling you get after you use a cut off wheel or a sawzall for an hour? Thats how I feel after a 30 min drive in my car. Anyways, I've been kicking around a bunch of ideas for a hood for awhile now. I've scratched off all the easy ways around it like shimming the hell out of it or gluing on a summit style cowl hood. Hell no. So I finally said screw it, I can make it however I want with fiberglass so lets do it. Ok, too much setup, heres the idea: build a fiberglass part to attatch to the hood that will reverse the indentation of a stock usdm hood, making it look somewhat like an SiR hood but more improtantly cover my junk. The part will be build "on" the hood, then pealed off the hood, then bonded and molded to the hood. Materials being used: PartAll PVA Fiberglass matt Fiberglass cloth Fiberglass resin Body filler Metal glaze Styrafoam Great stuff aluminum foil liquid nails latex sealant masking tape plastic drop cloth vynil gloves long sheets of 36,80, 180g sand paper Ok, starting with a clean hood I waxed the area where my hood part would be located. PartAll is a heavy wax sold at fiberglass shops specifically for preparing molds for fiberglass layup. Applied just like car wax-------- After I waxed the area on the hood, I started cutting my fiberglass pieces for my "frame". The fiberglass part Im building will have a 4" lip underneath perfectly contoured to my hood to give a nice area for bonding the part to the hood later on. I cut big pieces for the corners and 4" strips for the perimeter I then cleaned off all the strands of fiberglass and taped off the exact area that I want my hood bump to sit. The body lines of the indention made this easy, just outlined the center of my hood... At the rear edge of the hood I applied the tape to the underside edge of the hood, half of the width of the tape stuck to the backside of the hood, half the width of the tape exposed. called backtaping, this lets your product go to the edge of a panel but protects suroundings. I then covered the area with a drop cloth, cut out the mid section with a razor blade, and taped the plastic down to my shape to keep the rest of the hood/car clean. I was sure to hang on to the peice of plastic I cut out, it made a perfect stencil for my styrofoam.------ Now that the tape is inplace Im using a product called pva or poly vynil alcohol. it is a green water based liquid that can be brushed, sprayed, or rolled on, it dries quickly into a super thin barrier to protect the hood from anything sticking to it. This way my fiberglass frame can be "laid up" directly on my hood and leave no trace when its "pealed off". I brush mine off, the brush strokes dissapear as it dries(about 15 min.) Then I started my lay up. first brushing on a coat of mixxed fiberglass resin onto the area desired (4" perimeter), then laying my pre-cut strips of fiberglass matt into the resin. Using a cheapo paint brush I dobbed the resin into the fibers saturating it with resin and removing air bubbles and excess resin with a bondo spreader. No air and no excess resin is the key to strong fiberglass. While the resin was curing I started to cut my 1" sheet of styrafoam. The styrafoam should be cut so that it covers the center portion of the hood, but needs to have a 4" gap between the styrafoam and the perimerter, the inner hoods complex compound shape neer the perimeter will not allow the foam to bond as needed, this gap will use a different method to get the desired shape.------ The styrafoam is sold in sheets that just aren't wide enough to cover the width of the hood, so two pieces were needed, here they are cut to shape. I used liquid nails construction adhesive with a caulk gun to bond the foam to the hood. Once my frame was fully hardend it was ready for the foam to be glued on.------ Then they were set onto the hood in position and weighed down, this is where having a lot of random boxes of heavy crap and misc heavy parts came in handy. I used boxes with intake manifolds, exhaust manifolds, flywheels, tool boxes, hammers and scrap metal to weigh it down, haha. This ensures the foam will bond in the exact contours of the hood though. Here you can see the two panels have taken the contours very well, it took about 16 hours to get the glue FULLY set before the weight could be removed. The foam is very secure now, secure enough that I can now start sanding it to shape. The foam is very easy to shape and form so while using 36 grit to achieve shape I had to put a lot of care into not going too far. Its really easy to remove material to achieve shape but impossible to put it back if too much is removed! Long sanding blocks were used to make sure the panel doesn't get waivy or non-uniform shape. special attention is taken on the frontal piece of foam, tapering it down a lot towards the front. The hole point of taking all this trouble is having my hood functional but not rediculous looking in the end. Once shape is achieved I smothed it out with 80 grit. this shaping step only took about 45 minutes.------- Now that I had the styrafoam to desired shape I still needed to create the shape for the endges of the center portion, since the clunky white styrofoam is incapable of bonding to this contour I used a "great stuff" spray foam that would fill the void to its exact shape i'd be able to cut, sand, shape it once dry. I used duct tape to create a "channel" around my perimeter for the foam to flow into, so I could get more foam where I needed it and none where I didn't need it. In this quantity it takes about 24 hours to setup hard enough to start shaping. This is where I thought "This looks rediculous, WTF am I doing?" ------ This product doesn't shape as easy as the white foam, it just takes a little more patience, Excess can be sawed off with a nice steak nife, then it can be sanded and shaped with 36 grit just like the above foam.------- I cut and sanded the foam back enough to expose about 1/2" of my fiberglass frame. This will let the upcoming fiberglass lay up bond to my premaid frame forming one piece. Thats all for now, I'll get more up as I go... This is moving pretty fast though, above has all been done in just a few days. Don't hesitate to ask if I wasn't clear enough on anything or if you need tips on doing this or something similar. If anyone wants to host some pics for me let me know, I don't have enough space to host anymore!

This ad is not displayed to registered or logged-in members. Register your free account today and become a member on Honda-Tech!

[redzcstandardhatch]

man, what a lot of work!

i just bumped my hood WAY CRAZY UP...

very cool man

[Crx Jimmy]

real nice make a mold of the final product Im sure a bunch a K-series guys would eat this up. Im sure you could sell these

[AK_CRX]

I've kicked the idea around, but being in Alaska cost of shipping would put a big dent in cost

[97grnrs]

how are u gonna fiberglass over the foam? i thought fiberglass will melt that foam in no time?

[AK_CRX]

yup, it will. I smeared dap latex sealant caulk over the white styrafoam then covered it with sheets of aluminum foil. Only the white styrafoam needs to be covered, the "great stuff" foam can be glassed right over.

[~sp33~]

Looks neat. Cant wait to see results.

[sircrxracer]

Looks good man nice work..... hood spacers would have done it but whatever works.
Rob

[~sp33~]

3 inches of hood spacers.

[redzcstandardhatch]

the IM is the highest part i believe... i have a custom one in my f2d, so its not a problem for myself..

the VC in mine (non vtec) might be lower than his too (i think his is a vtec f22..)

my hood is spaced up 1.5'' in the rear, with a stock USDM hood... barely clears. doesnt bother me a bit though.

[sircrxracer]

Originally Posted by ~sp33~

3 inches of hood spacers.

By the look of the pic it don't look like he needs 3" if he cut under the hood and used 1.5" spacers I think it would work....... but he is doing the extra work so props to him Rob

[DailyDriverCivic]

Originally Posted by sircrxracer

Looks good man nice work..... hood spacers would have done it but whatever works.
Rob

It would work, and look retarded at the same time.

[AK_CRX]

Originally Posted by sircrxracer

By the look of the pic it don't look like he needs 3" if he cut under the hood and used 1.5" spacers I think it would work....... but he is doing the extra work so props to him Rob

It really wouldn't have worked, even with my webbing cut out... redzcstdhatch has 1.5" of spacers to clear his f22a, Im running an f23a7, my valve cover sits a good 1" higher than his.

picture says a thousand words right?

[sircrxracer]

Wow from that view you made the right choice Rob

[ukdm crx]

You should have continued the bump all the way to the front of the hood then it might have looked like a sir hood with a little more bump to it.

[stunn'd]

damn, very nice work!

[turkishEF]

Looking forward to the end result.

[welfarepc]

i cant wait to see the next steps! good job

[AK_CRX]

I have updates but need to find a way to host my pics Updates will come as soon as I find a host... the part is wrapped in fiberglass now, and separated cleanly from the hood

[anth6ny]

photobucket.com

[doublethink]

fiberimages has an SiR style hood for usdm headlights with no underwebbing that would probably clear that.

but DIY is way cooler.

[gibsanez]

Originally Posted by doublethink

fiberimages has an SiR style hood for usdm headlights with no underwebbing that would probably clear that.

but DIY is way cooler.

You would have to go with that hood plus spacers.

Thanks for shooting me the link, this looks totally boss and it's what I'll end up doing to my good hood.

[AK_CRX]

To hold things over, this is the last thing I did with fiberglass from a couple years ago. I itched so bad I swore I'd never do glass work again... So much for that eah

[EDwEFprts]

^ that must be the craziest car in alaska.

can't wait to see the results.

[dem0nk1d]

wow you did all that glass work... pro jobber!