firehawk1988

Several monthes ago my Girlfriend's Firebird was hit in a parking late one night. The other driver was either unaware of hitting her car or just drove off. It appearently was a truck since the damage was to the top edge of the bumper cover, headlight cover and the hood. Hood got the worst of it. Needless to say her uninsured motorist insurance covered it since it was considered a hit and run. So i had to look for a hood for her car since i already had an extra 91 bumper cover. The problem was there are hardly any third gen F-bodys in the area and all the hoods i have found here and on Ebay are for local sale only.
One day i lucked out and the guy that hauls junk away for my body shop said he had a Trans Am hood with a scoop he'd sell me for $60. I didnt get a chance to look at it closer but i bought it anyway since it was straight. After moving around I seen why the scoop was there. It have a 12inch hole cut out for an air cleaner for clearance. So i had a problem i had to fix since her car is a 3.1 V6 and and didnt need the opening and the add on scoop looked cheesy. So with some metal fabrication, welding and body work i came up with a smooth, sleeker scoop that would be a cleaner look. I will apologize for not taking pics of the scoop being made since i too involved and wasnt thinking of taking pics. I have included pics of the finished hood plus the hood bird that i painted on it. Her hood had a decal and it started peeling after being on the car for a year and a half. I figured painting one on would hold up longer.
Below is the hood when i got it and how it looked after the fab work and paint/clearcoat.

firehawk1988

Here is the hood with the Bird Stencil before paint.

firehawk1988

And here is the finished Bird along with closer pics of the scoop.

firehawk1988

More pics!!

gearheadotaku

iTrader: (1)

how do the vents come out of the hood?

2007xl50

Looks good man, nice work.

firehawk1988

Thanks!

The front vents are attached with self threading flat nuts and the side vents are snapped in. To get those out you have to go through the openings near the hinge bolts and pry the tabs and slide them out.

NCC-2569

iTrader: (1)

Looks nice!

So, have you ordered that stencil somewhere or is it custom made? And have you painted it onto the hood before or after putting the clear paint on there?

Kingsobieski

Wow. Awesome hood. Very classy.

firehawk1988

The stencil is custom made. I had traced out and saved a decal i used in the past and used postboard cut outs. I laid those on the hood and used 3M fine line 1/4inch tape and 1/8inch tape as the border. It took me 2 1/2 hours for that alone. If i ever have to do this again i will check with a sign shop and price a stencil. Not sure what that would cost.

I had finished the hood and painted/clearcoated last month. So i lightly sanded the clear and painted the Bird over it with 3 coats of clear on top. I could have done the stencil directly on tha basecoat earlier but i wasnt ready at the time so i cleared it then.

firehawk1988

Also I wanted to make a cleaner scoop that was close to the power bulge like my Formula has but it needed to have the center hoodline to work right. Maybe a factory look if GM wanted something similar to the 2nd gen shaker hoods.

My girlfriend doesnt like scoops but she likes this one since it doesn't stand out too much and seem too gody or cheesy.