Is there any updates on the 91-2 TA fr fender GFX? Mark

the hood came out really nice.

Im actually picking up a GTA hood this weekend that will be a winter project for me. Im going to use your ideas with some adaptations and see what i come up with. I think it will eventually find its way onto my 92.

Phenomenal! That is one pimptastic custom hood.

Oooo. I have a spare hood now to play with. I really like this idea ^^^ Anybody care if I give it a try?

Wow thats awesome. Nice job. I would love to have a hood like that on my camaro. I have a spare hood but no welder or anything or id try something like this. I think its because its so different. I love it.

wow that is an awesome cowl hood

great job man!!!! that shyt is the bee's knee's!!!!!

I'll only charge you by you cutting & welding my hood too.

any update?

I've got a Harwood 6in lift-off cowl hood for my 83 Z that i was planning to cut down to 3". At first i thought I would curl the excess in the front down to create an extractor opening behind the radiator ala frychicken. I have since decided to seal off the bottom of the elevated cowl section and duct cool air in from in front of the radiator. This will give a more ram-air effect than the rear opening at the cowl.

I still want to extract the air from the engine compartment. After looking at several different designs i think I've settled on a series of louvers on each side the hood like those on the late model vipers. I plan to follow frychickens's method of making three-sided cuts and boxing in the sides.

I got the hood for less than half-off from the scratch and dent table at a local speed shop. I think I can make this for a total cost of around $250.00 (hood was $150). This part of the project won't start till next spring or summer but i'll post a thread with pics on the whole conversion.

Great job on the hood, nice to see somebody make something unique and not buy the same cookie-cutter parts that most guys are running. Ingenuity, and the courage to carry it out seem rare these days. Again great job, your project seems to have generated a lot of interest and maybe it will motivate others to do similar projects.

On a side note, I never heard of Bastrop tx until my daughter moved there last year. I just spent a week there visiting with her. Nice town, I really liked the Deli Depot and the bakery.

Dude, your work is awesome!

A couple of ideas that occurred to me for your winter project:

With the wide cowl area at the rear, you have a huge area to grab air. You could make the cowl a lot less tall and still pull more air than you'll ever need. I
It's just my opinion, but most of the aftermarket hoods i've seen screw up the Firebird's beautiful lines. Why don't you photoshop some pics of this hood, making the cowl shorter and see how you like a more subtle version?

I used to have a '72 Trans Am. The coolest thing on that very cool car was the vacuum-actuated flap on the shaker. It was so cool to see it open and close in synch with my foot on the gas pedal. A buddy of mine has an '81 Z28, and it has two cacuum actuated flaps on the mini-cowl on his hood. He actually mounted his shift light in the cowl; it's only going to go off when the gas is floored and the flaps are wide open. How cool would it be to put a flap like that on your cowl?

Great, great work.

I was going to say the same thing. Other than that, it is one of the nicest non-standard hoods I've seen for these cars. Well done.

What about support. how flimsy did it get with out the supports?

Before I put the supports in it was pretty flimsy. I had to tack weld a couple of pieces of 1X1 tubing across the bottom to keep it somewhat in shape while taking it off and putting it back on the car 20-30 times.

Now it is SOLID. Check out post #57 to see the supports.


I am very anxious to get this little project wrapped up but it rains EVERY DAY now and I don't have the luxury of a garage or even a car port. It's still sitting on my 89. As soon as the weather clears up I'll finish blocking it out so I can get a coat of paint on it......Then the rest of the build for my 89 will begin.

You've built everything else, why don't you build a garage!?

Because I'm rat-holing cash away to build a house and a garage next year....I'm renting for the moment. I will build one though.

Ok here we go you got me started. I gotta build one. Im heading to the junk yard today to get a spare hood. I am gonna use a hood off a Trans Am (with the vents in it) and keep the vents and try to make them active. kinda like that white one. my problem is I need the room for carb and air cleaner. Got a stupid question for ya what size of welder did you use? I got a 90 amp flux core. 1 other question did you have any trouble with whore ping from heat? I will have to get my camera fixed to post pics of this project lol. Here are my ideas. Just a little different from yours. If I make the vents in the front active that should help with weat exchange also I would think kinda like ram air.

I hope no one minds me borrowing there pictures to make some sketches THANK YOU..........

a little more color appropriate lol.



just a thought for graphics



Its kinda rough


This is my plan for graphics and hood only my car is being painted GM Red jewel tintcoat.




Ok last pic this is as close as I can get to red

Go for it.

I used a 130amp MIG with .030 flux core wire. Yes, the flimsy stock sheet metal is going to ripple like hell if you're not careful with it.

I was joking, but isn't it funny that the people who NEED a garage don't have one and most who do don't need one!

That's awesome man! Great work!! Can't wait to see it "finished". I REALLY want a hood like Stephen posted about, I've had the idea in my head for awhile and he photoshopped it perfectly:

If you have vehicles you need a garage. Before I filled it up with third gens to be worked on, I actually parked my other vehicles inside it! I know that's a tough concept for some people.

I sure hope you didn't mind me using your pics to make scatches. Some people get upset.

Well...Those are my pics & my car, but no...I don't mind.

Awhile back, right after he did the hood, I wanted to know what FYRCHKNs hood would look like on my car.....I want one without the extractor part though, for my GTA.

Yup that's Stephen's. Nice looking GTA though huh? I might approach VFN about something like this next year if someone else doesn't do it. They made me a custom hood for my 70' not too long ago that turned out real nice.

And high five to teh Black Knight from Texas!!

I have a temporary car port.. It's a small tarp stretched out between some trees with ratchet straps and old extension cords. It worked great for painting my 91. Check it out:



Check out the link in my sig for the results. If Earl Schieb had this kind of setup maybe they wouldn't have so much dirt and crap in their paint jobs .


Hey Black Knight...where at in Texas? This is a pretty big place.

Finished yet?

I don't care for the whole "hood is left unpainted/carbon fiber/etc." and the car being a different color. The graphics are also a bit too much. Then again I like clean appearances for these things. The hood is an awesome idea and depending on how things work, it would be a nice alternative to the cowl hoods which I think look like *** in general. Beyond that I'd like to see the same basic design without the GTA hood vents in the front. It makes the hood too busy for my tastes.

Despite my long list of thoughts on the idea, I really do like the design.

I've tried VFN & several other places...Nobody even RESPONDS! WTF

I know of a local place that PROBABLY would, if I had it in person to show them.

I dunno, they used some in-house pieces to make a hood for my 70' so that might be why, since it wasn't really "one-off". There's a guy here local to me that will do Power Bulge hoods in fiberglass or carbon fiber

I'd love a power bulge hood in carbon-fibre.

I wonder how hard it would be to do a simple copy of the IMSA hood. You make this stuff look too easy.

Not sure why but i really dig the setup lol,

THIS IS AMAZING make some for camaros and youll have my business

Hey kandied where da hood at??

it is available fyi, VFN will make one for you

so whats the cost for you to make a hood like this?

I second that motion. I sent a PM asking about it but haven't received any replies. I was hoping he'd make a short run of them for those of us who are sorely needing them.

do you mind if i steal your design idea?

Unless you start making them in FG or CF i'll be forced to make my own lol.

About time this got a bump. Any new progress?

That thread was almost six months ago or something? Good luck...

updates?

updateeeeeesss????

I think this hood is cursed anytime someone is working on it they pretty much disappear, and we never hear anything else about it lol, but I believe frychkn will pull through I have faith in his skills

I still have it and it's still almost finished. My life has been VERY busy the past few months. Once everything slows down a little and I get time I will finish it up. It's mounted on my '89 at the moment and when I get around to prepping that car for paint I'm going to go ahead and finish smoothing out the hood.

It IS built though. Structurally it IS FINISHED. All that's left is a little smoothing work with filler to get it perfect...I'm kinda anal about how my finished products look.

Oh i know itll get done im just anxious to see pics of the finished product this hoods been like a world wonder till now.

very anxious also haha..cant wait to see it..

How about an update?

I finally had a couple of nice weather days that I didn't have that J.O.B. interfering with my "car time". I had to let the car sit on the battery charger all day yesterday. I finally got it started around 7 pm yesterday and drove it around to the driveway from the back yard.

Today I did a little rough sanding with the palm sander to smooth out the mud that I put on it a few months ago. As I was looking at it I really don't have that much left to do for it to be perfect. There's not a whole lot of change since the last pics but now it's up in the driveway and I think I'm going to have some time to work on it now. The passenger headlight assembly is just sitting in the car. It's not even bolted up so that's why it's a little off. Also, the nose and the passenger fender are both just barely on the car with only a couple of bolts holding them on.

Here are current pics taken about 30 minutes ago:

i cant wait to see the finish product.

Even though im more of a camaro guy, that hood looks insane

Good work bro keep it up