anyone out there have a harwood cowl induction hood that they installed themselves? if so what kind of cutting and mods did you have to do to the hood to get it to look decent? a description of the modifications made would help me a lot.

 

Check out the July issue of Chevy High Performance. They have an article in there about installing a harwood 2 inch bolt on cowl hood onto a third gen. They said it was a simple bolt on with no trimming needed.

 

Yeah, my butt.

I put one, on. You have to at least trim around all the edges because it comes with excess fiberglass for shipping durability.

Mine bolted on well, but, it wouldn't seat down tight in the nose. I ended up raising the nose a bit. The last thing I have is it seems to be slightly twisted. The front driver's side sticks up a bit and after driving gets bad. The wind goes up underneath in at the headlights and pushes it up.

Still working on this.

Any insight to help me out would be great. :-)

 

I have heard they flex while driving and the only solution I know of is hood pins. I personally like hood pins but alot of people dont but what do you want , a flexed hood or a couple chrome pins? Just be careful pulling pins loose cause I put a nice scratch on the fender of my buddies 70 Charger opening the hood! Good thing he works in a body shop!

 

I had no problems with mine. I have the 3 inch cowl hood and it took me and my buddy 15 minutes to remove the old hood and install the new one. Pretty easy and straight forward. I didn't even have to trim anything. All I have to do now is lightly sand it for primer and then paint it. Even getting it to sit right only took a few minutes.

As for mods, I did add hood pins. Only because at highway speeds air would get up inside the head light pocket and it would vibrate a little. Plus I didn't want my hood to come appart at the track at 100 mph. It probably wouldn't but I'm just being careful.

 

I have been thinking of the hood pins myself. How was your install on those?

 

drill holes in the hood

 

gee thanks

 

I installed mine on the radiator support. Here is a few pics of them.

 

Here the other side.

 

I've got the harwood 4" lift off on my camaro and the only thing i had to do besides the hood pins is to shave alittle so the wipers would clear. But that took all but 5 minutes. Not a big deal. Other than that it was a straight forward install.

 

My harwood is a lousy fitting piece of crap. The top piece is bonded around 3/4" too far back in relation to the bottom piece. When I first bolted the hood into place all the bolts lined up nicely and it closed nice. Unfortunately, it sat almost an inch too far back. I had to slot the hell out of everything, and now it barely latches right and still sits too far back. The sides are almost 1/2" higher than the fenders.

 

Thanks for the pics.

Also, glad to see I am not the only one without a perfect fit. Mine took some adjusting to move it forward as well but, I didn't have to do any cutting because of it.

I think i'll take it to the body shop up the street to see if I missed something with the alignment or maybe the hinges are positioned wrong. I had it aligned OK once but it seems twisted now, like it is binding.

 

My harwood sucks too, theres a sizeable gap between the driver side fender and the hood, and a much smaller gap on the other side, and also a huge gap between the brand new OEM bumper cover and the hood, it looks like complete crap. Great way to make my new paint job look like hell

 

You guys are scaring me away from buying my hood! I want one so bad but not if it is gonna look like crap! hopefully I wont be posting any messages in the future that miror these!

 

I had two 4" harwoods in the past and neither of them fit at all. Would not latch or even come close because of the huge gaps. Worst hoods ever.

 

That is EXACTLY the way mind is/was. I raised the nose by adding shims in the center mounting screws in front of the latch.

I had to lower the catch for the hood to get the hood down as much as possible.

I was able to get the gap on the driver's side smaller and increase the passenger but, it kicks up on the front driver side corner now.

 

I agree with you guys that Harwood is a piece of crap. I had little experence with it on my 97 Sliverado. It not only does not fit it is crooked too.

 

I agree with you guys that Harwood is a piece of crap. I had little experence with it on my 97 Sliverado. It did not fit and it was crooked too.

 

Sad too, it's such a nice looking cowl compared to other brands IMO, I like the wedge style cowls alot instead of the ones that raise right up at the front, so I figured I'd go with the harwood, can't be that bad, but I was wrong.. That gap drives me insane.

 

I have a harwood bolt on hood and I had to do a lot of trimming to get it to fit right, BUT you guys gotta understand something here. 1, the hood is made with enough material so that it can be trimmed and 2, our cars flex like crazy and over 10 years things tend to move around a little on the front end. What Im saying is that on persons hood may fit perfect but try and fit that same hood on another 3rd gen. it may not fit so great. dont blame the hood. it may be slightly misaligned body panels from years and years of abuse and driving.

 

Let me tell you what happened with me. I bought a Harwood cowl hood for my truck and it did not fit, I even tried it on my cousin's truck and again it did not fit.
Then I bought Goodmark cowl and it fit my truck perfectly.
bottom line is quality is big factor.

 

I think I will go with it and try it out . I got a lot of friends in bodyshops so I can get it to fit unless it just is complete crap. But if it is you guys will know about it!

Hey BOTTLED got any more pics somewhere?? That is one sweet Z!!!!