So I found a guy selling a fiberglass hood for a third gen firebird, I have not seen it in person but he said it has never been installed... So the question is- is a fiberglass hood worth messing with? I have not considered replacing mine but I saw this come up and it piqued my interest.

 

there are several after market ones that don't fit without alot of body work, and there are factory power buldge hoods for firebirds in fiberglass. If you are talking factory buy it, but you are not talking alot of weight reduction.

 

never heard of the factory power bulge fiberglass - when/why did they use it?

 

IMO, aftermarket fiberglass hoods generally don't fit well, and some have wavy surfaces. And while it's relatively easy to correct gap problems (if you have some experience with fiberglass), warpage is something that would be difficult to correct. If you can find a steel piece you like, made in the US, you'd be better-off buying it over fiberglass.

 

there is nothing wrong with my factory hood, it just seems like an interesting option, its posted for less than $100. I have zero experience with fiberglass so repair would not be any fun at all.

 

does the factory hood have hinge locations or is it lift off? I put a lift off on mine because it had a 3'' rise. it takes 6 pins total, 4 in the front to keep it from lifting even at 75 it starts to arch. I would stay away from a lift off hood if you do not need one. especially if nothing is wrong with your factory hood. although i do love the way it looks! and weighs way way less

 

he said it needs to be "finished" and painted...

 

Only buy composite stuff sight unseen if you are OK with the taking the chance it's garbage. I just did that with "Knight Rider ground effects" which I'm hoping are just a decent clone of the stock GM parts I actually wanted. I estimate 50% chance I take one look and decide to give them away.

Composites vary considerably in strength depending on build technique. For all you know, he waxed his hood up real good, threw a bunch of glass mat on and just poured resin all over. You could cut the result of that into a weak floppy hood that needs a ton of finish work because the smooth side is in.

A little better would be if he took a direct mold that way, braced it, waxed or gelcoated the mold, and made the part in there. Now the shiny side is out. But now it's a bit too small and curved, because composites shrink as they cure, and his mold shrank plus the part shrank.

Besides just fitment issues, there's a ton of variability in strength depending on layup and cure technique. Is it mat? Is it weave? Did he lay out the weave correctly? Did he bag it? What kind of resin? Even just squeegee or roller technique can play a role in part strength.

I've seen people complain they got a hood that had a giant resin pool in the middle. That's a curing issue. The resin got runny before it set and ran down into the middle. The person doing it should have done something to manage that, like pick a different resin or use a different hardener or used a bag or 2-piece mold to apply pressure.

I'm not trying to scare you off the thing you want, but you need to see it or understand you're rolling the dice. The stuff's cheap and not that hard to do but it's kind of a lot of tedious work so it's not uncommon to see it done poorly.

 

For under $100 I would think that it's a lift-off hood which generally have no place on a car that isn't track only.

 

You're probably right, but it could be anything. Thing is, if you are worried about spending $100 on a racing part, you probably can't afford to race cars.

That's not meant as an insult. I can't afford to race cars either, and I just spent exactly $100 on fiberglass parts that I half expect to be useless to me.

 

this is by no means a race car, and my current hood is fine, just though it could be an interesting option, I hadn't considered that it may not be a direct replacement.

 

I've had multiple fiberglass hoods on multiple cars and they were never perfect. All hoods either had good alignment but were wavy or were straight as a stock hood but had some fitment issue. In all cases it requires fiberglass or finishing work. I would stick with the stock hood. I'm currently kicking around the idea of selling my single plane efi intake in favor of a mini ram and going back to the stock hood.

 

I have a fiberglass cowl hood. It looks pretty good, but it is super thin. The PO installed hood pins in addition to the latch because the corners would lift at highway speeds. I think a nice factory Iroc hood would be better to me, (obviously you would want a firebird hood).

 

Back in the day, everyone was making and selling fiberglass fenders, hoods, doors, and one-piece doghouse-tilt-front ends for tri-5 Chevys and just about everything else you'd see at the drags on any car where fiberglass was allowed by the class rules. But good grief; the fit and finish on the vast majority of those pieces was atrocious; most looked like they were made in some guy's dimly-lit basement by someone with impaired vision. Their only saving grace was their very light weight compared to the steel they replaced, and most drag racers back then didn't care that the car was a '20-footer.'

You'd think that in 40 years (or more) that quality would have drastically improved, but that just doesn't seem to be the case. But again, most such parts go on drag cars (where appearance is a distant 2nd to performance) and not street cars.

 

There are early factory fiberglass camaro hoods and aluminum formula hoods, but no factory fiberglass formula hood. VFN sells a fiberglass firebird hood though, and will make a carbon fiber one....

 

For the OP, I would at least look at the hood and see what it is. Maybe it's worth picking up. I'm using a VFN cowl hood and while it needed a little work, the fitment is quite good. On the other hand I had a Harwood hood on a car I parted out and it was a piece of trash.

 

I'm interested in stock Firebird carbon fiber hood. Do you know if they will make that? I don't see any CF on their website but it looks like it was designed in the late 90's. Thanks!