To me the ram air hoods look like someone took a pig and used a piece of tape between it's nose and forehead to hold it's nose high up. :S
Looks damn awful to me. Perhaps they would look better if the openings were wider?

Power bulge / double bulge are nice though. Standard cowl hoods can be nice too.

I have been looking for a hood like this one everywhere!!
Where can I get one? This is perfect for this gen Firebird as it flows with the curves of the car.

Its the IMSA hood.

And while I love its looks, I'm NOT digging that hood to bumper cover mis-match. This is one of the reasons I have NOT gotten a fiberglass hood yet. I don't have the money together to buy one right now, other car parts are priority over a new hood.

If I were to do a hood it would be for weight savings, I wish there was a stock fiberglass hood replacement. All I want is the weight loss, I don't need any extra hood clearance as my LT1 is very low.

Try Finding an Aluminum 82 Trans Am Hood ... Had one... I know of 2 for sure and maybe a 3rd on the boards..

John

what did they put them on? my cousin has a recaro 82 thats just sitting and rotting. should it have one?

The bulge.

I do not think it was part of any option package, like Recaro or Trans Am. It may have been part of the early CFI cars in 1981, however I believe it was an option item, only available for early 1982... There was an RPO for it, and some of the hoods had a large A on the bottom side indicating it was Aluminum. It was about half the weight of the steel Hood.

John

magnet shouldnt work either.

You can find more info in the history section but early birds has options for aluminum crash bars and aluminum hoods. Early z28s could have a composite hood too.

GM decided early on wasn't worth the expense of offering them.

How I found the hood I was wandering through a junkyard with a friend. He said... Hmph, that's aluminum... Being covered in 2" of snow I was surprised. I wear glasses with magnetic clip on sunglasses and I took them off and sure enough it would not stick. I was so excited, I lost my head and in hindsight I should have tried the front fenders.

John

The one I have weighs 21ish pounds.

Stop Bragging, your one of the 2... Bruce Hawkins has the other just in case y'all were interested.

I had 2 of them here.. now thats bragging!!!

Greg has/had one of the ones I had here but I think he sold it.

My favorite aftermarket hood is one I only saw once on here, Maybe it was a prototype or something. It was on a white late 80's TA.
Probably didn't rise up any higher then the red one that was posted and had to small nostril openings about where the TA hoods have the vents.

You are most likely talking about a Ram Air 1 hood.

no, although i guess straight on it would look about the same.
I do know I don't care for the ram air 1 hood. although it's not near as bad as the ram air 2

RA1 hood on the Polly Motorsports TransAm. The most epic of epic F-bodies.

No, thats the Ram Air 2 hood.

The RA1 hood is styled after 93-97 TransAms. The RA2 hood is styled after the 98-02 TransAms.

It is the IMSA Hood.

My 86 Trans Am! Sweet....

Power Bulge hood with gauges or shift light in the cowl

Had to bump this to post whatever this is! But seriously, I'll trade it for a stock hood. Please.

here is an early start on my home made ram air hood.

I like the idea with this although unsure how I feel about it narrowing back at windshield? Was this your preference or due to structural integrity? Overall I like it though!

Have an RA1 I recently picked up for $100- needs some repair work but cousin is a body guy and will fix & spray it over summer. Looking forward to getting rid of the bolt-on Bandit II scoop.

I had just brought the back in to make it different from a cowl hood. I also didn't want the back to be in my line of sight at least not that much. I closed the back and am goiing to build a air box to make use of the vents in the front.Still trying to decide if I'm going to angle the sides out so it doesn't have such sharp edges.

Gotcha, keep us updated on finished product!

Great thread. I'm going to add a lot of posts and pics to it, hope that's ok.

For the record, I, too, favor the Power Bulge hood. It's the definitive 3rdgen Firebird hood, IMO. But new GM Power Bulge hoods don't exist anymore, at least, not from a vendor/retailer--I know, because in 2006 I purchased the last known NOS hood in existence. However, it arrived damaged, so I shipped it back. I suppose somebody might have one stored away, but that doesn't count lol. As for the price of these NOS GM Power Bulge hoods, they ranged from $900-$1200(not kidding). So people should keep that in mind when they whine about the prices of new aftermarket hoods.

Of course, junkyard hoods are only about $40, but good luck finding one. And if you do find one, you'll likely spend several hundred dollars just to make use of it. Nothing wrong with that, just saying...

So about a year ago, I set out to find a Power Bulge hood in carbon fiber, and I found a company that makes one. I have a thread about it in the Body forum. Also touched upon was a fiberglass version by VFN, as well as other fiberglass hoods, some well-known, some not so well-known. And recently I found some new fiberglass hoods by VFN that should be mentioned in this thread. I believe Classic is investigating the possibility too. So more new hoods are finally being produced for 3rdgen Firebirds, and that's exciting.

So to begin my picture-and-link-posting, here's a link to the CARBON FIBER Power Bulge hood that I wrote about in my thread in the Body forum:
http://www.advancarbon.com/#/item/82...t_carbon_hood/

The first pic below is of the VFN fiberglass Power Bulge hood that another member posted in my thread.

The second pic below is of a fiberglass Power Bulge hood produced in Italy, sold on ebay.

Another hood mentioned in this FAQ thread is the ISMA hood, but all of its pics have disappeared. Fear not, I've saved them throughout the years, and here they are. It's the "double bulge" fiberglass hood that a lot of people seemed to like, as I read through all the pages of this thread. Unfortunately, it appears that it's not being produced anymore. When available, it was produced by Showcars(link in post #42 of this thread). Maybe if enough people prod them and show legitimate interest... who knows?

I believe this is/was 4mul8r's car? Hope he doesn't mind.

The pics I'll be posting in this and the next post are of two NEW fiberglass hoods being offered by VFN. One is a Sunoco hood, and the other is called a WS6 Sloped hood(which is the Sunoco hood with Ram Air nostrils in front). Both hoods are available in Pin-on or Bolt-on.

Sunoco hood pics below:

And here are the pics of VFN's WS6 Sloped hood, mentioned in my previous post:

In this post I'll be showing the Firebird equivalent of the Camaro SS hood: the Super Duty fiberglass hood offered by Hawk's. One pic is from Hawk's website, and the other is by someone who actually has this hood. The last pic is of a fiberglass SS scoop sold on ebay, not as tall as the Super Duty scoop(SD is about 4"; the SS scoop is only about 2", similar to the stock SS hood and stock Power Bulge hood heights). So if you're crafty enough to make/modify a hood of your own, you might want the scoop and DIY. I found the SS scoop because the same ebay vendor was offering another scoop that I'll be mentioning in the next post, which I like very much.

Ok, in this post I'll be showing pics of a scoop sold on ebay(not sure it's being offered anymore though); I like this one a lot. It's a fiberglass Heat Extractor Ram Air scoop for Firebird hoods. So here again, if you're interested in doing your own modifications/fabrications, this would make an awesome version of the Ram Air 2/WS6 style hood, your own one-off. This would make a 3rdgen hood that's similar to VFN's WSQ 4thgen hood, which I suggested to VFN that they should offer for 3rdgens. So maybe it's in the future for us.

Ok, last set of pics. Here's a slightly different version of a Ram Air 2/WS6 style hood. The vendor appears to be FX Designs, out of Canada. I say "appears to be" because the rear of the scoop looks different in some of the pics, almost like it's not the same hood. But because the rest of the hood's features and designs look identical, I'm assuming they're all by FX, maybe one a prototype and the other a final.

When I first found this hood a few months ago, it was dubbed a Ram Air 4 hood. Look closely and you'll see that the nostrils are set back on the hood farther than on a Ram Air 2 hood; they're not right in front. In fact, the "line" and shape of the front of the scoop appears to be in the same location as the front of the Power Bulge's scoop. And the profile seems a bit lower than typical Ram Air 2 hoods, more like that of a Power Bulge hood. Also, in some of the pics the rear of the scoop terminates before the back of the hood, also like a PB scoop terminates. And you can see the hood was molded to accept 3rdgen TA hood heat extractors. It's almost as if FX used actual 3rdgen PB and TA hoods for templates, creating a well-thought-out product, with actual 3rdgen features and shapes.

For another comparison, similar to the way the ISMA hood captures the shape of the stock power bulge and doubles it, making it symmetrical, this FX hood seems to take the ISMA hood and carve it into a Ram Air hood, keeping stock hood lines and features.

Other than the stock Power Bulge hood, I'd have to say that this hood by FX Design is probably my favorite of all the aftermarket hoods. Now, if the top of the scoop had heat extractors like in the pics I posted in the previous post, then...

Here is my pic's of my hood on my TA. Cheers....

I've found some info on the blue hood pictured above:
http://suncoastcreations.com/a-p-f-1...ood-28010.html
It's known as a WS6 hood(I'll get into this name thing a couple of paragraphs below, so hold your fingers for a moment lol). Whether or not the hood is still available, I don't know. But the webpage is current, 2014, so it would appear that this hood is still available.

But it's not the hood Polly used, as was speculated. Polly used the more commonly-known RA1 hood that's pictured on the red car above. In fact, the black car in the post previous to Stephen's post actually is Polly's car.

As I mentioned, the Ram Air 1 variant on the blue car is called a WS6 hood. And I think its lines are smoother and more accurate than the lines of the red hood.

My analysis of the name might get confusing, so try to follow along. When the name, WS6 hood, came up in my own thread on the Power Bulge hood, some people got so crazy that if they'd been standing on the edge of a cliff, they most certainly would have jumped; they couldn't grasp this. So read on, if you dare...

Beginning in 1995 on 4thgen Firebirds, the WS6 performance package not only included suspension upgrades, but also included a better flowing exhaust, a ram air intake, and a ram air hood, hence the name, WS6 hood, because it was part of the package, obviously. But there was no need to name or number it yet; after all, there was only one ram air hood, and you can't have a "1" unless there's a "2," so the original hood was simply a Ram Air hood. Who knew there would be another version offered 3 years later?

Fast-forward 3 years... Now with two different ram air hoods, one from the 95-97 WS6 package and one from the 98-02 WS6 package, they had to be dubbed: Ram Air 1 and Ram Air 2. Both were WS6 hoods, but it wasn't until the later style came out that the WS6 label finally caught-on, and the Ram Air 2 became the WS6 hood, even though the Ram Air 1 hood was, in fact, the original WS6 hood. And the hood on the blue car above by Suncoast Creations is more accurately-based on the original Ram Air 1 hood than the other style Ram Air 1 hood on the red car.

But how there got to be 2 slightly different variants of the RA1 hood(as seen in the quoted pics), I don't know.

The Suncoast is functional and looks to include an air box with it. The RA1 hood is strictly cosmetic.

I haven't done much to it lately been busy with work but I did get the sides added to it. Still have a lot of welding,grinding and bodywork to do.

what i wanna know is has any one ever seen a third gen with a 77 bandit shaker on it and if so can u post a pic, im thinking about doing tis to my 86 and would like to see one first.

I'm actually selling mine.

They came on those Bandit II cars. I don't like them, because you can tell they are just stick on. Plus they are way too small and no one puts the engine displacement on the sides of them.

I hate those hoods, but not for for reason everyone else does. Why do I hate them? Look at the front edge. They don't even line up with the popup head lights. No one else ever noticed that???

Do you have any pics of it, and what's ur price

iPad only allows one attachment per post so here's the first.
It's still bolted to hood (not taped or stuck on). PO had it installed on the stock hood. I'd sell just the scoop for $50 plus shipping.

Pic 2

I know someone has taken a real shaker and installed it on a 3rd gen... I have seen it done, where or who did it is far gone from memory... It sat low in comparison to the hood, did not stick up like the 2nd gens, probably would require some tinkering to get it to look right.

John

I remember that as well, although no idea when or who did it. I don't recall if it was on a carb'd or tbi car either. Not sure how it would be functional on a TPI car.
My dad had a '70 T/A when I was a kid and loved watching the flapper open on the shaker when the secondaries opened! Miss that car....

I've seen the shaker done on a 3rdgen, it was a great job! 92 base bird, white with blues stripe and shaker. Had a pic on my old computer that crashed.

That is because he ditched his latch in favor for those other hood locks, the latch pulls the front down. My hood is similar, a twin turbo hood, and the front lines up with the nose perfectly, although in this picture it looks like it doesn't because this picture was before I pulled the hood forward about a half an inch, as well as lowered the latch the same amount, and raised the light assemblies, and now it lines up perfectly...

delete.

Reviving this thread to post links to a new ZL1 Carbon Fiber hood from Carbon Creations. It's also available in Fiberglass.

https://carboncreations.com/carbon-c...1982-1992.html

https://carboncreations.com/duraflex...1982-1992.html

CC also offers a Carbon Fiber rear deck lid:

https://carboncreations.com/carbon-c...1982-1992.html