Custom hood

alright... a friend of mine has a 02' cavalier and he want a ram air hood... we looked at some and prices where outragous and the hoods weren't all that original looking... I have some exsperience in fiberglassing and was wondering how bad it would be to make a custom hood... Does anyone have any idea how much (as in price) the foam is that im going to need to make a mold of the factory hood? MY gmae plan for now is to make a mold of the original and then carve in the ram air opening and then make a fiberglass hood from that... Just need price one the molding foam and suggestions are gladdly accepted... thanks...

No Clue But I'm A Little Curious As To How Hard That Is, Making Fiberglass?

The molds to recreate a whole hood isnt foam, its similar to a vulcanized rubber and is very expensive. I suggest working on the stock hood.

The foam you need is poly-urethane foam. It will cost you between $50 and $75USD. Then you need some 105 and 205 Epoxy resin/hardner. You will end up spending about $200-$300USD.

Also, this is being moved to the fabrication board.

im alright with the $200-300 becuz that is cheaper than the $600+ for a hood. I cant work with the original hood becuz y design is way to radical to just mod the stock hood. there are two reasons i dont want to use the stock hood...

1. That requires the modification of the hood and we want to keep the hood as a back-up or replacment

2. It requires me to fabricate using metal and im not that exprenced with welding and with a few other things i need to do to make the hood...

So the molding stuff is going to cost me $75???

Thanks for your help...

im alright with the $200-300 becuz that is cheaper than the $600+ for a hood. I cant work with the original hood becuz y design is way to radical to just mod the stock hood. there are two reasons i dont want to use the stock hood...

1. That requires the modification of the hood and we want to keep the hood as a back-up or replacment

2. It requires me to fabricate using metal and im not that exprenced with welding and with a few other things i need to do to make the hood...

So the molding stuff is going to cost me $75???

Thanks for your help...

I see call around the local salvage yards and find an extra Cavalier hood. It will be a lot easier, and cheaper to modify a stock hood rather than getting a mold made and creating a new hood.

The foam will cost you at least $75, maybe more.

im doing a sort of cowl/ram air hood and i do not... nor does my friends have... the skill to modify the stock hood (working with the metals and stuff)... Fiberglassing is fiar cheap and real easy. Making the mold is the only hurtel i have to jump.

I used a die grinder to port my hood , used a tape measure to precisely measure the ports. I drew the shape i intended to use on one side first then over lapped the cut out to the opposite side remeasured to ensure the eveness of the hood ports locations then reproduced the other port exactly. No one ever showed me how to do this I came up with it on my own and minutes later i was cutting. I wouldnt use fiberglass on a metal hood , it shrinks warps and cracks , the best thing to do is make the entire hood ( if you do this and it works I will call you a genious) I am really interested in the resins and what you can do with them , if theres some way to modify the hood by adding fiberglass on it i really would love to learn it. Man oh man I hope that theres a way to do it without bullocksing it.

for one... im making an entire new hood.. for two... the design of the hood im making is a cowl hood with a ram air before it drops... the cowl wont be really uproubted and the hood will flow. Either i have to be really good with metal or i need to make it out of fiberglass... and im opting to use the fiberglass...

You can make a mold of the hood with regular fiberglass. You coat it in mold release wax so the resin doesnt stick to it.

You can make a mold of the hood with regular fiberglass. You coat it in mold release wax so the resin doesnt stick to it.

Why didnt I think of that? :banghead:

The reason i want to make a mold of the original hood with the foam/rubber stuff is so i could carve into it and make my design and then lay the fiberglass.... that way i only have to lay the glass to conform to the shape of my "modded" mold. If i make a mold of the orignal hood with fiberglass and still try to use my design, it will be VERY difficult.

for one... im making an entire new hood.. for two... the design of the hood im making is a cowl hood with a ram air before it drops... the cowl wont be really uproubted and the hood will flow. Either i have to be really good with metal or i need to make it out of fiberglass... and im opting to use the fiberglass...
im sure your project will turn out great , i forgot to mention that i like your truck makes me want to fix one up in a bad way :)

well, there has been somewhat od a dent in my project... my friend has went and bought a 78' camaro and now his focus is on that car :/ ... when we get around to making the hood i will give u all an up date... and thanks mark

Ok Ive done this once and it work ok. Cover the org. hood with release film or release wax. Fab up a box that will fit around the hood, cardboard works. Go to home depot and get Great Stuff this is a brand name of spray foam the max expanding is what i used. Spay inside your fabed box. MAKE

Opps....... MAKE SURE YOU HAVE SOME MATS OR SMETHING DOWN TO CATCH THE OVERFLOW!!! After bout an hour you should be able to pull your mold off. Cover your mold with release film (saran wrap) if you dont the resien will melt it. Great Stuff can be sculped as well.

awesomw.. thanks... hey, how much is this "Great Stuff" ?

Its about $4 a can, its just basicly an AB foam in a spray can. You can buy it at any place that sells paint/hardware. It will be next to the calking. It will need a few cans, depending on how deep you want the mold.

Hey guys, I was reading this post and I am intrigued. About 2 months ago I decided I wanted a hood scoop for my car. Well, I have a 95 Grand Prix SE, ( I know, I know, not a cool car) but I said what the hell, I will just cut a hole in it, and form a hood scoop and put it in. My friend and I brainstormed and what I ended up doing was cutting the hole and then out of sheet metal (embarassing) we molded the scoop and pulled it up through the hole. I pop-rivoted the hood scoop on and I then applied Bondo (dumbass didn't know it would crack) and then sanded it down and primed it. I must admit it looked pretty damn good for about a week until the first crack came. Essentially what happened was the Bondo just cracked all around the scoop and now it doesn't look pretty. Again, my car is a 95 Grand Prick with 146k on it so I really do not care, but I would like to work with the hood some more to try to get it to look somewhat decent. Is there anything I can use that will not crack but can formed and shaped and sanded to my scoop? I did see this cool sh*t on TV called Alumaloy (www.alumaloy.com ) and I ordered some. They are located in CT and so I am so it works for me. Hopefully I can use that stuff to just secure the hood scoop. I dunno, just thought I would share my experience and see if any of you guys had any insight. Thanks in advance if you do!

smart thing to do would be to weld it in place.

pop rivits or whatever are never a good idea to hold anything in. If you weld your hood scoop on and then use your bondo correctly the bondo wont crack and your scoops will look good and stay on. oh, grind down the welds after you weld it on (thats pretty self explanitory).

pop rivits or whatever are never a good idea to hold anything in. If you weld your hood scoop on and then use your bondo correctly the bondo wont crack and your scoops will look good and stay on. oh, grind down the welds after you weld it on (thats pretty self explanitory).

I build planes and rivet almost everything together so they must not be that bad.

if they dont cover planes in bondo either...

rivets dont have near the hold on stuff as welds do. If the body panel shifts the body cracks :/

rivets dont have near the hold on stuff as welds do. If the body panel shifts the body cracks :/

Use rivets when going for an old skool look...or if you just dont know how to weld...i wouldnt reccommend rivets on a body but for other things that dont twist and turn like cars, especially unibodies that are RWD with high HP motors, tend to do due to torque of hte motor and the differential trying to twist with the drive shaft...FWD cars dont usually twist...but then agian who goes for an old skool look on a FWD car anyway.... it would be utterly (i dont think i spelt that right) retarded to do so :2cents:

Alot of body aplications require pop rivots. Front plate holders , lip spoilers and sometimes molded mudflaps are factory pop riveted in or require pop rivet for assembly at the dealership , reason of there use is they give play in vibrational movement so when the body shakes and vibrates it stays put evenly without it beein on totally solid it could crack warp or move unevely if permanently placed. I dunno how welding it is gonna be that great for the hoodscoop , I learned that the newer sheet metals dont like to be welded and dont like to adhere to new paints cus of the heat spread through the welded portions. This type of body work is almost unheard of mostly cus its unpractical. I have been known to prove the pros wrong and there is way to adhere to over heated metal just gotta figure that out. I suggest after it is welded the metal gets treated and nutralized with a good primer coat right after. Once its primed after metal is treated the paint should permanently adhere to the over heated metal. Watch for pinholes in the weld , one little pin hole will make the whole thing botched if the air is allowed to stay under the paint and primer.