custom hoods?

[Kanibal]

how hard is it to make a fiberglass hood? ive seen boxes center consoles dashes all custom made and some with very intraquet work in em. But i have yet to see someone make a whole custom hood. and im not talking about buying scoops and molding them to a steel hood anyone can do that. ive always wanted to customize a 1st gen ford probe gt no one makes a hood for them and the stock hoods are very heavy not to mention the manifolds generate a lot of heat so a vented or scooped hood would be very benificial corbon fiber would be excellent but id imagine very expencive and difficult but fiberglass would also be a good option.
so does anyone know how build a fiberglass hood from scratch?

[TheSilentChamber]

Make sure your hood is perfectly clean, strip it of wax, polish it, and cover it in mold release. Lay fiberglass on the hood till its about 1/4-3/8" thick. Once it has cured you can use seperate it from the stock hood. Now clean the inside of the mold you just made, make sure theres no dry spots, voids, or bubbles. Now coat it in mold realease, layer it up your fiberglass or carbon fiber, thickness will depend on material made of. Let cure, remove from mold, clean up the edges and you've got a fiberglass hood. Now this is a pin-on hood. If you want one that bolts on and uses factory hood release its going to be more complicated as you will have to memic the inside of the hood where those things are, embed studs or nuts into the fiberglass, then laminate it onto the outter hood structure.

I would not recomend carbon fiber unless your pretty expericed as it is not only a little more difficult to work with, its more expensive, and you need to use a clear resin if your wanting "the carbon look". Hope this helps; If you have anymore questions I'm sure I can help you out.

[Kanibal]

Thanks for the walk through im guessing as far as scoops go i can mold them onto the the steel hood before i lay the mold on right?
what about fenders does this also apply to them?

[TheSilentChamber]

Yeah, you can build it on the steel hood, or carve it into the mold itself, or build it on the fiberglass hood. Fenders are the same.

[Kanibal]

what kind of shrinkage can i expect on the fiberglass mold and hood id imagine the size after the mold has shrunk and the new hood has shrunk as well, would be much smaller the the original.
my actual plan for this probe is going to be a full wide body kit
which means i will be fabricating front and rear fenders the hood as well as the door skins.
i have found the front fenders i want to duplicate and they dont seem to complicated there pretty much just wider with some vents behind the wheel.
and as for the rear there extended a few inches wider from the top of the fender and they narrow down at the tail light and to the front of the door i hope you get what i mean by all this.
i have some photos but im having trouble posting them.

so what i really want to know is could this work be done by sombody who's never worked with fiberglass. i have however taken three years of sculpture and ceramics so im not completly in the dark about this.
also you dont have to be dead on accurate but how much money and time do you think im gonna be spending on this stuff?

thanks for any help.

[TheSilentChamber]

If you use a good quality resin and have a good fiberglass to resin ratio then you shrinkage will be minimal, on a hood I'd say your shrinkage would be probably less than 1/16" with is well within a good marin, and can even be fixed by sanding the mold with course sand paper then working your way upto 2000grit and polishing it before you lay the fiberglass in the mold, the material you removed will enlarge it enough to elmininate the shrinkage factor.

While all of that could be done by someone with no experience, I would suggest buying some fenders from a junk yard to practice on and such before you try your own car.

To figure up cost you need to figure up how much total yardage of fiberglass you will be using, factor in a 1:1 weight ratio of resin to fiberglass, add your hardener price for the amount of resin you will be using. Then there comes in other supplies such as sand paper, body filler, acetone for clean up, brushes/spreaders, mold release. It can add up quick.

[Kanibal]

well i have an extra probe i use for parts and
the body is in pretty good shape so that'll save me some money. i actually have close to 5,000US set aside for the body mods but i suppose i can make it six if i have to.

[TheSilentChamber]

eh thats more than enough, I'm sure you'll be able to do it for $700 or less.

By the way a great place to buy just about everything you will need is FibreGlast

[Kanibal]

that site was tons of help.
im gonna order the video's ASAP!
but just in case things dont work out.
do most body shops know how to do this stuff and how much do you think they'll charge? you dont have to be accurate just a ball park est.

[TheSilentChamber]

At my shop I would charge somewhere around $1500-2000 to do a wide body kit. Most body shops dont have knowledge to to this kind of work.

[Kanibal]

wow thats cheaper than i thought
i was expecting at least 4,000 but im still gonna try it myself. if the kit comes out as good as i hope i can make more and sell em on ebay.
us first gen probe guys are pretty desperate for after market parts.