Top Secret Hood Pictures

[Racer_X]

EDIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!: Bill is currently helping me out with this hood situation and I should be able to get it to fit perfectly with some minor tweaking (FREE FIXES). Deft Racing definitely stands behind their product and if it isn't right, they will make it right! Thanks again for the support Bill! I am a happy customer once again. The remainder of this thread is old and can be locked.

CHECK THE LAST POST TO SEE THE RESULTS. BILL DEFT HELPED ME SORT ALL THE BUGS OUT. THANKS AGAIN!!




















Well, IT finally came time to fit my top secret hood on my car, and I had a few surprises. Here are some pictures. First off, here is the stock hood (THe front bumper and headlights are off my car and the car hasn't run in 1.5 years, so it is fairly dirty)



This is the passenger side of my hood. I took ALL the bumpstops out because I had fitted the carbon fiber TS hood earlier. I'll explain that in a bit. As you can see, my stock hood without the bumps sits below fender level




Here are the gaps on the front fender with the stock hood. They are the same. I needed to keep the bumpstop on the front driverside corner for the TS hood. Also will explain in a bit.




Here are the rear sections of the stock hood. Pretty even on both sides, and came level with the fenders in the rear. with the bumpstops installed, I would consider this hood to have perfect fitment.

[Racer_X]

Here are pictures of the Top Secret Hood.



Here is the front passenger side corner. This is the ABSOLUTE BEST I could do. it is VERY close to the fender and with the bumpstop COMPLETELY removed, it sits at fender level



Here is the front driver side corner. It has MUCH more space than the passenger side. again. the ABSOLUTE BEST I could do.



Here is the Rear driver side corner. It sits above the fender level quite visibly and no ammount of pushing or shoving will fix it. it is just very high



Here is a side shot of the middle of the hood from the drivers side. The hood sits above fender level completely closed. again all bumpstops have been completely removed



Here is the opposite side (passenger side). it actually sits completely above fender level so that you can see the bottom of the hood if viewing straight across. again, this is with the hood completely closed



Here is a shot of the rear passenger corner. This corner sits visiblylower than fender level directly over the hinge.



Here is a crappy shot of the underside fo the hood (it got dark out). I am not a composite specialist, but it looks like the vast majority of the hood is fiberglass with a carbon fiber top layer for cosmetic reasons. I don't believe that this will have any weight savings over a complete fiberglass hood (which is sad as this was one of the main reasons I opted for CF. the hood will be painted black either way)

The hood does latch to my stock hood latch and is lighter than stock, and does have vents, so it functionally does everything that I need a hood to do, but for the ammount this hood costs, I am not a very happy camper. I would expect some of these issues with a 350 dollard chaser aerodynamics hood, but not from Deft Racing. If I was building a show car, I would be angry. I am only diasappointed at this point. The hood kind of makes my car look like it has been in an accident.

[Red Bullet]

Yeah, I bought one about a year ago, I should have posted then. As far as I am concerned the "Deft Racing Hood" is a POS! Mine lined up about like yours did. Make sure you get the hood pins if you keep it because mine blew off at 45MPH. Fortunately, it went over my brand new paint job and only hit the glass sunroof. I immediately went back to a factory hood to get the correct fit. I told Deft Racing that I was unhappy and they said to send some pics. But the POS blew off before I could take any.

[Sean3S]

Not to jump on one side or the other, but ALL THE CF HOODS on the market for the 3S in the US are fiberglass over a layer of CF. 99% of the "cf" hoods on the market are cf over fiberglass, frp, whatever... I'm surprised you didn't know that since it's pretty much common knowledge and you could expect to pay $1k+ easily for a real 100% dry carbon hood, probably closer to 1500-2k.

That being said, I opted not to get a Deft racing because of my own concerns about quality, but even the hood I got from a suppoedly reputable hood supplier needed some pretty extensive work around the fiberglass where the hood and strut towers meet. Everywhere else the fit is exceptional but I think some companies don't account for the ECS caps or intercooler piping some of us run.

[Red Bullet]

I just assumed if you advertised an "OEM" hood that it would fit properly! Live and learn I guess.

[Boostaddict]

Armond, did you make sure there was clearance around the strut towers? My deft hood stuck up in those areas too until I added some clearance to the fiberglass under-skeleton for the shock mounting bolts. Then it settled down into a "more acceptable" fitment.

[GTOKenny690]

wow I was actually going to buy a CF hood from Deft this week, but now im going to think twice unless he fixes this issue. I have only read good things about his products. Thats why im surprised.
What say you DEFT!!! Time to defend your products/reputation.

[Racer_X]

no, I haven't done any trimming at all. I can check that tomorrow after work, but i wanted to wait a little while before I put any kind of grinder to this hood.

I never got an answer to this question http://www.3si.org/forum/showthread....od#post4603484

Sean, I wish you or Deft could have spoken up then. It probably would have saved me a good bit of cash (never bought an aftermarket 3000gt hood before, so I wasn't in the know). I assumed that the hood would be multi layer wet carbon over (worst case scenaro) a fiberglass frame or (best case scenario) a wet molded carbon frame. I never expected dry carbon. the last carbon fiber hood I ever bought (for my avenger) was multi layer wet carbon over fiberglass frame. You could see light through the weave in the hood, and it cost me a little over 400 bucks (and there was LITTLE...........VERY LITTLE market for dodge avenger hoods back then). I assumed this hood would be similar. Oh well, at least now I know

[i3igpete]

Originally Posted by Boostaddict

Armond, did you make sure there was clearance around the strut towers? My deft hood stuck up in those areas too until I added some clearance to the fiberglass under-skeleton for the shock mounting bolts. Then it settled down into a "more acceptable" fitment.

this was a problem with my original hood too. I had to cut away part of the underframe because it was hitting the strut tower itself (it did clear the strut bolts though). it was like the holes cut in the skeleton were too narrow.

[GTO Assassin]

Have you called Bill at DEFT and spoken to him about this?

Scotty