A friend of mine is offering to sell me his carbon fiber hood for $125. The thing is basically new. He's just getting rid of his maxima. It seems like a good deal. But besides being a good deal, I don't see the reason to buy it. All you people who buy them, is there some sort of performance benefit? How much in weight savings? I think it'd only save like, 20 lbs, right? Can carbon fiber be painted? Bare carbon fiber looks gay and ricey to me. You see them a lot on rice wings and altezzas, and I don't want my car to look like that.

most people buy it for the performance.....a lot of weight reduction. not sure how much but i think its way more than 20lbs. and some people but it for the look. but those would be your 2 benefits to a cf hood. weight reduction and looks

i think it is about 20 lbs.


if you dont want it.... feel free to sell it to me for $125.....

http://forums.maxima.org/showthread.php?t=287493
some good points in there

no kiddin man, that CF hood will look hot on my pearl white. i guess it just depends on the color car.

You can paint cf hoods

The weight savings is about 30lbs. I bought mine because it was cheaper than replacing the stock hood, it's light, and I like the looks of them.

cf hoods have to be held down by pins or can you have it held down the stock way?

i think its about 20 lbs, but ppl buy it bc of the looks and performance i think its not a bad i idea to get 1 for 125$ if iwas u i will go for it.

they are mostly a cosmetic mod. Unless you are going to totally reduce the weight of your max for racing(take out seats, replace stuff with cf, Lightweight wheels, etc.), they don't serve that much purpose. I guess, if you needed a hood and it was cheaper than the oem one, that would be one thing. But if you already have a perfectly good hood...keep it.

i personally think they are ugly but if thats your thing.....

People buy them because they want to? Whether its an advantage over stock hood or not I think it looks hot and is set off by my gunmetal rims. To be honest the CF hood was the most noticible mod that I did, people at school still refer to my car as the crazy CF hood maxima, with the pshhh pshhh. As for Hood pins, they are a must unless you want to risk killing yourself when the thing flies up and smacks your windsheild at 40mph on more than one occassion. Right Jay?

You could always buy it, and resell it if its brand new for like 300+

good call on the buy and resell thing.

If the hood is in excellent condition and if the fitment is good, I'll buy it. I'm in the Seattle/Bellevue Wa. area. I can buy it this weekend if you wish.

yeah i to like the way cf looks.

i did not do it for any performance gain what so ever.

cf hoods on a light colored car look like an old beater with 2 different colored doors

yeah, i say buy it and resell it, make a little dinero

I wouldn't want to buy it and resell it... we're old, old family friends... we moved to america together when we were 4 and 2, he was my only friend then, and we've both moved around a lot but been real close for the last 15 years. This is kind of like a gift, you know? he originally wanted to just give it to me, but I know these things are kind of expensive and I don't want to feel like I'm taking advantage, so I offered some cash. I couldn't take my friends presents and then auction it off. It wouldn't be right. If I get it, it'd be for keeps. I know he just bought it for the looks. I don't know how it'd look on my dark red max. I just wanted to know if there were any additional benefits, to help me to decide whether to get it or not. I'll go look at it again on saturday, maybe I'll buy it. Thanks for the input.

Go for it dude.

no its not, carbon fiber hood VERY VERY BAD for your car , but il talk it of ur hands

to be exact...

my stock was 44 lbs and double sided carbon hood was 19.5 ... you are saving 24.5 lbs and it helps with weight ratio of the car + looks.

i dont have hood pin right now but... its better to get it...on the freeway hmmm im scared to death hahaha

b/c it looks coo..

where can i get one for cheap? couldn't find one on ebay.

Getting a cf hood will take off 20 lbs. weight reduction for the maxima. That's good enough to take .02 off your 1/4 mile time. lol

Hey, nobody PM me anymore about buying it off me, ok? I'm not selling it. Read my second post. If I decide not to accept it, he might put it on ebay or just leave it on the car, or whatever he wants to do with it. I'm not going to take a friends gift and then auction it off behind his back for money. So stop PMing me.

I'd say sell it for your friend on maxima.org. Personally...I wouldn't bother with it...it has little performance gains...and I wouldn't care for any unreliable hood on my car (can crack easy). Sell it...then give your friend the money. If ebay is a better option, then do it. CF stuff is just a waste for performance. Unless we see a frame, seats, windows...engine....etc outta CF...forgettaboutit. Tho thank yer friend for such a generous offer.

My CF hood weighed 13lbs on my bathroom scale. My stock hood weighed 43lbs. 43-13=30

Dang that's light.

I'd hate to explain some math...but a little over 1%-performance-gain-mod ain't worth it. Even if it's $125....considering the y-pipe atleast. To compare to a y-pipe...the hood would need to be $50 in terms of performance to be equal.

yea that's true and 100 lbs or weight reduction equals to .1 second at the track.

No that is not true, every car take weight reduction different. Theres a civic in sport compact car that has 156 fwhp and runs mid 12's . If 100lbs for every tenth was true as a rule this car would see mid 14's at best.

But on the other hand one car could lose 150lbs and only take a tenth off.

Not every mod is a y-pipe in terms of bang for the buck. Actually there is no mod that is even close, so you can't go comparing different mods to a y-pipe. After the basic bolt-on't it gets real expensive to keep adding power (or reducing wieght). When it comes to weight reduction you have to do small things here and there for it to add up.

He was probably just trying to say that .1 is for our cars, and the weight that they are.

Valid point about the Civic though. I have a cousin that is at Oklahom U, and he said the thing for everyone to do it to get a old CRX, put like a 2000 Honda Civic SI engine in it, and maybe even nitrous(not necessary), and they are running low 12's. That just makes me sick in a CRX. ha ha ha

CRXs are so ugly, that even if it was a 10 sec car.....i still wouldnt want it.

I would use carbon fiber exterior parts for cosmetic reasons, but if there was some serious weight to be lost, then it might not be a bad idea (only if it is painted). I was on this site, and saw this skyline with carbon fiber door panels and seeings as we have 4 doors it might be a good thing for someone to make. heres the link: http://www.cardomain.com/memberpage/359470

Where did you get yours?

well that's just what i heard on speed channel, they said the average on all cars is about 100 lbs lose and gain .10 second.

Remember the lighter the car the more the weight is worth . The next pound means more than the last, there is no set amount. Its all about the percentage you take off the car.
When i see a tenth for 100lbs its useally a car that weighs between 3200-3400 not a car that weighs 2735lbs

2 problems with a CF hood. First, its rice on all cars except ones set up for racing. Weight savings isn't worth the money performance wise. Second, your car is less safe in an accident (a problem most people never consider).

Let me explain: Our cars are unibody. In an accident, the entire subframe/body absorbs the impact, and the car is designed to systematically distribute that force amongst different parts of the car (ever heard of crumple zones?). If you have seen a car in a front end collision, the hood buckles (part of this absorbtion process). The CF hood won't do this, it will just splinter into a bunch of pieces, reducing impact force distribution. Also, who wants a bunch of slivers of fiberglass coming at them at a high rate of speed (corvette syndrome). My brother works for an ambulance service and responded to a head on collision involving a corvette. Not only was the car smashed, the driver was killed by pieces of the body inpaling him.

Maybe this is somewhat extreme thought, but I live in a country with very poor drivers, and part of the reason why I bought the maxima was safety. Anything to comprimise that I am not interested in. Later