quick question guys, does anyone know if your 7th gen hood is made from aluminum like the 6 gens?,

 

Yes, the 7th gen hood is made of aluminum.



Edit - If ever in doubt about whether the hood (or any metal part of a car) is made of aluminum or not, simply touch a magnet, or anything magnetic (such as those little magnetic refrigerator ads most dentists, plumbers, HVAC companies, etc give out) , to the surface. If the metal attracts, it is steel. If it does not attract, it is aluminum.

 

And it's HEAVY! lol!

 

and it needs to be a vented CF hood like made for the 6th gen

 

I think the best choice is to vent the aluminum hood since the cf hood weighs more than the aluminum hood. I personally weighed them both myself.

 

I would actually have another company lined up, their hoods are feather weight light

 

I never would have thought that statement to be true.

 

It was the same way on my 300. I am pretty sure the aluminium hood was almost 10 lbs lighter then the carbon fiber.

 

Carbon fiber is much lighter (1.2 vs. 2.7 gm/cc) than Aluminum. Using a sandwich construction can make it even lighter. Cost is a different issue.

 

CF may be less dense than Aluminum, but the aluminum hood is much lighter than cf. Trust me.

 

I think you are confusing the application of CF to automotive parts wherein the desired feature is a smooth black woven look. CF in this case is used for its aesthetics. However, if the structural features of CF were employed to make a hood, the CF hood would be lighter. It's relatively inexpensive to make a product have the CF look, it is very expensive to build a structural part with CF.

 

ok....well at the same price point the aluminium hood weights quite a bit less then the "CF" hood then.

 

My 09 has an aluminum hood. I feel like it's too fragile. Somebody already put one tiny ding in it. I'm nearly afraid to close the hood for fear it will buckle!

 

These aluminum hoods are not quite as strong as the old steel ones I grew up with. But they are much lighter than steel, will never rust, and have held up rather well on my last three Maximas. Even the old steel hoods would ding (then rust) if a rock hit them.

Slamming these aluminum hoods shut will never bother them UNLESS you are putting lots of pressure in the middle of an unsupported area. I always do my pressing within three inches or so of the front edge, which is very rigid.

I used to live near a man who always had a banged up hood. He had lots of cats, and in cool weather, after he drove in from work and parked the car, the cats would crawl up inside the engine compartment and sleep on the warm motor. So every time he came back out to go anywhere, he would wham his fist in the middle of the hood to scare the cats out. Even steel hoods were not designed for that.

 

It would have been more fun to just start the car with the cat asleep in there. And a lot less wear and tear on the hood!

 

All that hood-whamming came about after he had minced his wife's favorite calico early on. Fan blades at speed can slice through anything. Except top-quality jumper cables. That only happened to me one time - over fifty years ago. You talk about 4th of July fireworks! I have been extremely careful to attach jumper cables WAY out of the reach of moving parts ever since.