That dull spot is the remains of the blemish. There is a raised "pimple" as I'd call it, which they attempted to sand down. They did a much better job on my 2nd hood. On my first hood they didn't flatten it out at all. Also near the front passenger side corner you will notice a what looks like a scratch, these must be flaws in their mold, as they are in identical places on both of my hoods. The weave is a little disappointing on my 2nd hood, it was better on my first one, but the pimple blemish was too much for me to take, not to mention the shipping damage. Overall I'd rate these hoods as a 7 on a scale from 1-10.

 

The dullness kinda looks like when you leave plastic on a surface it leaves its impression on that surface like oil but usually just wipes off. Now if that's the remains of the blemish will a clear coat remove the dullness or will you beable to see it under a clear coat?

 

man sounds like we paid GROUP PRICE of $560 and its not even in perfect condition...that kinda sucks..

 

I'm confident that the dull area would disappear with clearcoat. I just dont wanna spend another couple hundred to do it. I'm going to see what I can do with polishing compound.

 

Any of you guys going to get hood pins? I wonder is it really necessary. I'm going to put my hood on this weekend. Hopefully I won't have any problem making it fit.

 

I might but I'm not sure yet. How much are they?

 

I've hit 125 so far with my hood on, no hood pins. At about 115 if I looked directly at the hood I could tell it was fluttering a bit, but I certainly couldn't feel it or hear it. I bet the stock hood would be fluttering some at 115 as well, but I've never had reason to look at my hood while going that fast before. I won't be getting pins, in my case they aren't necessary.

 

I don't think I will get hood pins either. I don't exactly like the idea of having to drill holes into my new hood unless it's absolutely necessary. I don't drive that fast on the highway either. Usually under 100mph.

 

I've hit 155ish (guestimate) w/the stock hood. The stock hood doesnt really flutter at 125, but the CF hood does. Depending on how fast you wanna go.. go for hoodpins. I just stay under 125 for now.

 

This is probably a silly q. but you guys don't reuse your stock hoodliner/heatshield with the CF hoods, correct? If not, what do you use, nothing?

 

Nothing.

 

The hood is on. It was a PITA to make it fit. I had to use a few washers on the hindges and take off the rubber bump stops. I also took off the rubber stoppers located on each side of the car. When I close the hood, I have to push down on it kind of hard to make it go in. The hood isn't a perfect fit. The passenger side is a bit high, the driver side is good except near the back where the hindges are, it sit kind of high. I'm going to play around with the washers, maybe take them off again and play with the hood lock hindge to see if I could make it fit better. Kind of suck IMO. You would expect the hood to fit perfectly if you spend this much amount of money for it. Right?

 

Your fitment problems are identical to mine. I played around with my washers, tried shimming the back bolt on the latch upwards, hoping that would make a see-saw effect and bring the front down... it didn't. Only made it worse. I have adjusted my latch all the way down. Next I am going to try grinding the slots on my latch some more so I can adjust the latch to go even lower, probably another 1/8th to 1/4 inch, and bring the front of this hood down a little more.

 

Do you have a hard time closing the hood? I have to close it pretty hard to get it to close. I have the latch at the regular height. I tried to push the latch down, but it couldn't go down much because the metal bracket thing was in the way. The washer helped I think to close the hood a bit better. However, with the washers on, the back of the hood is a bit high. For some reason, the driver side seem to fit a bit better than the passenger side. This really **** me off. I spent this much money and the darn hood isn't even a good fit, nevermind a perfect fit.

 

Yeah its a little hard to close. I have to put some weight on it to get it to latch.

 

Let me know if you find a way to make the hood fit better.


How many washers you put on the hood hindges? I have a total of three washers on each screw; the washer that came with the screw and two additional washers I put on the other side of the hole.


Maybe that's how the hood is and we can't make it fit perfectly. I wonder will the others' hood fit just as bad.

 

If 2 of you bought the hood at the same time and have the same fitment issues, then it's safe to assume that most if not all the others in this group deal will have the same issues. One person with fitment issues could be due to warpage of the hood after removal from the mold, but 2 or more means that the mold warped or it was never right in the 1st place. The factory hood they used as the template may have twisted a little while they were molding it, who knows. All it had to do was move just a slight bit, not even noticable to the eye, and it could make the hood off by the amount you guys are describing.

I have a question about the detail of the hood. How are the edges? Are they rolled looking? Or are they sanded smooth? And on the underside where the frame is, is it finished well? Or are there little fibers/rough edges? The reason I ask is that I've been selling a lot of carbon hoods to Honda/DSM guys, and a vast majority of the hoods have quality control problems with fit/finish. Several different manufacturers have had the same problems, so I'm wondering if it's just an industry wide thing or what.

 

hey guys

how did your hood arrive? fexex? UPS? or USPS? juss wondering, got a package from USPS today and i missed it and im not gonna go to post office to get it with the tax deadline being today....

 

Turbo, they shipped through Central Global Express out of cali, and mine got handed off to Towne Air Freight at some point in the trip, probably when it reached my local airport. It came to my house by semi truck. I was called the morning it would arrive to make sure someone would be there to sign for it.

Shadow, the edges appear to be sanded smooth and look pretty good. The underside of the hood looks great, all black, fiberglass work is great.

 

The quality of the carbon fiber hood is pretty good. It's the fitment that's the problem. The hood I got did have what seem to be a crack in the carbon fiber on the front passenger side.


There was a Honda Accord with a carbon fiber hood at my school. I took a look at it and it also didn't fit too well. Seem like we're not the only one that have fitment issue.

 

CF hood fitment is in general pretty poor. Everyone I know with one, and that's alot of people, has fitment problems to one degree or another.

 

Ahhhh... the things we do to 'improve' our cars...

I still waiting, dangit!
Mine's a 'will call'

 

i dunno about you guys but my hood fit on easy.. just gettin it to fit perfect is another deal.. i havent done it at all, and it sticks up a lil on both sides right now.. need to shave rubber things..

 

Yeah, the hood fit on easily like you said, but getting to fit perfectly, that's another story. I took off all the rubber bumper thing and it still not right. I'm going to just leave it alone right now. I don't want to make it worse.

 

I know it's a little early to ask this since most of you guys are still just trying to get the hood to fit right. But has anyone had the chance to see if the squirters could be located under the hood somehow? Thanks guys.

-Josh

 

They'll have to be different 'squirters' than our stock ones... I haven't had time (or the hood for that matter) to check on this yet.

 

I installed the hood last night. It seemed a little wide at first then I just centered it and it bolted on. I took the struts and bumpers off on the passenger side and it sat flush with the fenders. I didn't use any shims. What I did notice is that the Hood Latch is off a little which is causing my hood to popup just a little more than the drivers side. I'm to scared to try to bend it cuz the base is fiber glass and I dont want it to break. So what I'm going to do is move the release bracket far as it goes. Shave a little of the hood latchand a little off the release bracket where it slide into.
I don't want to shave anything down too much to keep from weakening any parts.

 

I have a problem with my carbon fiber hood. According to instructions from Cheston on his website Maximadriver you replace the factory hood and lower the hood latch down. But after lowering the hood latch as far as it can go down I find that the right side of the hood sits flush with the fenders but the left side has a little bit of gap for wind to get into. Does anyone know what I can do to fix this? Is it cause the hood could be warped? Or could I solve this problem with additional hood pins

 

Where have you been man?

 

Well I got my hood a long time ago but didn't install it till around spring time last month. I noticed that if you don't bolt the two hood latch bolts and only use the lower center one that it helps to lower the hood gap on the pass. side but it sacrifices hood safety since the hood shook even more at high speeds. Maybe hood pins could remedy this situation????????

 

I have the same problem with my hood. Driver side is more flush than the passenger side.

 

If your hood is hard to shut. That's probably cuz the the hood hing and the lockdown mechanism don't line up. if you notice how thin the hoods are I bet some of warpage is come from the hood not shutting right. My hood almost fits perfect. But I pulled the struts off and the rubber stopper on the passenger side. I dont think the stoppers did anything so Imma put them back. Im goingto move the lockdown mechanism over a tad this weekend to see how it shuts. I'm almost sure thats part of the problem I'll post pix soon.

 

no problems with shutting the hood just fitment

 

So your hood shuts smooth without the extra pressure to shut it?
If so then either Max's were built a little off or the hood is.

 

well i put a lil pressure to make the hood click into the hood latch but that's not the problem. I saw other people who you got the groupbuy with having the same problems.

 

Oh ok, I got mine from the groupbuy too and it seems that you put more pressure on these too close it than you would on stock. I'll take pix this weekend after I move the Bracket.

 

Well, I adjusted the hood a bit. I moved the hood a little bit over to the passenger side, now it close easier. I still have to "soft slam" the hood to make it close, but it's better than before where I had to slam on it pretty hard a few times to get it to close. I think I'll leave it alone for now since it's easier to close. Before when I tried to close the hood, if you saw me doing it, you would think I was really mad/had a bad day...lol.

 

Hey guys. Quick quest. Is it just me or am I the only semi-regular poster here who hasn't bought one of these hoods? O.k., question, are you guys finding a way to use your stock hood hydraulics? I forget who I spoke to a while ago but they said they figured it out. If not, what do you use to keep your hood open? I hope not a dreaded stick! Just kidding. Thanks guys.

P.s. Does anybody have a close-up pic. of the 1/8" mis-alignment you are all talking about.

P.s.s. Weren't we talking about Maxima day several pages back? And someone said May. I talked to Adam today and he said they are now doing a 'Nissan Day' and it will be in August. Plusses and minuses to that, not sure what to think. :-I

 

Finally picked up my hood from MOTIVATIONAL today...

Weather's getting bad so I didn't even take it out of the cardboard container... I saw the CF hood on his Sentra... it looks really solid and didn't flex. It did have a FIBERIMAGEs emblem near the back by the windshield... I hope ours doesn't have it.

Did anyone post some good picks of the CF hoods? I'd like to see it under the hood.

 

A few people have posted pics of the hoods, and yes it does have the fiberimages logo on it.