Aftermarket hoods never look good....ever

[kwik!gti]

Scoops, humps, bumps, inlets, vents, etc. If it's not OEM and native to that car it looks awful each and every single time. There is not a mod that is universally more FAIL than the hood. Yes I know some swaps and setups mean that you need a cowl hood. I get it. Still looks like total **** to me though. The example I see the most often that turns me off is fox body Mustangs with cowl hoods. Ewwwww total fail EVERY TIME. ZERO EXCEPTIONS.

AmIRite?

[Espresso]

When they are stock hood with weight reduction ala painted carbon I beg to differ.

[Omnilith]

I pretty much agree.


....however, I have an aftermarket hood on my Focus that I'm rather fond of.

Flame away:

[nthomas33]

^ I can dig it

[kwik!gti]

I pretty much agree.


....however, I have an aftermarket hood on my Focus that I'm rather fond of.

Flame away:

Ewww. Those are some the worst ones. Sorry.

[McBanagon]

What if those eye-sore cowls are to cover up some high-rise manifold or some monster crate engine they can't fit under a regular hood?

[Rabbitguy21]

NO!

[Calcvictim]

Meh, I think that cowl hood on the Mustang looks great.


I am not a fan of swiss cheese hoods with a retarded number of vents but I don't think all aftermarket hoods are ugly.


something like this, I don't mind at all

[Rockmonky]

i'm into this one

[C4 A6]

The Mugen JDM Integra hood looks better than the flat OEM one :shrug:

[Dave Zero]

Argument invalid

Naca Ducts

[Krazee]

i'm into this one

that's nice.

[200HP4dr]

For a minute there, I thought that Mustang was my old one. Then I saw the cage and seats.

Here's my car


Here's my thoughts on this. Most of them have terrible fitment. It may not be bad on the sides where they meet the fenders, but where they meet the lights and bumper/grille. That being said, the rest of the panel gap on a fox body Mustang makes it look right at home, and the overall effect of the look of the hood is what people are going for.

I personally prefer a smaller cowl (I had a 4 inch hood on my copper 'Stang and hated it) and the less busy the better, especially with an SN95 car.

I had this hood on my Fox, and I think it looked pretty nice, but it took some work to get it that way.




But the gap at the front is unacceptable, now that I look at it. Crap. It honestly didn't bother me at the time though. Mainly due to this:


Chris

[matches]

Two that I love:

Mugen S2000 (admittedly better w/ the Mugen bumper):



TRD Supra:

[FastGTi]

Well this one's classy at least...

[kwik!gti]

NO!

That hood ruins the look of that car. Now it just looks "cheapo depot" to me. Sorry.

[kwik!gti]

For a minute there, I thought that Mustang was my old one. Then I saw the cage and seats.

Here's my car


Here's my thoughts on this. Most of them have terrible fitment. It may not be bad on the sides where they meet the fenders, but where they meet the lights and bumper/grille. That being said, the rest of the panel gap on a fox body Mustang makes it look right at home, and the overall effect of the look of the hood is what people are going for.

I personally prefer a smaller cowl (I had a 4 inch hood on my copper 'Stang and hated it) and the less busy the better, especially with an SN95 car.

I had this hood on my Fox, and I think it looked pretty nice, but it took some work to get it that way.




But the gap at the front is unacceptable, now that I look at it. Crap. It honestly didn't bother me at the time though. Mainly due to this:


Chris

Clean foxes but I despise both of those hoods with a passion.

[kwik!gti]

Argument invalid

Naca Ducts

Utterly pointless IMO.

[kwik!gti]

What if those eye-sore cowls are to cover up some high-rise manifold or some monster crate engine they can't fit under a regular hood?

I believe I addressed that in my original post.

[C4 A6]

Utterly pointless IMO.

Agree in this case. The duct isn't even where the intake is.

[Dave Zero]

Utterly pointless IMO.

A NACA duct[1] also sometimes called a NACA scoop or NACA Inlet, is a common form of low-drag air inlet design, originally developed by the U.S. National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), the precursor to NASA, in 1945.

When properly implemented, a NACA duct allows air to flow into an internal duct, often for cooling purposes, with a minimal disturbance to the flow. The design was originally called a "submerged inlet", since it consists of a shallow ramp with curved walls recessed into the exposed surface of a streamlined body, such as an aircraft. It is especially favored in racing car design.

Prior submerged inlet experiments showed poor pressure recovery due to the slow-moving boundary layer entering the inlet. This design is believed to work because the combination of the gentle ramp angle and the curvature profile of the walls creates counter-rotating vortices which deflect the boundary layer away from the inlet and draws in the faster moving air, while avoiding the form drag and flow separation that can occur with protruding scoop designs. This type of flush inlet generally cannot achieve the larger ram pressures and flow volumes of an external design, and so is rarely used for the jet engine intake application for which it was originally designed, such as the North American YF-93 and Short SB.4 Sherpa. It is, however, common for piston engine and ventilation intakes. - wikipedia

Getting air under the hood with minimal added drag is pointless for stock cars, invaluable for turboed/supercharged cars that run hot or have the whole engine bay occupied. Works better than CAI, because it doesn't require all the ducting into the fender well. All these advantages with minimal detractions from the aestetics. It's the opposite of hood scoop and it is awesome.

[DISI 2.3T]

The only readon I know about this crazy hood is because of Forza 4. I figured it was for rally but I had to research it to find out.

[kwik!gti]

Agree in this case. The duct isn't even where the intake is.

Need to vent that firewall bro.

[AZGolf]

i'm into this one

Very 80's look. Reminds me of the old ASC McLaren. A buddy of mine had one back in the day.

[Dave Zero]

Agree in this case. The duct isn't even where the intake is.

"GReddy instructed us to install some sort of duct or scoop to direct air to this region for cooling if we intended to use the car on the track. A NACA duct looks way cooler than a scoop sticking up into the air stream, so we decided it would be the way to go."

Read more: http://www.modified.com/projectcars/...#ixzz1rkxgVvm2

"The duct now delivers cooling air directly to the top of the turbine heat shield, which should significantly slow down the rate at which all those heat-wrapped parts still get baked anyway."


Read more: http://www.modified.com/projectcars/...#ixzz1rkxCSXhp

[nickthaskater]

[VR6GURU]

I generally agree but I don't mind the csl hood

[CodeMan]

Very 80's look. Reminds me of the old ASC McLaren. A buddy of mine had one back in the day.

That Rallye hood isn't really aftermarket, rather a Delta Integrale graft.

[1.8TIM]

cowl hoods on box novas look awesome, in my opinion.

[Dieselstation]

i like the SMS Mustang hood. gives it added agression.




same with the SMS Challenger




and agree with TRD Supra hood

[Bonanza]

some look ok

some don't

[Andrew McDermott]

you've obviously never seen Corvette Summer.... the ultimate hood.

[eweu]

"GReddy instructed us to install some sort of duct or scoop to direct air to this region for cooling if we intended to use the car on the track. A NACA duct looks way cooler than a scoop sticking up into the air stream, so we decided it would be the way to go."

Read more: http://www.modified.com/projectcars/...#ixzz1rkxgVvm2

"The duct now delivers cooling air directly to the top of the turbine heat shield, which should significantly slow down the rate at which all those heat-wrapped parts still get baked anyway."


Read more: http://www.modified.com/projectcars/...#ixzz1rkxCSXhp

"should"

That means they didn't collect any control data before, or any data after the installation. You can't just guess at this stuff.

At least in this case they basically admitted it was a cosmetic mod -- there's nothing wrong with that. But trying to force it into the "performance mod" without any supporting data is pointless.

[DRH]

you've obviously never seen Corvette Summer.... the ultimate hood.

Disgusting.

[choochoo]

i'm into this one

Damn! I dig everything except the wheels.

OP, I think you're right in most cases. But, I would never make an absolute statement as "never"