Anyone know of any other manufacturers besides O.E Tuning that makes a nice CF hood for the 2nd gen TL? I have a 03 TL-S and bought an O.E Tuning hood and am not satisifed. I want a new one. Anyone know of other manufacturers? Thanks.

 

http://www.kaido-sports.com/

 

How much does the stock hood weigh?

 

what wrong with the o.e. hood?

 

ok, i feel the flames under my ass allready, BUT i will say that CF hoods are so much better regarding the weight factor. i don't know too much about them but i have been told they don't wear too well environmentally.

now i know alot of people get bent out of shape saying they're ricey and all, and to an extent i have to agree. but every pound you shed helps

 

I hate that the stupid CF hood for our car is soooo damn expensive... when others run for so much less.

 

So the best mod we can all do to our cars to make it faster is to just lose weight! 10lbs here, 10lbs there...and BLAM....a speed increasing mod! At least that's the way I see it and I'm sticking to it. It's my modivation to lose more weight!!

 

hahahaha. ingenious.

 

exactly, the bi-laws state that we will have no obese members

but all joking aside, we have allready proven that dropping weight will free up robbed power, so why not ::shrugs:: god knows the tl is heavy to begin with....

 

Yeah I mean damn, ours weighs 3470lbs

 

OK so back to the original question, anyone know of more manufacturers?
On a side note, where do you guys find such low weights for our vehicles? On my door jam, it says my car is almost 4500lbs!! Where does everyone see that our cars weigh in the 3000 range?

 

duds...apparently notobdy gets out enough nor goes to car shows...i've seen CF hoods on EVERY car, even oldschool VW beetles and to be honest, not ricing, CF hoods look amazing in silver, blue/darkblue/kind of brown-silverish/champagne/Some black/GREY(<-amazing=favorite) and some Black cars...

To my experience, this colors are awesome combinations, but NEVER, EVER put a CF hood on a white/yellow/*limegreen* and basically most lightcolored cars under the silver/blue lightspectrum otherwise theres too much contrast.

Our cars are 1.5TON, or for the "americans" somehwere in the 3500lbs....with the CF hood, your probably bringing it down to 3200...ooooooohhh....
***RULE OF THUMBS, every 100lbs less is a .10s less in the 1/4mi time***

 

i wouldnt put on a cf hood if it made my car 10X faster...fugly

 

^^if i ever wanna further mod my looks, im sure this would be it...i photosoped it to my champagne WWkit TL with silver-greenish mirror tints and it looks AMAZING!!

 

ehm, not trying to be a jerk, but i really don't think our hoods weight that much. i can see an easy 50-70 pounds maybe. i dunno about 2-300. 50 pounds is nothing to spit on though. lose that and your spare and throw on your crank pulley/vafc and now your talking some nice solid performance gains.


i get what you're saying. but the reason most of them look bad is because they're usually done half-ass by local speedshops that hire guys that can spray aerosol cans of paint. the thing is though, if it was painted a normal body color and done by a good professional shop, you would'nt even be able to know they had a CF hood. it shouldn't be detectable by any method other than lifting it up and feeling the weight or inspecting the underside when it's on the car.

 

allow me to backtrack a little. i just looked at the kaidosports page and saw it comes in that cheesey black/grey carbon fiber pattern. i would definately have mine painted satin silver. i think the 'fiber' look is not my thing.

 

Yea the kaido sports hood isn't finished too well underneath. Its not smooth and you can still see all the raw fiberglass. That's why I was asking if anyone else knew of other manufacturers of carbon fibers hoods for ours cars. If anyone has any information, please try to get this thread back on topic.

 

what did u think it was going to look like?

 

well i thought it would have been a primed surface ready for painting. i suppose it was the hope that it wouldnt have just been a 'fiber' pattern. i really can't see putting that on a APB, SSM, or NBP TL. if i bought it i would have it primed and painted myself.

 

I would have expected it to look smooth and finished like other fiberglass jobs. I think a gel is coated on top of the fiberglass and then sanded down to a smooth finish. I was expecting quality close to that of VIS and FiberImages carbon fiber hoods. I mean for $600, wouldn't you have expected more?

 

so far Kaido is the only place I know of that sells our hood. OE made it but I can't find the site that sells it. And I cannot find sites that sell VIS or FiberImages (if they make our hood that is)

 

So for pete sakes...give ua a list of items that we can save weight on..hood is one..others???

 

lighter wheels, aftermarket exhaust (they almost always weigh less than oem), not sure about headers being lighter than stock... but if it is... you get more power and less weight at the same time... racing seats (like sparco or bride and etc.), no body kit or spoiler, and im not sure what else... perhaps a different battery.... a cf trunk (that would have to be custom though since no one makes one). thats all i can think of for now.

 

that kaido hood is hella light, only 16 pounds, still CF hoods are ugly as hell. plz don't do it to a TL.

 

That’s common sense with the body kit...even with my car lowered. Its still feels like driving a whale of a car. I like my seats because I occasionally go on long trips. Sitting on a racing seat for 4 hours doesn’t sound pleasing.

The exhaust, battery, maybe taking out the spare tire would lighten the load.

 

im sure theres other aftermarket seats that are a lot lighter than the oem ones that arent racing seats. besides... the OEM ones are not THAT comfortable for long trips... at least not for me.

yea, i forgot about the spare tire and all the stuff in thr trunk... you could probably also remove all the oem sound deadaning material. if you wanna go all out... gut the whole interior except the drivers seat.

 

u guys crack me up.

 

Don't forget that power steering, AC, windshield wiper motor, cruise control, and all the other options are expendable as well!!

Edit: Damn I just contributed to the jacking of my own thread huh?