I have determined, after owning my fiberglass hood for a few months, that unless the hood has some type of reinforced metal, etc inside the hood, that the hoods are garbage. Using the hood lifts causing bending from the heat - and direct sun makes it slightly warp.

Does anyone know of any shops making or modifiy aluminum hoods for the 05 - other than stock hoods. I love the look of the RK Sport hood but have become very unhappy with the quality of fiberglass or at least RK Sport's fiberglass hoods.

-Bryan

 

That's good to know. The RK Sport Ram Air Hood looks exceptional, and its functionality is very well-integrated; but after hearing of your problems with installation and now the overall quality, its just impossible to justify spending $1,000 plus on this thing.

It sucks to be the guinea pig when things don't work out, but I hope you can take a small solace in knowing that your sacrifice has helped others on these boards make a decision.

As a suggestion - buy a one-off stock hood from Saleen ($250) and a stick-on scoop you like (the Roush is nice), and make that thing functional yourself, like Acadian and another guy on here have done. That's what I'm planning to do, most likely.

Good luck!

 

That's Strange. I've had the RK Sport California Dream Hood for a while now. I ordered mine at the pre-release price and received it shortly after production started. The quality was Exceptional and I haven't had one bit of trouble with it. I couldn't ask for a better product from my experience so far.

 

Whoa, sorry to hear about that, Bryan. I have the Ca. Dream hood on order, so I don't need to hear comments like that. MlCrisis makes me feel a bit better. I hope that your hood is not the norm Bryan, but that really isn't such a bad idea. Doing custom body work on the stock hood might not be as expensive as buying, preparing, fixing, fitting, and painting an aftermarket one, and it'd be stronger as well. Finding someone to do quality work that is exactly what you want will be the hard part. Again, sorry about the hood. Hope others do not have these problems.

 

My CA dream hood is supposed to be here between tomorrow and wednesday. Posts like this make me nervous I made a mistake.

 

Bryan received a defective hood from the start. From what I read of the details of his install process he never contacted RKSport to exchange it or complain, but instead sunk a lot of money to have his body shop fix it. The bowing from sun heat is probably related to this, as VegasJay has the California Dream hood in Las Vegas on a black car and hasn't mentioned any problems.

Somebody else in another thread asked RKSport about the gas hood struts before buying/installing and was told NOT to install them as they would likely cause problems on a fiberglass hood.

 

Hum, well that changes the picture. As Paul Harvey would say "now for the rest of the story" (or something like that).

 

I hate to hear of Bryan's problem's, I do think that hood was "doomed" from the start. I would bet they had a problem with the fiberglass mixture and the mold as that was thier first hood for the 05... I have had no problem's at all with my hood and I love it. My hood probably get's as hot as a hood could possibly get as mentioned above. Black, 125 deg. desert heat, aggresive driving and no warping. I would however not install any of the hood strut's as that could cause a problem IMO.

 

Like everyone else said, sorry to hear that Bryan.

I called RK Sport and discussed their hoods with them, and they told me flat out on the phone that hood struts were a no no. And as stupid as it sounds, that one thing was what pretty much made me decide on the shaker instead of a replacement hood.

 

OK, let me answer a few topics here

1. About grendel's comments. Yes I did NOT contact RK Sport, but you make it sound as if it was as simple as it being "broken". By the time I realized the shop has screwed me and the hood, it was 20 + hours into repairing it. There was too much time into it at that point and they tried to salvage it. Yes , looking back, I realize that I should have had the shop stop and buy me a new one.

2. The reasons for the gas hood lifts were installed was for 2 reasons: If you prop your hood open for any length of time in the heat or sun, the hood warped and began to bend down on the front, drivers side. Next, at high speeds, the hood would raise off the car from the air pressure under the hood. The gas hood lifts helped solved this. RK Sport said it was a "no-no" to have lifts, but the design of the hood do not provide an rigidness to help overcome this.

But I am not here to start a thread about RK Sport, I was hoping someone might know about some other aftermarket hoods, other than fiberglass.

And as noted above, peopel who bought the hood after me, and expressed concerns to them about my issues, were reassumerd that those design issues would be addressed and fixed. Apparently they have, so I would not worry about your hoods (for the ones that have them in transit).

-Bryan

 

Fiberglass hoods have always been a problem. I don't think I ever saw a 65-66 GT350 that wasn't warped, and most of them were steel reinforced.

 

Ok, it's lousy that the shop did that to you. I didn't get that from reading your page on the hood install... I hope you're not working with that shop anymore.

On a fiberglass hood you should use hood pins to prevent lift/help secure the hood. The heat warping definitely sounds like it's due to some defective fiberglass.

Sorry if it sounded like I was attacking you, that was not my intent. I just wanted to reassure the people buying the RKSport hoods.

I'm also interested in knowing about other hoods, fiberglass or otherwise

 

What is the Saleen hood made of? I know it isn't aluminum, but I don't think it is fiberglass either, is it?

Any one have problems with that hood?

 

The way you jumped in there to defend RK sport leaves me to think you own it or work for them. Bryan has always been straight up with all of us here and he did indeed get screwed with the lousy workmanship on the hood way before his shop started on it. You would know this if you had followed his mods from the beginning. :notnice: :notnice:

 

Welcome to the club... when are you going to do it?

 

I had the saleen hood installed on my car instead of another stock one since I needed a new hood from an accident. No big problems with it so far, but it is fiberglass. They call it a "composite" hood, which is their word for fiberglass.

 

I'm not affiliated with RKSport. However when ten people on here have a company's products and have no problems, and one guy has major problems but makes no mention of ever contacting the manufacturer when receiving a defective product it makes me wonder what the deal is.

Bryan got a defective hood and his shop screwed him by putting in a lot of work on it without talking to him first. What SHOULD have happened is his shop should have told him the hood was screwed up and he should have called RKSport and gotten a replacement/refund. I initially thought Bryan just had them try to fix the hood, but from his comment here that wasn't the case. And I have read Bryan's hood saga on here as well as his web site. RKSport was never given a chance to fix the problem, so I have little sympathy in this case for any claims that RKSport screwed anybody. Now if he had contacted RKSport and they had told him he was out of luck, it would be different story.

Did RKSport send out a defective product? Yes. Are there a ton of other people on here using their hoods with no problems? Yes. Does this sound like it was an isolated incident given the info on here? Yes. Is this what I was trying to point out when some people with products on order started to panic? Yes. Am I going to put an RKSport hood on my car when I get it? Yes, unless SS comes out with something cooler at SEMA.

Now to get back on topic, unless you feel the need to attack my integrity some more, Bryan was looking for non-fiberglass cool replacement hoods. As far as I know there aren't any, but if anyone else has some it would be cool to check them out.

 

I agree and support "Grendel's" statement/explanation above. Yes, we all hate Bryan had a bad experience, but it was all handled incorrectly in the beginning.

The tread/topic "appeared" to be giving the RK Sport Hood a bad rap, which in my experience, was not justified. I couldn't be happier with my RK Sport California Dream Hood. Excellent Quality with Zero Issues and I think there are many others members of this forum with the same experience with the same hood.

 

LM Perrformance has a carbon fiber hood.. no pic probably stock type.. but a scoop could be attached to it is thats the case.

http://www.lmperformance.com/5620/73.html

 

Yes I had a bad experience and it happened to be from RK Sport. However, when I had my issues, members called in and confirmed they would not repeat those issues. ANd from what I can tell, they never occured.

I have decided that I, in general, don't trust firberglass hoods anymore. So, I would like to find a better solution. heck, if I had some grudge from RK Sport, I would have jumped on all threads and blasted away. I have a grudge with the shop that did all the work.

But back on topic, I like the Boyu Racer hood - but they dont seem to have any plans to make the hood. Plus I am not sure if it is fiberglass or not.

-Bryan