Is this common? I keep coming across pics and pics of aftermarket hoods that fly up while driving and smashing the windshield. Why does this happen? I see alot of guys using hood pins, but I hate the look of those (just my opinion). But what will prevent the hood from flying open?

 

I ran a rk sport hood fre 3yrs and never had a problem maybe they didnt latch all the way!!!

 

Dang... been doing this 4th gen F-body thing since 1994 and I don't recall hearing about anybody having problems with aftermarket hoods. I do remember hearing about one guy but I'm pretty sure it was a stock hood. I've had my aftermarket hood on for about 10 years and no problems. I think so long as the install is even remotely adequate you'll have no problems. The hood has to 1) come unlatched and then also 2) have the safety catch come unlatched as well. That is very unlikely IMO.

 

I saw a guy post in the general tech section about his aftermarket SS hood flying up on him. It's got to be a freak occurrence though because I put my new hood on, used the stock hinges and latches and drove 5 hours home at 80 mph with it that day.
BTW, mine's an ASCD 2.5 inch cowl. It has the metal inserts where the latches and hinges bolt in...it doesn't just thread into the fiberglass. I'm not sure if there are any hoods out there just that thread into the fiberglass, but if they do, I could see that causing a problem.

 

I've heard about hoods that thread into the fiberglass.That doesn't sound very safe to me.

 

I know of one guy that has had this problem, it happened on the drag strip. It broke his windshield, and t-tops

 

It's not all that uncommon. Usually happens to guys that are running light weight fiberglass "racing" hoods that aren't attached properly. Most of the aftermarket hoods you see on here are high quality but heavy street hoods. They attach the same as the stock ones, i.e. to the stock hinges and use the stock front latch. It is very unusual for these hood to pop up.
Most racing hood are very light one or two layers of fiberglass and have no built in provision for attaching them. If not secured with enough fasteners and/or pins they can flex from the aero affects and rip out of the attachments.

 

Yea that was the problem with my friends hood, it was fiberglass, and the latch broke

 

With my new VIS hood I know for fact it has heavy metal plates for the hinge mounts as well as another heavy plate for the hood latch... Those hinge plates are all molded into the inner fiberglass panel and the hood latch plate is molded into a complete carbon fiber nose section, so it is extremely solid...

They did not put provisions in the hood for a safety latch (they still recommend hood pins for safety to cover thier liability), so I ended up cutting in the slot for the safety latch, drilling holes for the mounts, putting large fender washers behind the carbon fiber and securing with jack-nuts... It should be strong enough if the main latch were to somehow fail... I also like that if the hood were to drop while open, it would hit the safety latch before smashing the main latch, again from the perspective of not causing damage/weakening of the main latch location...

All in all I am not very concerned at this point about hood safety... I just have issues figuring out how I exactly want to keep the hood propped open... Damn them for removing the hood strut mounting pads!!!

 

Thanks for all of the responses guys. I wasn't sure if the hoods that I was seeing were cheap, or if they were just shady installed. I was planning on getting an SS hood but I didn't want to spend the money on a nice SS hood and have it fly open and cost me even more money and then have to buy a new hood anywyas.

 

I really wouldn't be worried about it. I had no worries when I bought my hood, and there's several people on this site with aftermarket hoods. I don't think there would be that many if there was some reason to be concerned about them.

 

mine came up on me over a year ago. I didnt have a saftey latch on it at the time

 

I have had my hood on my car for 6 years and never had any problems
with it