I don't mind that hood. That third gen looks to be in excellent shape compared to some of the beat ones I've seen driving around so I think it's fine if the owner wants that hood since they care enough about the car's appearance to keep it in good shape.

What about this one?

I don't think cowl hoods look good at all, but if you have it in order to clear a supercharger or a carburetor on an engine swapped into the car, then it's acceptable. Otherwise, I really don't see the point. If you saw a cowl hood on a Lamborghini Miura (mid-engined car) you'd point and laugh and say it wasn't functional at all. Well... same story here.

You can claim that it lets engine heat out, but the Lamborghini Miura owner could claim his fans up front get cooler air from it as well, but it's hardly an excuse for how ugly it is. The function of a cowl hood on the old carbureted cars was clear and easy--it was functional for the air cleaner on top of the engine to get fresh air, so they had them. On a fuel injected car, it really serves no major purpose, as letting engine heat out from underneath your hood is just about the only excuse you can have for it, and your engine should be running just fine without having to have a place for the heat to escape.

If you really wanted to make it functional, I suspect you could modify the air intake from a '96-'97 SS and put it up there to get fresh air, which... well... that'd actually be fine. You'd still have what I consider an ugly hood, but at least it'd be there for a purpose other than obstructing your view and looking like a square box on a round car.

That's just my opinion.

boy I wonder what you think of mine??? lol

You should mount a 14" LCD TV in that thing!

lol

I personally don't care for cowl's on MY car but I certainly don't mind seeing them on other's cars. A bit of a change up from the ss hoods that are so popular!

Hi Brangeta, you're gonna hate mine then...



I do agree with you partly, a scooped hood should have a functional reason to be there. I also dislike fake scoops, I don't even like the two little faux scoops on the stock Camaro hoods. I do think stock Camaro hoods are too plain, there's an awful lot of hood there, and they don't have much "character" IMO. The stock hoods to me are just a huge, nearly-flat body panel with zero aesthetics. They bore me, which is why I made the switch to the one I have. I admit it's a little "over the top", but I didn't build this car to be subtle. The hood is currently non-functional, which REALLY bothers me. I bought it and had it installed when the engine was out of the car with the intention of using a SLP WS6 intake box for it. Unfortunately, the box would not clear due to the underhood bracing structure of the hood. Now that I just got the car running again, my next project is to fab up a box that will mate up to the hood. I will also at that time 'chamber" the inside of the hood to make it a functional hot-air extractor, pulling in air at mid-engine and flowing out through the rear of the hood through vent ports already installed before I had it painted. I need to research that part a bit further though, as the base of the windshield at the rear of the hood is usually a high-pressure area, and it may not "extract" much of anything...it might actually pull air INTO the engine compartment. Gotta check that out
Anyways, feel free to comment. Like I said, I do partly agree with you, and I don't get insulted easily

Your car is sweet Jason face but my honest opinion on THAT hood is that it belongs on 98+ trans ams!

The headlights, fogs, and paint/stripes on the nostrils actually make your car look pretty good. I don't hate it on your car.



If you're going to be hacking up your car, you might consider taking advantage of the fender structure of the 4th gen Camaros. You could make a heat extractor on the inner side of the firewall/inner fender/whatever you'd like to call it, and have heat escape out of the side mirrors. It'd double as heated mirrors during the winter too. It'd look 100% stock from the outside, because you wouldn't be hacking up the exterior.

I've never seen anybody do that, but I've always wanted to see someone do it. There's not a lot of room to make a hole, particularly on the passenger side, but it could probably be done I'd imagine.

I've absolutely hated that hood on every Camaro I've seen it on, but yours looks pretty good; especially in the picture I quoted. (tag removed) The way you have it painted along with the headlights and foglights make it look pretty aggressive. Good job on making an otherwise ugly hood look good.

So, do the stripes carry over to the decklid and spoiler?

I like my hood, and it's functional it's also a factory hood (just didn't originally come on my car)



)

The OP mirrors my sentiments exactly. Factory hoods are fine by me. I can't get down with cowl hoods or the like, but I dig the SS/WS6 hoods.

Hey, I didn't say I didn't like Firebirds with other hoods. I was just talking about Camaros.

I actually like the base model Firebird hood best. I'm weird I guess, but I really like those two vent looking things.


The car looks so pointy and cool with that hood.

Yes they do