TaylorMade

Did you keep your hood struts? I just had the ZR carbon hood painted and installed and the body shop removed my hood struts saying they generally recommend not using hood struts with CF hoods because they can cause the hood to crack. What are your thoughts

Vetteman Jack

I ran a Motor City Mold hood on my '00 for about 6 years and yes, I used the factory hood struts. Never had any damage as a result of doing so.

JETZ

MCM here, with the struts in place with no issues.

momo20

seeing how our cars have a fiber glass hood to start with ..the carbon fiber should not be affected due to the only the top being a skin of carbon fiber and the under side being fiberglass..so you should be fine

TaylorMade

Thanks guys yeah I've had several CF hoods in the past and have run hood struts with no issues.

Is it possible he felt the quality and structural integrity of the hood is not the greatest, hence the hood strut reason?

Evil-Twin

Carbon fiber is stronger than fiberglass. I've never heard such a ridiculous thing as removing hood struts. They are there to help dampen and to allow the hood to stay up. Why would anyone want to use a broom stick to hold up the hood? Did the body shop loose your struts or break them? Ive had a carbon fiber hood for 11 years, the CF factory hood comes with struts...I often wonder where all these silly statements come from.. usually its something else that prompts a statement like that,, example, ( they broke them or lost them )

TaylorMade

First let me make it clear this body shop does extremely high end work and I do trust them but did find the whole hood strut thing a bit odd. So I just called them and spoke to the gentleman that installed my hood and he said when he went to close the hood, the struts were causing the hood to bend and flex way past what he felt comfortable with so he removed them. He said the combination of the struts being too strong combined with the ZR hood's so so quality resulted in him removing them.

02z06dave

I ran into that when I had that hood. I used just 1 hood strut. Worked just fine.

TaylorMade

Interesting, are there any weaker aftermarket Corvette hood struts that can be found. I've been reading that's what a lot of the import guys use is weaker hood struts.

bumble-z

Your body shop gave you good info.

They do make a weaker strut, & I would highly recommend doing so with the (2) weaker struts.

There was a write up in this regards of using the weaker struts with certain/lighter hoods.

If I had the link. I would post it up for you.

Another thing is lower the hood till it rest on the two lower latches.
Then with the flat of your hand, press each side down till you hear the latch catch (per side)

road pilot

Good advice.

pewter99

WTF did he do to your struts? it takes so little effort to close the hood I cannot imagine bending the hood due to the "super struts"

my stock struts went bad after 14 years and I had to buy new ones as the stock ones wouldn't hold up the hood any more.....on a side note the struts on my 07Z have already stopped working

Evil-Twin

I am a bit confused here with this strut issue.. the struts bolt to a molded Boss which connects both the hinge and the dampener. The actual hood reinforcement sub straight is strong enough to withstand three times the force necessary to close the hood. with the angular design of the support boss, I cant imagine how a strut can cause any issue since the hinge is carrying 80 % of the load.

This is a MCM hood which weights 9 lbs less than the factory hood. The load does not weigh on any Carbon fiber part, but on the designed sub straight.

lxconv331

I have no issues with my hood using struts!

Evil-Twin

AS I said, the hinges support 80% of the load, so with the wisdom of your body shop, if anything would cause issue, it would be the hinges. There is much more to this than what they are telling you. the effort to close the hood is less than 5 lbs, the hood weighs 43 lbs and is supported buy the hinges.. can't see how a 5 lb effort could cause any deflection issues.

TaylorMade

Man now I am more confused than ever As I said, the fitment of the hood was not the greatest and a lot of tweaking was required to get it to fit decently. Possibly because of the added tweaking required the HINGES are placing more stress on the hood... Idk

Evil-Twin

Is this hood the Factory 2004 Commemorative hood? Or some after market clone... because the Factory CF Z hood is 2800 dollars and is a direct bolt on. No fitting needed. You mentioned lots of fitment issue.. MY MCM hood was also a no fitment issue It was painted and bolted on and fit perfectly.. Your High end Body shop had a lot of issues with the factory CF Z hood.. then they must of put some intern on it.. Now if this was some cheap clone, I've seen a lot of real junk out there, and the first indicator of junk is the need for a lot of fitment work... If Some one told you the hood was a factory CF Z hood from GM,, I think you were taken...and if the same people that told you about the strut issue also put you onto this hood then you have a problem. My MCM hood cost me 2000 with shipping and that was 11 years ago. IM also not trying to rain on your parade.. just giving you what you asked for... opinions from people with CF hoods. ( High Quality CF hoods )

lxconv331

I have the same hood and fits perfect!

DevilDog II

I have aftermarket carbon fiber struts with my MCM hood.

TaylorMade

It is QuikZ06's ZR carbon fiber hood, it's a MCM look alike but nowhere near the quality IMO