Sweet thread, answered a bunch of questions I had too. I was also thinking about the concerns of having water in the engine bay, if you're driving it doesn't seem like it'll be a huge deal (although I'd still opt for rain gutters and what not). This thread regarding cleaning the engine bay put my concerns to rest: https://www.rx7club.com/2nd-generation-specific-1986-1992-17/safe-flush-engine-bay-water-battery-taken-out-862894/

As requested. pics of the modified stock hood. The hood retains its stock brace pieces.

https://www.rx7club.com/attachment.p...1&d=1333804817

https://www.rx7club.com/attachment.p...1&d=1333804817

https://www.rx7club.com/attachment.p...1&d=1333804817

https://www.rx7club.com/attachment.p...1&d=1333804817

No water issues and every now and then I hose down and clean the engine bay.

your car looks sweet like always david. i think i need to get off my but and install my vmount and dp instead of worrying about a hood....daylights a burnin'!!!

Thanks for all the help guys. Making this thread cleared up a lot of the concerns and answered all the questions I had.
Now its time to find a hood that I like

Thanks!

Andrew

Agreed X2, thanks

I with the stock hood mod

I have a RE-A N9 replica hood with no rain gutters at all and drive it in any weather conditions

other than water spots that need to be cleaned frequenlty I never had any problems at all

^^ i agree with the water spots. I have a Shine CF FEED hood. no problem with heavy rain or car wash, but sometimes I get water spots splashed onto my polished UIM.

as long as the water doesn't get on the electrical plugs, it's fine. My only concern is the air flow under the hood. so IMO having air coming from the nose and exit out the rear of the hood like the FEED design seems to make the most sense to me

except that the rear of the hood is a high pressure area and it was proven with wool tufts that the feed design only lets air out of the frontmost vent while the rearmost sucks the air back in...

I am in the process of modifying a stock hood. I am droping a cut out section from an EVO 5 into a spare FD hood that I have. Been working on it for the past 3 weeks. So far I have cut out the vent section from the EVO hood, cut out the appropriate area of the FD hood, and had someone weld it in for me. Both hoods are made of aluminum. The hood is presently at a body shop to have it professionaly bondoed/filled. I will post some pictures soon.

I just got a Seibon KS for $400 cash. The body shop had to drill the mounting points on the hinges to make it line up with the fenders. It was about 3/4" overlap on the passenger fender without the drilling; this is probably why I got it at such a discount. As mentioned further back in the thread, there is a larger gap to the bumper than there is with the OEM hood.

It made a huge difference in under hood temps, especially after I let the car idle for a few minutes before I shut it off. I am not seeing any shake or vibration at highway speeds (80MPH) or over bumps. I am not using hood pins.

Have not yet washed the car. I am hesitant about this, as one of the large front vents is over the battery, and the 2 smaller rear ones are over the ABS and the cruise control.

Was trying to make templates of the vents out of corrigated plastic to insert in the vents. This worked for the larger front vents, but not the little ones.

I made a underhood platform on which I can stack utility cloths that will seal off the rear vents. Probably put plastic on the engine and duct tape the vents too.

Anyone else have a Seibon KS?

If anyone could post some pics of the drainage gutters they have on their hood, i would be very interested to see how this works.

Thanks

I think you are worrying too much about it. Though I don't have a KS hood, mine is still vented with a nice slant to let water in during hand washing. All I do is put a towel across my engine bay and not directly spray water into the vent. Yeah the water soaks through a little bit but that's it.

Here are some pics of my project.
http://img600.imageshack.us/img600/3...ectioncuto.jpg
http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/986...entsection.jpg
http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/8899/testfit.jpg
http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/635...ddlecutout.jpg
http://img829.imageshack.us/img829/4635/dscf0001km.jpg

^ That look pretty good, can't wait to see the finished product.

Finished the project
http://img703.imageshack.us/img703/5204/dscf0095wr.jpg
http://img267.imageshack.us/img267/4270/dscf0099c.jpg

This hood is much lighter than the stock one. Will be installing hood pins shortly.

ive ran my seibon TS hood for over a year now as a DD. (been twin and single in that time if it matters)

no problems no matter what the weather. :)

picture in sig \/ \/ \/

white hood cut out from what car, evo 7-9.

Wrecked EVO 5

I really like the look of Davids modded hood. The more subtle the better.

Ronin Mazdaspeed hood experience:
 

I'm in SoCal, and ran one of our Ronin(formerly atihun) Mazdaspeed hoods for over 5 years on my last daily driver FD. Brismo runs one of our FC hoods on his daily driver FC. The front vents were placed at the high pressure zone of the FD as found in wind tunnel testing by Mazda. The raised portion in front of the duct increases the pressure zone to draw heat out from behind the radiator and intercooler. The hoods don't come with Rainguards, since any water entering through the vents will only drip onto the heat exchangers. But as noted by many others water getting on the engine is not a problem. That is of course as long as you are not driving into a swimming pool or other body of water ;)

FWIW We also retain as much of the OEM bracing as possible so there is little vibration at speed. I never had pins on mine, though Brismo runs some on his.