People have often asked whether or not a carbon fiber hood is a good upgrade. My opinion is that for a swapped motor in the 240sx it makes a difference in two areas:
- It helps with adjusting the weight distribution since you are adding in more engine and engine components in the front of the car. The carbon fiber hood weighs quite a bit less than the factory hood. At the end of the day you’ll want to corner balance the car anyways, but this does help. People laugh at me for saying it, but I can feel it when driving the car.
- I prefer a vented hood because it’s going to let some of that heat escape the engine bay. Remember, you’re stuffing a bigger engine in the car and you are generating more heat with performance additions, such as the turbo.
I have a Seibon hood with the vents in front of the engine and after the radiator. This allows the air passing over the hood to pull air through the vent. So the air is pulled off of the radiator and out through the vent instead of blowing additional hot air from the radiator onto the engine itself. This also means that the vents are not directly above sensitive electronic equipment, like the coilpacks.
I think it’s a great, practical upgrade, and it’s not something I did for the looks.
Just remember to install your hood pins to keep it from flying off at high speeds. I didn’t have them when this picture was taken, but I went with the Sparco hood pins for ease of installation. I still have a set of Aero Catch waiting to be installed. Maybe someday…