Hood Preparation

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Major System Category: Body (Hood/Shell)
Task: Clean up all issues on hood through primer
Parts: Primer (6 - 8 cans), Primer Sealer ( 4 cans)
Prerequisite Tasks:
Additional Costs: 150 - $190
Time Requirement: 70 - 90 hours
Date Started: July  10, 2013

Date Completed:  July 27, 2013

There are no short cuts here. If you don't want to do this part of the build, then farm it out.

This is close to the final version of the hood. It is basically how I spent my summer vacation. I used steel wool as a final stage prior to sealing the primer. This smooths it down close to a glass like surface.  It has been a long journey to this point, but I found I kind of liked the body work and I'm glad I didn't panic and farm it out.

The body work is the area that most intimidates me (not that I'm not intimidated about dropping in an engine and hooking up a seven speed transaxle). The hood presents many challenges:

1. Seams
2. Fender Louvers
3. Headlight/foglights
4. Grille Area
5. Hood Latch area
6. DRLs

If you peruse the Factory Five Forums, you start hearing that the car vanishes for weeks and months before it come back finally painted and finished. There is a princely sum associated with the work, and if it comes in under $15,000, it probably is a bargain. There is a ton of work that needs to be performed to get the car ready for paint.

This is an early photo from 9/27/2012. I just brought the hood back from my neighbor's garage. This looks deceptively easy. The surface is smooth. At this point, I didn't know the grille opening is not centered or that the hood is off by 3/4" or that the Factory Five hood louvers are really sub standard and that I would end up purchasing the Vraptor hood louvers. Ignorance is bliss.

The seams and the fender louvers present the greatest challenge. You can't simply grind down the excess material on the seams and say good enough. There are the following issues:

I spent more time getting the fender louvers right than anything else on the hood.  This is the louver before I did anything to it. I expected the left and right louvers to be identical. They are not. I expected them to line up nicely. They did not.  I am happy I have them, but they are very labor intensive. I spent man weeks getting these right.

• The pieces connected by the seam are uneven, so grinding everything down to a even plane removes too much material.
• The seam needs to have a fiber glass strip to strengthen the area, and this just takes time.
• The hood has seams running from edges closest to the cockpit to forward the wheel wells, then down. There is another seam that runs across the front of the car over the grill.
• Fender louver add a further complication, because they need to be feathered into the rest of the hood, and there are cuts required to make them functional. 

 

This another early photo (9/29/2012) with the Factory Five hood louvers and fender louvers taped in place. I used a cross hatch laser level to figure things. It is sitting at the bottom center on a small tripod. The best way to describe mounting the hood is that there are 100 ways to put the hood on and I settled on the 101st way. Someone who came by to see the car, asked if I intended to take the hood off when I painted the car. I popped open the hood and showed them how it was mounted, then explained, "It is never coming off again."

If you add DRLs, then these need to be custom cut and smoothed out.

Another non-standard mod are my DRLs. I had to cut into the hood just below the grille. These took some time, but eventually I got them mounted properly. It was only later that I realized I had to make them pretty. I might have to do some more work here before everything is perfect.

I think it is easier to do this work with the hood connected to the car, and the car on a lift. This configuration provides a stable platform for the sanding process (and you will do beaucoup sanding).

This is several months later (6/27/2013). The seams are pretty rough at this point. Someone asked me on the Factory Five forum why I bothered fiber glassing the seams, because other builders just ground them down. Yes, you need to get rid of the extra bonding material, but remember we are talking about the strength of the body here on a high performance car. I applied Bondo, fiber glass, more Bondo and sanded and more Bondo and more sanding... Well you get the idea. I have to say that when the front seam blended into the rest of the body I was amazed. At that point, I knew the only standing between myself and a completed car was me.

I use the following products to get the hood prepped:

This product is phenomenal. The can has two chambers: 1 for primer, 1 for fixer. You shake it up for 2 minutes, then pop a button on the bottom of the car. This opens the barrier between the primer and the fixer. Then you shake it for 2 more minutes. Now you have the perfect mix (every time) withe professional fan spray nozzle.

• SprayMax 2K Rapid Primer Filler.
• Dupli-Color Primer Sealer
• Dura-Block autobody kit

A friend commented that there was a lot of nasty Bondo to sand down. He wasn't wrong. I bonded the fender louver to the body using 3M's 8115 panel bond. I then fiber glassed the edges of the louver to the hood. I then spent many evenings feathering the louver into the hood. My bride asked me if I had bitten off more than I could handle. I admitted that might be true. I certainly wondered if this would ever look right.

Once I was satisfied with the primed surface, I went over it with steel wool to eliminate any "pebbly" surface distortions, then I sealed the hood. This stuff is pretty caustic, so get a respirator and face shield.

This is the louver 1 month later.

Hood Louvers

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Major System Category: Body (Hood)
Task: Install hood louvers
Parts: Kit hood louvers Vraptor Hood Louvers
Prerequisite Tasks: Mount the hood
Additional Costs: $119
Time Requirement: 6 - 10 hours
Date Started: October, 1, 2012
Date Completed:  November 17, 2012
The original GTM kits seem to have a screen mesh for the cut outs on the hood. My Gen II kit came with fiber glass louvers that drop down into the cuts. This is a personal preference, but I really like the look of these new louvers better than the Vraptor ones. As I also ordered the fender louvers and the Vraptor front grill. From an airflow perspective, I think I have enough air running through the front end.

The hood louvers fit into the center cut outs. These cut outs come as part of the hood.

Last year at Cars & Coffee, they featured a Superlite. The car was exotic, it had big old engine and a spoiler. But the thing I didn't like were all the rivets holding on all the body parts. Specifically, the fender louvers were riveted to the hood, and the entire exterior was studded with rivets. This is not the kind of look I am attempting to build. I want my body to be smooth and curvy like my Corvette.

This is a front end shot of the GTM with both the hood and fender louvers  sitting in place.

I worked a long time trying to make the kit louvers work to my satisfaction. Around mid-October I decided this just wasn't happening. I changed plans (just as I did with the fuel tanks, although, this change didn't cost an arm and a leg). I ordered the Vraptor hood louvers. The Vraptor louvers were very straight forward and easier to install. This could just be me not understanding something about the kit louvers.

Vraptor hood louvers. Several more ducts, better air flow and a common theme with the rear louvers.

These pieces are shipped flat. They need to be assembled and bent to the proper shape. The first thing I noticed was how much more air flows through these louvers. The next thing is how much larger they are than the kit louvers.

The lip needs to cut out so the Vraptor  louvers can fit.

The recessed lip for the original kit louvers needs to be cut out of the hood. This is because the Vraptor blades are wider. One of the features here is the notch cut out of the driver's side brackets so it clears the radiator aluminum panel.

One of the many test fitments. The louvers are unpainted and unbonded.

I ran several test fitments on these louvers (yes, I am gradually catching on to a few things). I shaved a millimeter here and there until all blades slid up through the opening.

Painted parts.

When I was finally satisfied that everything would slide into place, I bonded and painted the louvers. I used 3M 8115 panel adhesive. Old Man Winter cooperated with a couple of 50 degree days. There was no way to do this much painting inside the Northern Man Cave and not receive complaints from the management. The exhaust system we put in just won't evacuate that much build aroma, and then people complain. I was able to apply the bonding adhesive inside, I just had to paint the parts with the garage door half up.

Final fitment and clamp down prior to applying adhesive.

Same clamp down from the front.

I ran a final test fit and clamp. This is to ensure I know how to clamp the louver to the hood so that all necessary points of contact have time to set up. I know the gun for the 8115 adhesive is expensive ($60 or so), however, I think I have gotten more than my money's worth out it when I consider how much I have used it on this build.

Fender Louvers

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Major System Category: Body (Hood)
Task: Install fender louvers
Parts: Optional FF Part
Prerequisite Tasks: Mount the hood
Additional Costs: $199
Time Requirement: 6 - 10 hours
Date Started: October, 01, 2012
Date Completed: October, 10, 2012
The fender louvers are the opposite of the hood louvers. Where the hood louver drop into the hood, the fender louvers are designed to ride on top of the hood. They are also substantially bigger than hood louvers. I did some preliminary measurements and discovered that the fender louvers are cut to slightly different sizes. This is similar to what I found with the roof scoop. (i.e. I needed to find the center line of the car and the center line of the scoop and make sure they were aligned. then I needed to measure from the top edge of the door opening to common points on both sides of the scoop as it extended back across the roof.) There are similar challenges with the fender louvers.

Front end shot with both the fender and hood louvers set in place.

Like the hood louvers, the fender louvers require the vent slots to be cut. I used a Dremel with a heavy duty cut off wheel to trim out the vent slots. Next, I mounted a drum sander and smoothed out the cuts. I really need to get a second battery for the Dremel, it only runs about 15 minutes before performance falls off.

One of the fender louver pieces. The vents need to be cut and sanded.

Once I had the cuts made, it was time to figure out where to mount them (yeah, I know on the hood). There is definitely a drivers and passenger side version. They arrived with the kit. At the time, I was too busy disassembling the basic aluminum panels, hauling up the suspension and trying to get the car up on wheels to pay attention. However, now I am paying attention, and all I can say is - measure everything on the hood. The left and right versions do not measure out the same. When I measure the vent openings (parallel to the car's centerline) from the smallest to the largest, the passenger side is 3/4 inch longer.

I measured from the point of the hood to the first louver vent opening. I did the same measurement on both sides so the louvers started the same point on the hood.

I figured this out, because I could not seem to get the laser level to line up. I might get the top of the louver in line, but by the time I got to the fifth louver I was off. I decided it would be better to have the louvers closest to the cockpit lined up. I measured 21.5 inches from the point of the hood (between the latch and the door) down the seam of the fiber glass to the center line of the first vent. This gave me my front to back placement.

This is the contour that I used to measure the center line of the vents. This  is a line that is symmetrical.

There is a contour line that runs between the hood louver cut outs and the approximate location of the fender louvers. I measured from this line to identify the center line for each set of louver slots. Next I measured the width of each louver, identified the end points of the slot I needed to cut into the hood and marked it all up. I remeasured everything the next day, made adjustments and got ready  to cut into a perfectly good fiber glass hood.

Once I  figured out the proper location of the fender louver, I marked the location of the fender louver. This really helps when marking and cutting the louver slots in  the hood, and  for final placement of the fender louver.

I made my cuts into the fiber glass. Five slots on each side of different length. Thankfully this doesn't have to perfect and neat. The louver piece coves up up the cuts. I used the diamond cutting blade on the die grinder to get things started, then I used the jig saw to make the lateral cuts. I finished this off using the Dremel with a cutting blase to complete the end cuts. I sanded the rough edges, rechecked my work. Everything looks okay. I cleaned off the dust from the fiber glass on both the louver pieces and and the hood.

This the rough mark up for slots to be cut into the hood. Measure this several times and make sure  you're happy.

This is the passenger side of the hood. The sanded  seam can clear be seen.

This is the driver's side. These are the cuts in the hood. 

The fender and hood louvers are ready for bonding using 3M 8115 panel adhesive.

There is seam on the hood that needs to be sanded down before the fender louver pieces will sit flush. I ran a 60 grit sanding disc along this seam to eliminate the extra material. This is an area where the fiber glass is a little bit thinner than the rest. Therefore to reinforce things, I mixed up two batches of bondo and reinforced the thinner areas of the fiber glass between the cuts on the underside of the hood.

The final step is to feather in the fiber glass around each louver. This is going pretty good! Maybe one or two more layers of Bondo, then plenty of sanding.

I bonded the fender louvers without issue. I applied to beads of 3M 8115 panel adhesive, then held down the fender louvers using Gorilla Tape. I let it set up for 24 hours. I did not have optimal temperatures for this process. I need to eliminate the edges, so I plan to sand, then fiber glass the edge so it blends into the hood.