Hey PNW people,

I got a fiberglass hood that I want painted, but I don't know where!
My cousin works at Kansai Motorsports in Seattle but he said there would be an issue with painting cause of the fiberglass; he said if he did it it would have weird bumps and stuff??

So i'm looking at either Kelly's Auto Body in bellevue or lakeside collision center to do the painting. Unless you guys have any suggestions or recommendations to where i should get it painted.

Thanks for your help

 

nvm. kellys and lakeside collision don't do that stuff. Just called them..

sigh

 

a fiberglass hood can be painted but. if it wasn't properly made in the first place than it may take a lot of tlc and time to make it look proper.

you can sand the hood but in between sanding's spray water on it to make it sheen and that way it will somewhat simulate clear-coat and you can spot most of the imperfections that other wise wouldn't be seen until it was painted and/or cleared.

did the hood have a proper gelcoat layer? if not that your going to need to use a lot of filler primer and flat sanding blocks to remove imperfections.

gelcoat is a layer of paint used in fiberglass production that is sprayed into a mold before the actual glassing gets layed out. its the same with carbon fiber parts except they use a uv resistant clear gel-coat which is chosen to display the weave of the carbon fiber.

but any shop unless you have friend's in it willing to give a buddy discount is probably going to charge 4hondo + just to paint the hood... as stupid as that sounds. this figure includes basic labor but not the extra time to remove imperfections in a hood as you have described.

call around, sometimes shops will charge competitively but only if its worth it. make sure to call as many shops as you can. and avoid collision centers as they just usually don't do whole paint jobs unless its an insurance claim.

but if you take the time to prep it properly your friend should be able to paint it no problem.

 

thanks for the info alien
the hood is the fiberglass kaminari reverse cowl hood
people say their quality is great.

 

that hood is pretty slick. just watch out for water getting onto your headers.

and no problem

 

do you have it?
btw, whats so bad about water getting on the headers or heat shield?
i have the trd supercharger and some people tell me the hood is bad news while others say its not a problem

 

Bzinn has been running the Kammi reverse cowl for over a year now and has had no problems with water. I'm sure if you ask him he'll speak to it being perfectly fine even around here.

 

just giving a word of caution, and it all depends ask turner or goke186 the guy who was helping you at the meet about it and i'm sure he can give you a story.

believe it or not its your choice, and it really depends on if you garage your car or not. but its never good to get water on parts that get majorly heated repeatedly.

kind of happens when cool water hits them so they get cooled too fast. "its called it quenching". it will change the crystalline structure of the metal until even stainless steel starts to rust.

and could even "eventually" cause fractures in a set of headers. i mean where do you think water is going to go? but some guys like the old school rat rod fellows run there cars with stainless headers exposed to the elements. i would be hard pressed to see one of those guys daily driving their cars in the rain or snow though. i would keep it in a garage or under cover if i had one. so i guess it ultimately depends on how hot your headers get? since i have seen it firsthand with a scion stock headers i would gather that it is possible for it to happen to others....

 

no a friend of mine on here named goke186 has a hood that's similar with an opening on top, still not cowl induction but it still vents directly into the engine compartment, and he has some rust developing on his. not trying to alarm you just saying you should watch out for it.

don't know about the TRD supercharger but Giovanni unknowingly cooked his old cf hood with his new turbo setup he installed. so i would guess its more the heat created by forced induction setups.

problem with a lot of aftermarket stuff is they dont care if its functional in other aspects. take a look at an sti hood scoop its not a cowl inducted hood but the scoop is slightly higher than the hood line on the bottom lip so no water (excluding mist) can make it into the engine bay.

which can be a big deal since a lot of subaru sti engine's have the air filter directly underneath it. so sometimes its good to take a look at the reasons why some oem stuff is made.

and again no reason to be alarmed. just giving you friendly advice. so you can keep an eye out before anything develops into an issue.

 

all great information. thank you for taking the time to put this out.
I know what you mean by aftermarket stuff. I work for kirkland mazda and a lot of times we get cars that have some failure due to after market stuff. Not saying ALL aftermarket stuff is bad, but just showing that oem parts were made for important reasons.

again, thanks alien!

 

no problem, and me likey mazdas too. you guys ever get any failures due to people putting in aftermarket fuel pressure regulators and not adjusting them correctly?

 

nope, can't say i've seen that before.
we just see a lot of aftermarket stuff for the mazdaspeed3s and sometimes you get the "universal performance part" that should be a no-brainer...

 

lol