has anyone ever heard of someone actually using the vacmotorsports carbon fiber hood,or door skins, the hood is supposed to weigh in at 6lbs. and is around 700 us dollers shipped. i am not sure what the quality of the c/f is it kinda LOOKS LIKE FULL OUT RACE CARBON FIBER. OR MABEY those pics were in an early stage before clearcoat. if anyone knows pleaz let me know. thanx

I looked into and organized a group buy for the Carbon Fiber hood. It was going to be OEM quality fit - no hood pins reguired.

I went so far as to have 10-12 BMW owners of the e21 and get Mark from Gemini in canada who makes hoods for ferarris and other cars.

He looked at our car, the hood flips up and rolls in.
This means there is serious reinforcement and design issues involved.
When you combine this with the hood vents in the very front by the windshield,
all equals a ton of complications.

Its easier to make the 6 series hood, or an e30 hood. Our hoods are very complicated. Bascially the best way to do this is to use the existing shell of our cars and remove the sheet metal from the frame.

And then lay the CF/fiberglass into the existing e21 hood frame.

This means that our hoods would be at least 1100 or more to make,
and for most this means its not worth it to get them made.
As our cars are valuable to us, but have a very low resale value, and most people will not do it for this price.

But the weight reduction 30 lbs in the front would be significant.

David Macintire runs the VAC hood on his group racer. You need to use hood pins, and I heard the fit and finish of this hood is not very good.

Basically the sides of our hoods go into the body and its diffcult to execute in Carbon Fiber. I would not put a non oem style hood pin race hood on my 323i.
If I do carbon fiber I want it to look oem like the one that gemani made for this 6 series. Look close below..thats a custom cf 6 series hood. VV

http://e21.tricord.be/members/bmwe21/DSC00408.JPG

Now compare this with a picture of my car showing how our hoods.

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b297/jjgbmw323/323frontv-1.jpg

Due to the completity of the design I don't hold out much hope that I can get
the cost of the CF hoods down for the e21. No matter who makes them its going to be 1100-1200 before shipping.

I can have fenders, and even the sunroof made in CF. The e30 sunroof and ours are interchangable, but for 450 its not worth it.

Later.
J