[fast79malibu]

i need a opinion about buying a cowl hood from harwood for my 1979 malibu. ive seen where you can buy the center section from harwood. i wouldnt mind getting the 6 inch center section. would it be better just to buy the whole hood or just do it my self and get the center section. ive heard that harwood fiberglass hoods dont fit or line up to well. what kind of work would i have to do to my existing steel hood to make it look good ???

 

[poncho62]

Thats the problem with just buying the scoop, bonding it to the steel hood. Fibreglass and steel expand/contract at different rates, causing filler etc to crack...........

I would buy a good quality hood with the scoop.

 

[Bee4Me]

We have a whole hood on ours and it's THE way to go for sure BUT, It WILL sag at the opening so expect to install a brace of some sort to support it.
We used a simple piece of 3/8 allthread rod bent in a "U" attatched to the cowl with rubber hose slid over it to protect the glass hood.
This is his wifes car,purple & pink flames with a 496 BB. You can see the brace clearly.We used 4 corner hood pins to lock it down and is quick and easy. If you want to use hinges and light springs,that is an option but I have no experience with that.

 

[327NUT]

If you can afford it get the complete hood. I put a 355 sbc chevy in a 260Z years ago and needed a scoop, thought the cowl induction looked good so I bought just the scoop from Harwood. The scoop actually looked like it was made out of abs plastic or something, very pliable. Had a h--- of a time getting to stick on the steel hood..........buy the hood.

 

[baddbob]

Bonding a fiberglass scoop has been covered here before-do a search. I wouldn't recomend doing it though if a complete hood is available. All of this stuff is time consuming. I just went through this on the hood for my Son's car, a 70 Nova. He wanted a factory Camaro style cowl induction hood with the seal to bottom style factory air cleaner setup. After a little digging we found a damaged first generation Camaro cowl induction hood to use for the donor scoop and inner structure. After numerous hours of work the inner structure was grafted into his hood then the scoop was butt welded in. Now it looks like G.M. made it that way and the Z-28 aircleaner assembly will work just fine.