Do any of you guys cut out any of the bracing under the hood? I removed all the bracing on my first miata and felt like the hood was too floppy at speed. Is there a preferred method to remove as much weight as possible without compromising too much stability? Certainly some of this can be pulled out safely.

Pic for reference on what I'm talking about. I was thinking about removing everything but the 2 ribs that make a "V" from front to back, and maybe the horizontal brace between them halfway up the hood.

Don't judge the half stripped paint I'm still working on it.

 

I know the ounces add up to pounds but that can't be worth much savings compared to steel parts in other places.

But I think it would still be rigid, yes.

 

I knew someone was going to say that, I already hacked out as much steel as I could. Since I don't have any money to throw away on real mods I'm going all rmcelwee on this one.

 

You're right that the V from the back corner to the front latch area is the most important part. Particularly if you still use the hood latch instead of pins. You can remove most of the longitudinal bracing without much ill effect.

The bracing is attached to the top layer via the quarter-sized spots of silicone adhesive. They key is to keep all of those attachment points intact with what bracing you retain.

-Ryan

 

Before I fucked this hood up I took a picture of mine. Re-epoxying the the bracing I left on this hood made a major difference in the stiffness. It is a bit floppy and I have no hood prop, which is annoying.

 

i hacked out all the metal/bracing on my hood. if i could go back in time, id backhand the living hell of me that day. dont do it (in terms of taking out all bracing under the hood). of course, this was all before i read about stuff like this and just wanted to be super cool lightweight car guy.

my hood is pinned, but it flops around at higher speed. if i get within ~5 car lengths of someone at higher speeds, the hood looks like it wants to rip off the car.

 

^ Don't be this guy...

 

I've cut a bunch from under the hood. The key is not removing the material at the edges as much as you want to . Leave some metal there. That will really add strength with out lots of weight. I cut too close to the edge on the XP car. If I ever need to redo the hood (I do the painter polished the hood too agressively, overheated it and it is pretty rippled now), I'll leave more at the edges.

4 hood pins works pretty well to keep it in place. Roughly in the blue circles, where the factory had rubber stops. Green line would be the try and leave it. That metal was worth 3-5lbs when taken all the way to the edge, if memory serves. Most of that was the steel for the hood latch though.

 

on my old hood i cut out a giant square to fit one of those "drifter" style DMAX hood vents. it was the worse decision ever. Hood was flimsy, hood prop had no purpose, and i missed dropping the hood to get it to shut. I highly doubt that i was able to shave much weight by doing so, but if its a track car and you've got a bajillion hood pins, go for it.

 

That hood is so light as it is, leave the bracing. I have a small section notched to clear my intake and that's it. Even my extraction vents are slotted between the grid.

 

I cut the V and all of the cross braces but left everything around the edges, including the stock hood latch parts. My hood is still very solid with no noticeable flexing at speed. I don't have any hood pins... just the stock hinges and latch.

 

I cut out a little bit today, didn't want to go too crazy with it. I cut some of the smaller braces and a little toward the front where it's 3 layers thick. I weighed what I cut out at 13oz