Items Needed

- Hood pins and mounting hardware
- Rotary cutting tool (Dremel)
- Drill and a few different sized bits
- Tape
- Bright colored paint or silicone
- Mask
- A lot of courage

Note: it is possible to place the pins at other locations, do as you wish. I will give you an example of what I did. PLEASE wear a mask when cutting fiberglass and carbon fiber, the glass particles, if inhaled, can cause big harm to your body. Also, if you are wearing a T-Shirt it might become itchy but just take a cold shower in the end and you will be fine.




Step 1: The Easy Part

- Start by removing both headlight assembles, by taking out the three 10mm bolts on either. This will give you room to work with.



- Find and drill your holes for the mounting of the pins. It has to be symmetrical on both sides! Also, do this while keeping in mind that it should not be too close to the edge of your hood, give yourself at least 2 inches from any edge of it in order to not compromise the functionality of the pins. I chose a stock hole on the driver's side and drilled a hole in the same location on the passengers' side, using a cardboard guide I made. Measure twice, drill once!

- Now, put the pins it using the supplied hardware, should be 2 washers and 2 nuts each. This is to get a general feel of where they will go.




Step 2: The Hard Part

- Tighten the pins by making sure they are pretty strait. Now, put a dab of the colored paint or whichever you are using. I used some red silicone I had lying around.




- Slowly close the hood so the pins can mark a spot on the structural support.

- Now, you will need to drill into it, making the holes approximately 1 inch in diameter.




- Repeat the same thing with the paint (or silicone) and mark the spot where you will need to drill into the hood structure itself.

- Now comes the nerve-wrecking part. Kick back a couple minutes, have a smoke, and a bit of beer. Once you're ready, get a small drill bit and drill where the marks are on the underside of the hood until it goes through. Close down your hood onto the pins to ensure that it aligns with them. If all is well, you can move on to the detail work! Before you do that though, put some tape over your hole so you can work without the pressure of scratching things up and you can measure and draw on it aswell.




- Figure out the final positioning of the brackets that will go on top of the hood and cut to the shape of what you need. In my case, a squarish hole was needed for the pins.




Step 3: The Hardest Part

- Now comes the fun part (very sarcastic). You will need to do a series of opening the hood, adjusting the height, closing it, seeing it doesn't work, and repeat. It took me nearly 2 hours to do this because I had to keep removing and putting the headlight back in every time (the way the hood sits on the headlight, it puts a bit of pressure on it, so without the headlight it sits differently). TAKE YOUR TIME! The pins should be tight as in you need to put a wee bit of pressure to get them in when you close your hood, but not too much.




- Once that's done, you can close your hood for good, and sit back and enjoy the ride without worrying about your hood opening on the road and wrecking your car and possibly you! Remember, function before form! Also, with the pins I used, I oriented them parallel to the lines on the hood, so I think they actually look pretty good for what they are!




- KeWLKaT