Alrighty guys, here we go finally, update time.
I've been going gangbusters on the car again since the weather turned, and I want to update you all on what I've been working on.
But in order to do that, I've got to backtrack quite a bit and cover the last of the things that were done to the car prior to my joining the forum: Namely, the hood.
The hood for this car has been nothing but a giant thorn in my side since the 455 was swapped in for the first time many moons ago during its first build.
So this is going to be a saga for me to cover, but I feel I need to do it so you all understand what has led me to go the route I have. So please, bear with me as I try and foreshorten 20+ years of hood woes into a couple paragraphs...
Because the 455 is physically larger and sits higher in the engine bay, hood clearance was an issue from day one. During the car's first build, I cut a hole in the hood for clearance and fibreglassed on a universal 2" cowl induction style scoop.
All the 'glass, filler and primer work was done, the car was painted, and on the way home from the paint booth, the hood became unlatched(!!) and I watched it bang up and down on the back of the flatbed tow truck.
I was horrified, and couldn't catch up to the driver to have him stop. Sure enough, by the time I got home and to the car, the damage was already done. My beautiful bodywork and paint job on the hood was marred by a 6" long crack running down the center of the hood peak.
Right there and then, I swore off fibreglass for good and decided never again.
For several years after that, the hood was in a perpetual state of repair/modification/change. Most of the pictures I have of the car from that time show either filler or primer on the underside, or with no hood on it at all. Here's a rare photo of the old hood actually ON the car:
Fast forward now to 2008. I parked the car for the last time and started down the road to this latest envisioning of the car. The hood had to go, time for something new, bolder, and better.
I recalled an old car magazine article where a guy had trimmed his hood to fit around his unique air induction piping where it protruded above the hood line, and thought I looked pretty trick. I had just finished creating my own induction piping, so I thought I'd try something similar. A trip to the junkyard yielded a good clean hood from a 4 door sedan. After stripping the paint off it and cutting the hole to fit around my induction piping, this is what it looked like:
Interesting and unique sure, but trying to reinforce and finish the edges of the hole proved to be a colossal nightmare. The hood warped and buckled and did all kinds of nasty things. Plus, when the hood was open, the shape of the hole looked like a butterfly. Sure, butterflies are I nice I guess, but definitely not the image I wanted associated with the car! Lol.
So, that hood and idea too was scrapped. Back to the drawing board.
After some critical thinking, staring, and bouncing ideas off friends, we came up with a new take on an old idea that just seemed to lend itself to this particular car. We would do our version/vision of a cowl style hood, but tailor made for this car.
The '78-'80 Cutlass cars have the hood body lines go in the opposite direction from the '81-'88 cars. That is, the body lines go up or "grow" out of the header panel at the front of the car, extend down the hood, then fade flush again at the back of the hood. This "growing" out of the header panel seemed to call for the body lines to continue gaining height as they went back, leading into a natural progression for a cowl style center section.
Intrigued by this idea, a really basic and rudimentary mockup was made with some large sheets of shirt cardboard and masking tape:
Liking the look it gave the car, I decided to pursue and go with the idea. I felt the raised area in the center being as wide as the body lines gave the car an aggressive look, and would definitely provide more than ample hood clearance for nearly anything I chose to do under the hood (supercharger, turbos, carb spacers etc).
Next post, fabrication begins on the new hood. I have pics (but with no explanations) posted in my albums under my user name, but I'm pretty sure no one ever looks at those, so I'm going to post them up here next so y'all can make sense of what you're looking at.
Continued...>>>
