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POS Carbon Creations hood

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PlanZero

Proven Member
1,516
263
Aug 13, 2013
Easton, Pennsylvania
Carbon creations by extreme dimensions thoroughly suck ass. I went with them for a few reasons that are inconsequential at this point. Besides having the typical carbon hood fitment issues, now I have this. First it looked like spots were appearing on the hood then what I thought was just bugs and dirt is actually the finish streaking and turning to this white ashy substance.
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The weave still looks okay but the gel or clear coat is definitely f'ed up. Also check out the weirf black square appearing above the fuse box area. Any advice? Should I get it re clear coated or just paint it black? Won't the paint spiderweb with the flex of the hood?
 
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Did you happen to put any thermal shield on the under side of your expensive cf hood? Have you ever waxed the topside with even a cheap turtle wax? I am going to guess both answers are no. Want to save it before it looks like sun burned crap? It will probably take a weekend worth of work and you need to get a roll of thermal stick on shield off of amazon pretty quick. You might get away with diamond cut compound, a buffer, glaze, then wax. If you get to working on it soon.

Or paint it. It will not crack if done correctly.
 
Its normal. This happens to all fiberglass/carbon hoods that are not painted. Either have it buffed out and constantly waxed(will still oxidized but not as fast) or have it clear coated with 2k urethane.
 
They do suck. I had to get a refund for mine because it was bowed and didn’t sit proper. They made me cut it up and send pix before receiving the refund.... went with vis after that and have zero complaints. Vis is great quality... I live in arizona also.. and I dont have fading, yellowing, bubbling, or anything wrong. Thing still looks new and it’s about 5 years old.
 
Did you happen to put any thermal shield on the under side of your expensive cf hood? Have you ever waxed the topside with even a cheap turtle wax? I am going to guess both answers are no. Want to save it before it looks like sun burned crap? It will probably take a weekend worth of work and you need to get a roll of thermal stick on shield off of amazon pretty quick. You might get away with diamond cut compound, a buffer, glaze, then wax. If you get to working on it soon.

Or paint it. It will not crack if done correctly.
You should know better than to assume anything. Of course i have a heat barrier. The self stick kind used on motorcycles. I also waxed it with mothers hard wax. I used meguiar's ultimate compound to no avail. I wasn't going to use a stronger cutting compound until I figured out what was going on. The damage appears to be within the gel coat and coming from underneath so I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to sand and reclear. I just want to make sure it won't happen again after doing so.

They do suck. I had to get a refund for mine because it was bowed and didn’t sit proper. They made me cut it up and send pix before receiving the refund.... went with vis after that and have zero complaints. Vis is great quality... I live in arizona also.. and I dont have fading, yellowing, bubbling, or anything wrong. Thing still looks new and it’s about 5 years old.
Ironically the fact they do returns this way if the hood doesn't fit certain parameters led me to buy it as well as the fact I couldn't wait for the seibon hood.

I don't agree that this happens to all cf hoods. If you park outside and have no heat barrier of course it will fade. On my hood within a few heat cycles spots started forming on the hood and progressively got worse.

I'm not even a big fan of "cf" hoods on a street car. I just needed a hood ASAP and this was cheaper that a new OEM hood and paint.
 
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For what it’s worth... I dont have heat barriers on my hood either. Ive ran bottom mount manifolds with runners close, and top mount manifolds with the turbine housing close to the hood, never an issue. Extreme dimentions/carbon creations is just lacking in quality all around. I only got a carbon hood for the same reason, after a minor fender bender, the carbon was
Cheaper then a new hood and paint. But after trashing the ED and going to vis. I would not hesitate to buy a second VIS if ever needed, they have a metal hood latch, and also come with wiper nozzle holes. I’m sure seibon is just as good, I but i dont have personal experience woth that brand
 
Thanks for the tip! Yeah definitely vis or seibon for the next one. I'm going to look into getting this one painted or recleared but I'm not a big fan of polishing a turd. It sucks because I've only had the hood for a year and maybe 500 miles. Maybe just vinyl wrap it in black (or fake cf LOL) until i feel like dropping more dough on aesthetics.
 
VIS and Seibon do use a lot better resin in their products. they resist UV degradation about 10x better than the ebay clones. typically if the person wants it painted to match the car i recommend the ebay clones and then after fitting and prep work and a heat barrier is installed they last a long time. if you want to actually leave it CF then i recommend one of the higher quality vendors.

either way it will need buffed and waxed at some point. how often is depended on the resin used and its ability to hold up in UV and heat.
 
I know this is an old thread but I wish I would have seen this thread before buying the Extreme Dimensions/Carbon Creations hood. First, it took almost 2 months before I received the hood, not a big deal but they blamed Covid and in the mean time I ordered several other parts that did not have any issues with shipping in a timely manner. Well I finally got the hood, I noticed it did not have the holes predrilled for the windshield washers. My brother has a VIS and it came with the holes already there, still not a big deal. So I install the hood onto the latches, let it down and of course it does not have the area around latch hook cut out. So I call Extreme Dimensions as I thought maybe it was a defect and the guy I spoke to was super confused and told me "most customers just drill it out". That didnt make sense, why put the hook onto the hood if its not even useable. Well I made a template from my OEM hood and cut the section out so I can at least let the hood down and latch it until I install hood pins because I definitely dont trust the hook/latch they installed. Its just attached with a piece of metal molded into the area that they told me to drill out LOL, doesnt make sense at all. Once I got the hood latch cut out, I noticed in some areas the hood is so thin you can actually see daylight through it, not cool! I would stay away from these hoods and go with VIS or SEIBON. I wish I would have just got my OEM hood repainted due to an ugly weird fade pattern that looks like boot prints.
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For what it’s worth... I dont have heat barriers on my hood either. Ive ran bottom mount manifolds with runners close, and top mount manifolds with the turbine housing close to the hood, never an issue. Extreme dimentions/carbon creations is just lacking in quality all around. I only got a carbon hood for the same reason, after a minor fender bender, the carbon was
Cheaper then a new hood and paint. But after trashing the ED and going to vis. I would not hesitate to buy a second VIS if ever needed, they have a metal hood latch, and also come with wiper nozzle holes. I’m sure seibon is just as good, I but i dont have personal experience woth that brand
 
Well I made a template from my OEM hood and cut the section out so I can at least let the hood down and latch it until I install hood pins because I definitely dont trust the hook/latch they installed.

definitely get hood pins ASAP. I had one that came open when i was going like 90 on the interstate. i couldn't see shit. I slowed down a little and it broke loose on the passanger side but not the drivers side. it flapped back and forth a couple times, hitting the fender and roof/pillar area before it came completely off, and f***ing up the side of the car on its way out.
 
Yeah I have the hood pins, just have to install them. Im not going to drive it until I do.

definitely get hood pins ASAP. I had one that came open when i was going like 90 on the interstate. i couldn't see shit. I slowed down a little and it broke loose on the passanger side but not the drivers side. it flapped back and forth a couple times, hitting the fender and roof/pillar area before it came completely off, and f***ing up the side of the car on its way out.
 
https://www.aerocatch.com/aerocatch/

The "Xtreme" series have the steel strike pins. They're marketed for rally and off-road cars. I went with those just for peace of mind but the aluminum strike pins are fine for road-going cars. I only read about a few failures but they could have been knockoff Aerocatch's.
 
Tom Noonen’s Aerocatch pins broke on a 1/4 mile pass and destroyed the hood and windshield. Aerocatch told him to switch to their steel pins.
 
I am sure this is probably a dumb question, but if I go with the VIS hood do I HAVE to install hood pins or are their hoods good enough to not risk safety with it flying up? And I am asking because I know someone is going to give the answer, "You never HAVE to do anythning..blah blah" but when switching to a very good quality CF hood is there a high risk of them failing and coming up?
 
I am sure this is probably a dumb question, but if I go with the VIS hood do I HAVE to install hood pins or are their hoods good enough to not risk safety with it flying up? And I am asking because I know someone is going to give the answer, "You never HAVE to do anythning..blah blah" but when switching to a very good quality CF hood is there a high risk of them failing and coming up?

https://www.dsmtuners.com/threads/v...perience-with-high-speed-no-hood-pins.427448/
 
My Seibon hood explicitly said to not use the oem hood latch. I was like why put it in then??
They mean dont rely on the hood latch alone. It’s still good to have if you park the car and dont want people to have access to opening the hood, there are key’d versions of aerocatch but for those that arent using keys the oem hood latch adds extra security, not good for relying on keeping the hood down on it’s own
 
The aerocatch's look nice and I'll continue to use them. But, I constantly have to oil them. If the car sits out in the winter, come spring I'm pretty scared to even pop them open for the first time thinking they'll snap. With that said, I'm not so sure I would want the key'd version. Maybe if they were made in stainless or aluminum, but they're plastic and the metal bits they use tend to want to rust up. Average thief probably wouldn't know how to open them properly anyways.
 
The aerocatch's look nice and I'll continue to use them. But, I constantly have to oil them. If the car sits out in the winter, come spring I'm pretty scared to even pop them open for the first time thinking they'll snap. With that said, I'm not so sure I would want the key'd version. Maybe if they were made in stainless or aluminum, but they're plastic and the metal bits they use tend to want to rust up. Average thief probably wouldn't know how to open them properly anyways.
Oil them? Sounds like you might have miss alignment never had to oil mine even when I lived in canada where it was cold as F, the striker pin should pass through the I bolt easily if installed correctly and not need any oil in my experience. A slight miss alignment will cause issues opening and closing
 
I'll check into that. Another issue I recall with them is the pin used as the hinge will slide over to one side every few times I open it, so without a pocket knife I can't open the hinge at all unless I slide the pin back over where it belongs. Maybe I'm just due for new ones after a decade of use.
 
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