im thinking about either getting the cf evo hood or the cf rksport ss ram air hood for my 97 cav convert. was wondering if hood pins are really needed for these hoods? or are they a car by car thing?

so i understand most people do it for added safety- but has there really been any issues with not having them?

lol, a friend o mine. dirty elf had his latch come loose and the hood came open while he was driving. that split the hood, broke the windshield, and put a nice dent in the roof of the car. I think they were within $500 or writing the car off. I believe he was driving at less than 50 when this happened, its been a couple of years ago.

nearly all hoods now are built to OEM specs, by that i mean they use OEM latches, although some do not. if your hood uses the oem latch, then pins are not necessary, but it wouldn't be a bad idea, since they're all considerably lighter than stock hoods.

I'm running a VIS oem cf hood with no pins, and I haven't had any problems with mine.

yes, aftermarket hoods have been known to come up, i know a few this has happened too.. but more importantly, the hoods are more flexible, and tend to want to "flutter" at higher speeds with just the stock latch. now i know with the vis evo hood, this caused cracks around the main vent. i dont know how other hoods fair to this, but definitly with the evo get pins, otherwise you might as well just throw the hood away within a year.

Mine "flutters" at high speeds. Seeing it do that makes me want to put pins on it, but then again I don't like the looks of pins so I take my chances.

My Vis Evo hood would "flutter" at highway speeds; it would even raise up a few inches if i passed a semi or it was windy. I put the pins on and never looked back. I think why most OEM applications don't do this is because they have no scoops or aywhere air can get in, I would recommend hood pins with any hood that allows a lot of air to get into the engine bay.

i have the vis invader hood without hood pins and my hood doesnt flutter at all even when i top out the car, however the invader is designed to pull hot air out of the engine instead of let it in and that little rise of the opening creates a little downforce when driving at speed, i have never had a problem with mine.