I put my Carbon Stalker hood on and drove for a couple of days. I then put my stock hood back on and checked the bosses where the hood latch is. There were small stress cracks around them. I really didn't want to put hood pins in and am trying to think of other options. My first thought is to use longer bolt to secure the latch with a steel strap behind them and a nut to sandwitch it in. Other thoughts were to make two smaller straps with it bent over the latch bolts with screws on both sides and a hole in the middle with the latch bolt through that. Last was to use aerocatch hood pins painted body color. they were the best looking ones I could find. Any help or other ideas would be great.

 

Sorry to hear this. Some CF hoods just don't do well without the hood pins. I noticed that VIS said hood pins are required and wondered how yours would hold up without them. I honestly don't think reinforcing the area the latch is going to help much but if you're set on not using the pins it probably wouldn't hurt to try. Think about the air pressure that's being generated at just 70 mph under the hood. It's a ton of pressure all being held by one latch. Just stick your hand out the window at 70 mph and it's a lot of work to hold it down.

Even with hood latches a large number of people eventually find cracks around those. Another option for hood latches would be the low profile Quik-Latch pins but they cost an arm and a leg. The difference is they feature a 2.2" "barrel" that acts as the pin vs an actual 3/8" hood pin. They have a much less "raw" look to them compared to the aerocatch pins.

Good luck. I hope you find a solution that works well for your car because that hood looks insane!!!

http://www.quik-latch.com/quik-latch-low-profile.html

 

Here is a link to some of the low profile hood latches painted on a Ford Mustang. It doesn't look that bad.

http://www.quik-latch.com/quik-latch...e-mustang.html

 

Those are really smooth. They have the styled one like the S197 KR. They are expensive though. Do you think the mini Quick latches will work? They are so small they wont distract from the car if I paint them white. They are not that expensive if you go with the minis.