hondarid3r

whats good? im looking to get a carbon fiber hood, and i like the seibon mg style, i think the cheapest i found one was on autobarber.com at 677.00 with sh. but i seen the same style hood but its duraflex. whats the difference? its reasonably cheaper.
seibon...
http://www.autobarber.com/product/p-...iber-hood.aspx
duraflex...
http://www.tuneralley.com/2000-2009-...html?source=gb

Kyushin

The duraflex is cheaper because its basically FRP (Plastic) and the Seibon carbon fiber. cheaper is never better, you get what you pay for aside from that, the MGs fit very well and FRP can be hit or miss with fitment

MBHs2k

Message a vendor here on s2ki regarding those hoods. You can get them cheaper than that.

romeo2

Echoing the post above - you get what you pay for. The good ones go for around $3500 because they are double walled just like your present OEM hood and they have much better optics than the cheaper ones, whether you are going to keep it as bare CRP or color matched with the rest of your car. The cost goes into design and into the precision of the molds that they use to get the "like OEM" results. Look critically at a range of hoods before jumping too quickly.

NoBottleJustThrottle

There is a little bit of misinformation floating around this thread.

Duraflex is a fiberglass material not plastic. It's more specifically a fiberglass material mixed with flex resins to give it the flexibility properties that you see in their company videos. The particular SEIBON hood that you are looking at is also a fiberglass hood with a layer of carbon fiber on the exterior side of the hood. The bottom side will be fiberglass. SEIBON does have double sided carbon hoods (Extreme Dimensions - makers of Duraflex - will have double sided carbon soon as well with a new line that they are launching), but this particular hood is not that way.

These hoods (Duraflex or SEIBON) are simply for looks. Don't think that by buying either of those hoods that it will give you any benefit. The hood on the S2000 is aluminum. In many cases the aftermarket hoods that you find for our cars are heavier than factory (I'm talking about the replica hoods). When you spend $3,500+ on a true double sided dry carbon hood then you will have some benefit.

Does that mean that either of the hoods you have listed are crap? No. It just means that they won't be as functional as some other options, but like others have said you have to pay to play. How will fitment be? Honestly, hit or miss. It doesn't just depend on the mold like many people think - it depends on the time spend with the part. If the workers pull the part out of the mold too quickly, or don't fill the mold completely with whatever material they are filling it with (fiberglass, carbon, etc.) that is where you will start to experience fitment issues. Sometimes these 'replica parts' will be spot on. Sometimes they won't. It's seriously a roll of the dice. The probability of you getting an OEM fitting aftermarket hood is slim from the replica companies. Why? Because instead of spending the time to make sure that everything is done 100% they quickly finish what they are working on so that they can move on to the next part. Replica companies are in the business to make LOTS of parts for a bargain price. The higher end JDM companies are in the business to make less quantity, but charge more for the quality control.

I can go on and on, but I will end with confirming what another member said - chances are you can get a better price. IM our supporting vendors (Extreme Dimensions is on the forum - they are the manufacturer of Duraflex and Carbon Creations) to get better pricing.

NoBottleJustThrottle
(Former Marketing Manager of Extreme Dimensions)

Chris_Lum

i've owned a seibon MG hood in the past and have seen other replica MG hoods on other cars and none of them fit well. Just FYI. Also, as stated above, the Seibon MG style hood is heavier than the OEM hood. the only benefit is the venting and maybe the extra room for a snorkel due to the bump on the hood.

Only reason i used the hood was because i needed the hood to vent underhood temps. After a while though, the hood was just an eye-sore. Gaps on both sides, bulging up in the middle and heavier than my OE hood, made me get rid of it too.

Reckon

I have a Seibon OEM Style hood and have no issues. As noted, the top layer is Carbon Fiber but the rest is fiberglass. Any aftermarket part will be hit or miss, but some dealers here are good about getting you the right one the first time or working with you to replace one that doesn't fit properly.