1984 IROC Z28 Camaro - 'Glass Lid

The lip you see along the edge of the hood is purposely left long by the manufacturer to protect the piece during shipping. Even though our new lid is sitting as far forward as it needs to, this lip must be ground down to create a proper fit.

Ortis went to work on the front lip with a grinding wheel fitted with 36-grit paper. As you can see, quite a bit of the lip is ground down to allow the hood to sit flat against the front bumper cover.

As he stopped to check his handiwork, we were able to see what Ortis had in mind; looking to mimic the lines of a factory steel hood, the lip was ground at a taper from the center to the outer edge.

Similarly, the sides of the hood were ground to a taper in accordance with the factory fenderlines, then sanded smooth. On both the front and the sides, Ortis started with 36-grit on a grinding wheel, then 80-grit on a block sander, followed by 180-grit for a smooth edge.

We decided to mount our new hood using the factory latch mechanism. The 'glass piece is set up to accommodate the factory hood latch and latch striker; on the other hand, the space for the latch catch assembly, which is mounted to the car's core support, comes as a solid piece and must be opened up if you intend to use it.

The latch striker bar on the hood, seen above, slides left to right to mesh with the latch catch assembly. The catch itself can be adjusted up or down (ours needed to move down) so that the hood shuts all the way. Since we were looking for a stocklike setup, Ortis cut a coil out of the stock hood spring and mounted it to the core support so the hood pops up when the release cable is pulled.