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Modify hood for better visibility offroad?


Uberoo
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If you look at a stock hood it is reasonably flat, then it bends downwards to meet the grill.I'm wondering if anyone has ever modified the hood so it more or less goes straight from the windshield down to the grill without the downward bend at the front.The old baja trucks based off 70's fords and what not had something similar to what I am describing because the factory hoods on those monsters was 6-8" taller than the grill. Essentially it ended up looking something like this:

post-14543-0-86601100-1440728113_thumb.jpg

the hoods were modded like that,because it would give you an extra 5-6 ft of visibility to avoid something.5 ft of extra visibility offroad would do wonders for showing the trail up a head.

 

With my brat at best I could drop the hood only about 2" at the front.

DSC00499_zpsyrl7cq0u.jpg~original

 

Basically cut out the large section of the hood in the middle,then cut alone the tape line where the hood starts to bend down.flatten the bend out and reweld the center piece of the hood so its a straight shot from the windshield to just above the grill.Its the basic gist of the idea.

 

Yesterday I saw an old class 6 baja chase truck at a car show and I liked how the hood on it looked,and it got me thinking again.

 

 

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From the lack of responses I'm gathering that no one has modified the hood like that. A quick drawing in autocad tells me that in stock form there is a roughly 13.6 foot blind spot from the front of the car to the ground.Cutting the hood down just 2" would reduce that blind spot by 2 ft. I can see how it might help something like a full size truck but I'm not really sure if it would make much of a difference on a subaru.It would improve visibility by 15%, but I'm not really sure how much of a real world effect that might have.

 

Edit:A bone stock subaru would have blind spot 3" longer than the modified hood.

 

In other words a subaru that is 7"(lift+tires) taller than stock increases the blind spot by 2 feet.Interesting.

Edited by Uberoo
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I think this is an interesting proposition.  My '82 Jeep full-size Wagoneer has a ridiculously huge hood.  I always hated the blind spot it front.  At one point I modified the suspension and it produced a positive/forward rake to the vehicle and the difference in visibility in front was remarkable.  I didn't realize until then, that the blind spot was slightly stressing me out a little bit but not enough to notice until it was gone.  Having that extra visibility up front just made the car more comfortable to drive.  So I think modifying the hood would be nice for all driving conditions, not just offroad.  Something I am going to keep in mind when I start to mod my Impreza.

 

I think dropping the front of the hood by 2" would be similar to the change I experienced when I changed the rake on my Jeep, and if so, I will testify that it makes a big difference.  The distance between the driver and the front edge of the Wagoneer hood is definitely much longer than on a Subaru, but I don't think the rake produced a 2" drop of the hood.  

 

[Your Brat looks pretty badass.  More pics?]

Edited by ferox
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