Kognition Carbon Fiber Hood Review

[mmdb]

I finally picked up my hood from Mike over at Kognition Design over in El Cajon, CA . Upon initial inspection I was very pleased. Build quality looked excellent, and i could see that Mike put a lot of detail into what he was building. Mike stated the hood weighed in at ~14lbs. Compared to the stock hood, I could pick up this one with one hand, and it definitely put a big smile to my face. The underbody skeleton of the hood itself looked to be very good quality, and again looked to be developed using a lot of time and detail. It was pleasing to see to say the least. Upon feel, the hood feels feather light, and using a single hand to raise it feels almost weightless. Mike later showed me the mold to develop the top and bottom skeleton, and I was amazed at the amount of reinforcement the OEM hood had... I could understand WHY the OEM hood was so damn heavy in the first place. Again, mold looked great and it reflected in the product.

When it came time to install I was anticipating the hood to be off a bit. But to my surprise the thing just bolted right up and aligned similar to my OEM hood (keep in mind my fenders have problems of their own aligning to the car ). I felt that this is where my purchase with Mike at Kognition paid off. After aligning the hood we installed Aerocatch hood pins without much effort. The whole install took about 3-4 hours with occasional tours around his facility.

Now the hood does not have a OEM hood latch. It could be good, or bad for some. But in my opinion the OEM hood latch implemented and sold by other companies has a terrible fit, or could break (according to online reviews). I highly recommend using hood pins whenever upgrading to a composite type of hood. So in my case it was not an issue. The OEM hood latch was removed so it maybe saved an extra 1lbs?

In conclusion I'm glad I waited for the hood (it's been 2-3 years!). You do get what you pay for. As for driving impressions, I'm guessing it's more of a placebo effect, but the car feels lighter on its feet. Regardless, lighter is better!


Mike installing the hood while I zone out.



A not-so-great picture of the underbody. I'll take more pictures of it later. But check out the hood stand. Pretty nice eh?



Picture of the hood outside...



Top view...

[BeerBringer]

Looks awsome! But we need better pictures of your car.

[KA240SX808]

Very nice, how much did this set you back?

[a_ahmed]

Yeah i was wondering on price. i'm guessing this is dry carbon. Why no vented hood?

If I'm doing something like this id want it to be vented for both cooling and reducing lift/increasing downforce...

None the less looks like amazing quality/fitment, you need better pics though.

[Bumnah]

Looks good. I take it the hood is wet carbon?

[98koukile]

My guess is that if Mike runs this hood on his own car, it probably is better without vents for most tracking purposes

[KA240SX808]

Kind of OT but what projectors are you running?

[Def]

My guess is that if Mike runs this hood on his own car, it probably is better without vents for most tracking purposes

A proper vent on the hood is *ALWAYS* better from a drag and lift perspective.

[mmdb]

Kind of OT but what projectors are you running?

It's a single HID xenon projector and shroud off of a BMW... I don't remember which one it was from though. I got it a few years back.

A proper vent on the hood is *ALWAYS* better from a drag and lift perspective.

Any vent in mind? I was thinking about using a pair of NACA ducts, but I'm guessing it won't be able to flow enough air... also since hotter air travels faster (read that somewhere), it's beneficial to NOT have the ducts blowing air right onto the headers. Any thoughts?

[Def]

NACA ducts are for inlets only. For an exit all you need is a a submerged duct that slightly expands.

As in cut an (exagerated) \_/ shaped cut out, then fill in the sides with some carbon fiber/whatever after pushing it down some(to get your desired duct depth). You want the sides to maybe diverge at about 7 degrees, and have at least 5-7 times as long as duct as the exit is deep.

I tried to find a pic, but apparently everybody in general avaition that takes pics of their planes mistaken uses NACA ducts as exit ducts as well.

NACA ducts only work as near lossless(total pressure recovery) inlet ducts due to the sharp edges and expanding shape causing vorticies to form around the edges which funnel air into the duct. The air doesn't just flow into the duct, it more swirls around into it.

Using it as an exit duct doesn't make sense since you don't form vorticies going the other way. You'll experience more drag and a lower flow out of the duct due to the walls closing in rapidly as the flow is trying to accelerate up to the freestream airspeed.

If you get up really close to the side of something like a 737, you can see they use a nearly square/rectangular exit duct like I'm suggesting, and a NACA duct for the APU(auxillary power unit) and a few other things.

[mmdb]

Def,

what do you think about a vent like this...

[cdlong]

i'm interested, where'd you find that?

[a_ahmed]

lol clever

[jmauld]

mmdb, is that going to fit with that biga$$ ls1 throttle body?

[mmdb]

That's actually a hood vent from a mustang shelby gt500. They sell it at ford for bout 50 bucks! Pretty cheap hehe. As far as fitting the throttle body That's a good question... if anything I'll have to trim the vent :X The part number from ford is AR3Z-16C630-AA. I called a local ford and they quoted me 300 dollars as opposed to an online ford dealer in San Diego that sold it for 44 dollars... Anyway. I ordered it from the Ford website. I'll post up some pictures when I get it.


As far as placement, I'm assuming this should be in direct flow of the radiator?