Darrel, I'm impressed.

That thing would get looks even here.

Well, thanks guys... I got rained out today but hopefully will be getting with my cousin Jeff who professionally goes by Jungle Jeff. He is a pro stripe and graphics art guy who has been at this for over 40 years now. Old style hand stripes, sword brushes, the works when it comes to doing faux emblems and exotic effects. Our bed cover turned out pretty good on this as well. We did a mild 3 inch length reduction on a stock Toyota Tacoma stock flip cover. Looks very factory. I'm glad we blacked out the roof, it flows well into the tonneau....

So the original build with our Ute here was to incorporate a vented style hood. A vented hood gives a little bit of extra cooling especially with a build like this that will be towing a trailer. The OEM style Hellcat hood is quite litterally designed to help cool the supercharger that sets on top of those special Hemi motors. I had started looking last fall for a salvage hood part from a Hellcat model but they were always asking a fortune for them or they sold in an instant on facebook marketplace. So cheaper Duraglass replica Hellcat hoods started appearing along with thicker more well made American fiberglass hoods. Cheap hoods had too much flex and the the thicker glass hoods are just too heavy. So we finally started to see some quality Chinese all aluminum models hitting the market. I scored on pretty cheap from a direct importer about 20 minutes from me. The fitment is excellent and the scoop linings are all high impact ABS held in with stainless steel bolts. Talked to NFT 5 on here about the E coat on it, tested it and it is a real E coat so clean, scuff, and into high build epoxy. Pic. is in E coat.... Oh, and the best part....this was a Christmas present from my wife!

So 40 hours later and I've got our taxes ready for the CPA. I promised myself I would have those "in the bag" before I got serious with my Hellcat hood project. So Friday, I started getting the black basecoats on, next the chameleon pearls, and finally the matt clear coats. I think I'm good but have set up a separate curing area in my other building and will leave it in 73 degree temp.s for about a week before we even think about handling, then do our mount. See what ya' think.....

So it was a little after dark when we finished up tonight. So for the hood swap I watched 8 different hood swap videos using this Hellcat hood. The conclusion that you come to after that is NO one really knows what they are doing and some guys are taking half a day for the install..... One thing that kept coming up is that guys pretty consistently break the windshield sprayer nozzles because they try to take them out with the hood still on the car. After studying the hose system that feeds them I found two removable connectors that instead disconnect the last 6 inches of hose with the attached nozzle. This lets you leave them attached to the hood so you can easily take them out when the hood is OFF the car. Does not sound like a big deal right?, BUT those little hunks of plastic go from $16 to $50 each! Another aspect which makes the hood come off faster is those hydraulic hood supports do not have to be unclipped as you can just screw the cylinders off at the top...simple. All the other OEM rubber, trim and clips just mount over on the new hood. Ohhh, huge safety tip. We tripled over a heavy moving quilt to put across the entire windshield to protect it just in case either hood would slip. Okay, so there were 3 of us and I timed it..... It took us 25 minutes to swap the hoods! So the moral of the story folks is DO your homework. It was hard to get pic.s tonight but I think you'll get the idea.... pretty stylin'..... I'll get some outdoor shots when our sun comes back on Monday or Tuesday...