i'm supposed to get my sparco pins today, but i've never drilled out a hood for pins before. and i've never screwed with carbon fiber, either.

i am planning to just lay down a layer or two of magic blue tape to hopefully prevent cracking or chipping and then putting some paint or something on the top of the installed pins and lowering the hood onto those so i will know where to drill on the hood.

would that be the best way to go about this? do any of you guys have any suggestions as to how i should approach this?

 

you dont want to drill your hood with a conventional twist drill bit!

the right bit is one with abrasive bit (like the drummel bits), not a wood/metal bit

 

i wish i didn't kill my dremel right about now then, heh. but what i need, it's more like one of those stone-ish bits and not a conventional drill bit correct?

 

i've read that people used really small drill bits and it turned out ok. But i've never actually tried this myself.

Do a search for installing hood pins, someone did a small write up a while back

 

i found a wicked good write up from a VW guy... really seems to have everything covered. i might have to just go with a larger drill bit so i can get the head of the pin through instead of crafting some nifty shape like this guy did. it would be nice to do it that way but i killed my dremel on another project awhile back.

i can't afford to go buy ANYTHING besides gas to get to work. the staffing agency i am going through for my current job is taking their sweet time getting me the information i need so i can start logging my hours at work a.k.a. GET F'ING PAID.

here's the link to the VW guy btw: http://www.venommotorsports.com/library/hoodpins.asp

 

Sure you can drill CF, there's a few extra steps to it. First tape the area to be drilled top & bottom. Then start with a small drill bit slowly working your way up to your final size. The biggest "key" here is let the drill do the work, DON'T apply alot of pressure, let the drill do the work. If you apply pressure you risk damaging/weakening the area around your mark. A small block of wood on the bottom side will help support it while drilling.

 

sweet. thanks for posting the link. i'm gonna need to do this when i get my hood.
whenever you get round to doing this, take photos and do a how-to write up.

 

seems a lot like drilling metal when you've snapped a bolt... pain in the ***, heh. you've got to start small and then work your way up to the actual size of the bolt.

i really want to get the pins installed this weekend since i drive on the highway an hour to work and then another hour home. it would be nice if UPS left the pins for me, too... they usually make one run in here (condos) and they just drove by. maybe their definition of "out for delivery" doesn't match mine.

i'll try to take some pictures if i can. it's cold as hell today... again... and the WAPCE will murder me if i do it any other day. urgh.

 

when i drilled my hood for my hood pins i just put some tape down then drilled it out . no problems at all

 

did you use one bit, or did you work your way up to one bit as the other guys suggested?

 

i pre drilled w/ a smaller one just to get my hole then used a bigger one and that was it, wasnt hard at all just make sure u drill in the right place

 

that may be what i will end up doing. not sure exactly where i'm going to put the pins, but i'll figure it out.

 

best bit to use is a "step bit".

 

i got the holes drilled with the help of my neighbor. there was some cracking on the driver's side, but it will all be hidden once we get the actual pins on. i didn't want to put the pin assemblies on since it had gotten both dark and cold out and i didn't want to crack the material where we couldn't hide it.

the cold always makes things worse, so i didn't want to make more cracks by putting screws in when the material was this cold.

 

any pics?