VFN hood required alot of work for fit FYI!
 

The purpose of this post is to help you guys decide what sponsor to purchase a hood from.

I received my VFN 98-2002 Ram Air Bolt 4” Bolt on hood. It was not an easy install at all. It took 5 hours of sanding and cutting to get it to fit. The product quality was horrible compared other hoods I have seen. If you are supposed to do all of this before installing a VFN hood, then you guys need to know this.

The hood showed up with HUGE scratches all over in the black finish. Enough said there.

There was about 2” interference between the inside of the hood (cavity) and the airbox. We had to saw/sand out the cutout so it would allow the hood to go all the way down. I would guess it was “miss-trimmed” at VFN. No excuse for that.

The hood sat above the fenders on the side when down. The edges of the hood that run in and along the fenders needed about ½” sanded off. Another miss-trim.

The Ram Air nostrils had to be cut/sanded out but that was expected. No new screws so reuse you old ones.

The front edge of the hood is trimmed crooked. It rubs the front bumper cover top towards the passenger side. Will sand that tonight.

After some major adjustments we got it fitting pretty well except for a slight “lift” in the right front corner. The bumpstops were all the way down. Everyone thinks it looks cool but I will not recommend VFN to anyone nor advertise for them. Product quality control was horrible. Its a lot of work and not an easy bolt on.

That sucks :(

I'm sorry to hear about the mis-fitment issues. However, on the flip side, I've heard quite a few people say how GOOD their VFN hoods fit, without a grit of sandpaper touching the hood.

FWIW, My VFN 3" SS hood is still sitting in the box here at my shop. I hope when I go to install it in late June that I have no issues with it.

Some fiberglass hoods can be like that. The body shop that I had my hood done through recomended getting either OEM or SLP because they are the only ones that will fit decent without modification. I ordered the SLP HO hood and it fits great... all the lines are even. The body shop was suprised at how well it fit. I am not sure if this is true but I seem to remember reading somewhere that SLP was the only aftermarket company with a licensed mold to create the hoods?

Sorry to hear about your hood, I think Bird_of_Prey had issues with his VFN hood too... it had Ram Air molded on to the nostrils. :(

I dont know why my 3 inch ss bolt on hood fit great no modification what so ever on the hood and 5 mins of work opn the hinges fits perfect everyone around here was amazed at how it fit so good and is ordering from them right now they make very good hoods and id highly recommend them to anyone.

Before posting up a complaint about it did you try calling VFN to see if this much modification was required to fit? It may have been a bad hood that cured improperly causing it to warp. Been alot of weather shifting here in Chicago recently where VFN is located and that can have major affects on how fiberglass turns out.

I would PM 'vfntech' they like to know when folks are not happy, but most of the time their stuff is great. My 2" WS6 hood fits like a stock one.

John did you go with a Pin on or a bolt on hood?

anybody else with the 4" ws6 hood like to comment on this? this is the hood im considering getting for my formula.

I did not contact VFN because there is nothing they can do about it. Do I send it back when I open the box and see the scratches? Do I send it back when I try to fit it and I have to cut or sand the first time? According to their policy NO. Are they going to give me a refund..yeah right...or pay me and my buddy body shop rates to fix it? I dont care if the person who made it had a bad day or if VFN stuff really is this shitty. If they were a quality company that hood would have never made it out the door...or they would have done their homework upfront. Looks like Bird of Prey had the same issues as me. Thats 2 LS1Tech members. Anyone else get this hood? We dont recommend VFN Ram Air hoods. Only thing I can do is show others here what to expect so they can make the right choice. KMStevens...be prepared for alot of work and have a good fiberglass guy handy.

Im already pissed off I have to keep a spare HAL shock around because they are junk (2 bad ones) and my big $$ ARP fasteners came unthreaded...can anyone make a quality product?

Hi.
We do appreciate when our customers contact us when they are having fit/appearance issues...if you had read our warranty we have a 30 day warranty against manufacture error and/or defects...we are NOT like other companies who do not warranty or help their customers out.
What we will do to make sure that our hoods are not leaving untrimmed and /or scratched is Photo a hood that will be trimmed correctly, and post it for our shipper to view each time one of these hoods is ready to ship.

Well to me your acting like a huge prick sorry but its true if you didnt have enough since to call them before you starting running them into the ground thats your fault.Im very happy with VFN and there are tons of other people that are happy with them as well.VFN is a great company and if you would of gave them a chance they would of made it right but you did no such things and starting trashing there name on the net.NOT right in my book but people do have no morals sorry but thats what come to mind when I read this post.P.s admins if this is not a welcome post im very sorry but just expressing my self

I don't think he was being a prick... He's right, the hood should not have left the factory like that. However, he should'va called VFN first to see what they could do about it before posting it here.

On a side note I bought the VFN Firebird dash and the fitment was awful. I have no clue how I was suppose to make it work in the car. The dash itself needed sanding all over it because of scratches and imperfections and the sides of the dash were warped inward. I sold it and would never buy from them again.

Do us a big favor and post your experience when you complete the install.

I think it is great to post your experiences with high dollar parts. It keeps the vendors honest and helps your fellow F-car guys. That is why we are all here!

On the original thread:
It would have been better to call the vendor and see what the options were before you spent time, money, and wasted some of your own credibility bashing a sponsor before he even knew there was a problem.
Granted, it is bad that the hood even got out looking like that, you could have bashed after talking with them.

My .02
Dave

VFN is very responsive and easy to get a hold of.

I have the bolt-on WS6 hood, regular style.

that formula looks like its ready to tear someone a new ___hole :D

The warranty is useless. 30 days but altering or painting voids it. First thing I had to do was sand/trim. Is it supposed to drop right in without touching it? NOT. Do I waste my time and money shipping it? I made the hood fit but it required alot of unnecessary work if VFN had done their job. I am just merely letting others here know what to expect with VFN. I dont want anything from them. You make the choice.

RJF...you are way out of line but Im sure we all appreciate your input :barf: . Glad to see your hood was perfect. Its obvious here most non-1998-2002 WS6 hoods fit ok by the response but these didnt.

Let us know how it fits Big Mike...I think you will be ok with that style.

Scratches were not from the shipper in my opinion. It was boxed up that way. Box was in great shape when I picked it up. That is just my opinion though...no way I could prove otherwise.

Oh, looks like someone got a shitty fitting 93-97 VFN camaro hood over on another board. Its best we all know this stuff so we are prepared when it comes.

I also said the hood looks awesome so I am telling both sides of VFN. Really turns heads. Some people hate the truth.

I installed the stock looking WS6 bolt-on VFN hood on my girlfriend's 2000 Trans Am, and it required no sanding/trimming to fit. You also have to realize that the build quality tolerances on these cars aren't exactly precise, and every car will be slightly different. I just dropped the hood off at the paint shop, had it sprayed, and installed it.

The only issue I had with the entire deal is that it arrived with the box torn up (shipping). There were a few deep scratches on the outer surface where it had come out of the box, but the paint shop said they were easy to fill and sand down.

Tony

I wish mine would have but 2" off the to clear the airbox and 1/2" off both sides just to get it off the fenders has nothing to do with my cars tolerances. Believe me I didnt want to do all the work..hell I had to borrow the sanders etc. Adjusting the cut hood to fit with clean lines was the easy part.

Looks like a couple of us just got "bad" ones.

Ok lets get some things straight,there are NO such things as parts that will fit perfectly on every car in every aspect, especially glass or fiber.You can just as well buy OEM stuff and end up the same way,this is life,get used to it.Yes we understand you are extremely disappointed in the finish of your hood,but you have to understand no one is perfect and no company is perfect,if they were there would be no use for other companies in the same market.Personally I have never bought or worked on a product from VFN,but considering the # of products sold by them,I say the one or two out the hundreds or thousands is a pretty good ratio.Now before you start to bash me about never owning or working on a product from VFN,after working in the refinishing business for a little over 16yrs,I have seen products from Harwood,Glasstech,Cervini's,and especially Unlimited,that would literally make you want to throw it right in the trash,then again some have came in that took very little work other then traditional prep work to get ready.In the beginning if the hood was in that bad of a shape,why wasn't it checked when received(pulled from box and checked) while delivery person was present? This way it could have been sent right back,and a new one sent out.Or did it come down to where you were in a hurry to get the hood on there and went ahead and "worked" it,then got into how much work was invloved,then come on here to relieve your frustrations,at the expense of VFN?Short of the long is that even the OEM's,european included have "bad" products that get out,it happens

I am not looking for anything from VFN..wont give them the chance to waste my time. My purpose is to let others know what they might expect. Is that bashing? If I would have got a perfect hood and complained maybe. You are exactly right in the fact Im not going to wait another 5 weeks to get another screwed up hood. I saw nothing that was a show stopper so I decided to make it work...just like all the shitty parts we get. Luckily I have a buddy that is good with Fiberglass and just installed a high quality SLP hood on his car...bolted right on..little filler in one spot...painted it.

I asked what would be involved in the install. VFN PMs me and tells me what to do..seems easy. Nowhere do they mention all the cutting/sanding...scratches etc

The whole purpose here is to help other members choose a fiberglass supplier. If they choose VFN then so be it. 3 of us got "bad" ones...how many more? I have no doubt other supplier make bad hoods. Forums like this are to inform all of us...and help us choose who to give our money to. Thanks for your input.

Why don't you shut your damn mouth :devil:

i have a regular ws6 bolt-on hood.

i had to trim the sides down a half inch to get it to close. even then the sides sat up a little bit above the fenders. the nose is alittle short. like they trimmed a hair too much and now leaves alittle too big of gap compared to the rest. i wish they wouldn't have left the "ram air" stickers on the mold hood. now i have to sand them off since i'm not putting stickers on. i wish there was hardware to go with the nostril screens as well. i had scratches in the gel coat and runs in it as well.

but in the end i bought the hood for it being light weight. if i wanted looks i would have bought GM.

Ok but do you see how narrow minded your complaint is? Nothing comes perfect 100% of the time especially not custom hand made pieces. You didnt give VFN a chance to resolve the issue you just posted up how it fit for crap and you had to modify it. Maybe it got warped in shipment? Maybe it did leave from VFN in a bad condition but you didnt give VFN any chance to fix the problem. You just are stating they make crap and that you wont buy from them and dont recommend buying from them. And then you state you didnt want them wasting 5 weeks of your time to get another hood. How do you know they couldnt get you another hood sooner than that? Its ok to not want to buy from them but your statement "Product quality control was horrible" is so one sided, you have seen one hood. You say these two other people had bad hoods, but thats 3 hoods out of how many? If you ever worked in supplier end or retail end of anything you would know that nothing has a 100% trouble free production. Your quick to complain attitude will make sure no one else wants to sell car parts to you.

I keep reading posts saying something to the effect that:
"nothing fits perfect every time"
"a little fitting is to be expected"

My comment to that is...
Sure nothing will fit perfect and some fitting is okay, but this guy describes a train wreck!
The fitment problems he is having, and that some others are posting, are not what I would consider minor mis-fitting or a little tweaking needed.
Some of you are acting like he shouldn't be pissed, but if his condition is true and you got that hood... would you want me to say "don't cry over a little tweaking" or "nothing fits perfect".
I don't agree with everything he said/did, see previous post, but don't go so light on the manufacturer either. They have more control over what goes out their doors than you seem to think.
Dave

he shouldnt be mad when he seen all it was going to take he should of picked up the phone and called vfn i bet theyd of made it right with him instead of putting hours and hours in it then complaining should of called first bro

Madboost im sorry but nothing you said holds water in my opinion..i guess we disagree.
VFN told me 4-5weeks for a hood. They shipped me a hood that required alot of work. You dont know that until you lay it on and start CUTTING/SANDING...how much?...keep going.. little more....little more.. You know how it goes.

Im telling board members what they might expect from VFN. That hood was terrible quality and fit compared to other hoods i have seen. A few other people here have had the same problems. There was no guarantee I would get a better hood after waiting. Im upset that I had to do all the work..but hell I expect that now..you guys know nothing fits right on LS1s..try building your own motor. Lets just not say VFN hoods fit great and they are top quality. That is misleading. Thats what I heard when I ordered. Hopefully VFN will put better controls in place now.

Bottom line is others can choose whoever they want but I wont tell someone to buy VFN because their hood are great. You can do that.

Yes but it took them 4 to 5 weeks to get your initial hood but maybe they could have shipped you another one much sooner? Point being that you didnt give them a chance to resolve it. Its perfectly alright for you to not want to buy from VFN or to not recommend VFN to anyone. But from what info you have provided and actions you have taken your OPINION of VFN doesnt carry alot of weight.

Im putting a VFN 2" cowl on my car and I have no doubt that it wont have a problem. And even if it does have a problem I have enough belief in their company that the problem will be taken care of. I will make sure to share my experience as well, positive, or if by some chance negative.

Your hood took a long time due to how that GP was done not due to a problem on the VFN end, we had a phone call about it several weeks to look into it.

Frankly you are wrong, if you are not satisfied you can return stuff to them if you talk to them. Stop ranting and maybe just listen. Your 383ci threads also have a bigtime rant theme too, like you are mad at the whole aftermarket.

And lastly, for what you guys are getting the hoods for at the GP prices, I think they are a great deal. Regularly priced WS6 hood from other companies can be DOUBLE the price. My Suncoast was decent but not better than my current VFN. And I paid like $850 for my Suncoast back in the day.

I have the VFN 4" Ram Air Hood for my TA and it took very little trimming to get it to fit. It looks great and I was one of the first to get it on the first group purchase that VFN offered. No problems in over a year with the hood.

I think he has a right to be upset regardless of price paid and what good experience other members had. However, I would have test fitted the hood before any modifications were attempted. When I received my Suncoast hood, I measured two points across and lengthwise and compared this to stock before I installed it. After they measured up, I trial fitted it.

bingo he just jumped into doing all the work without calling vfn theyd more than likey made it right with him but he jumps on the bashing band wagon bottom line should of called before he did all the work on the hood

PSJ you surprise me. Ive been seeing your stuff for years...so I will leave it at that.
All of my 383 threads are to inform others of the stuff that happens when you do it yourself. Almost every reply was positive from your board members... YOU have helped me make choices in the past..

Like I said in my first post my purpose here is to make sure others are aware a hood from VFN might not be an easy bolt on (just like several others here). There are alot of people in this thread that agree with me and like to have this kind of info.

VFN emphasized hoods take 4-5 weeks. They refer you to their website. We were promised hoods mid April and they did nothing to speed the process and satisfy their customers...normal hood production...which is ok..their choice...we are at their mercy.
Now I get my hood..scratched up when I open the box. Do I call them? Lay it on the car and it needs trimmed. Do I start trimming knowing I void the warranty? We cannot win here. $80 to ship a hood...box it up...wait for a new one? I chose not to. I had no confidence I would get a better one. Im done repeating...if hood consumers do a search on hoods...and see the thread...hopefully they can make a more informed choice..whether its VFN or not...I made my point here and I appreciate it when others do..thats how we resolved all these issues with LS1's..and you were helpful in those...for many years

I have a VFN hood on my LT1 and it fit like a glove. I had a small problem when I placed the order and they went out of their way to fix it. I'm now looking to buy a hood for my LS1 and I won't look anywhere other than VFN!

Thanks again VFN for making me such a high quality product!!

This should have been handled first with the vendor. To come outright, and bitch about a product without even bothering to give them one phone call is completely unacceptable.

This one is closed.