Thread: Suicide Hood

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I was thinking about converting the hood on my 1983 Mercedes Benz 240D to a suicide hood for looks at a carshow and possibly to allow clearence for a tunnle ram or supercharger ( more clearence this way ). I have a couple of questions on how to do this. Where do i get the latches and hinges needed for this? and how can i hook the release up to my stock hood release lever? Another problem is the car's hood is like a Dodge truck hood, the grille assembly is attached, how can i make this work? Pictures of my car can be found here http://www.clubhotrod.com/t4056.html.

The best way to make it a suicide hood is to remove the latches.

It could be worse, you could paint it orange, install a four banger with a fart-can muffler, and hang an aluminum tanning bed off the trunk lid

just kidding...

Saab makes a cool cantilever-typr hood arrangement where the hood slides forward before it flips up. This could clear your grille.

Plenty are available at the u-pull-it pick-a-part yards.

I am not sure that I would call that a "suicide hood." When I was in high school, a buddy had a '58 Ford with a Thunderbird engine in it. We were cruising on the west side of Indy and he punched it. About 85 mph the hood came up. Fortunately, for a few years those Fords had the front hinged hoods and there was still a little room between the top of the windshield and the top of the hood that he could see to pull over. We just pulled over and put it down. Had it been a rear hinged hood it could have caused some serious problems.

Rick

Streets, your problem is you understand what is meant by the term. So when a door opens at the front end, which means it could open while going down the road, then have bad consequences, THAT'S suicide.

But as we've seen around here before, there are lots of people who think it's "anal" to be concerned about the definition of terms. To hell with that, why should we have agreement on those silly terms, all that would mean is that we have understanding and communication. God forbid!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Let everyone use terms anyway they want!!!!!!!! Communication isn't important!!! Hmmmmmmmm!

A Suicide hood or what i consider a suicide hood is a hood that opens from the cowl, so if you were in the car with the hood open you could see the motor. Ex: Corvettes, Dodge Vipers and Opel Gt's.

You'r probly right, it would be hard changing water pumps and stuff, I'll recearch it a little more but will probly leave it stock.

My Fiat has a "suicide" style hood and it really is hard to get to the motor. You have to unhinge the hood and remove it just to pull the motor. That the main reason I havent gotten around to seeing whats wrong with it yet.