Why do people have carbon hood on their car? What is the purpose of it?

Question

What is carbon hood on cars is used for? What is the purpose of it?

Answer 1

The INTENTION is that carbon fiber is lighter than steel, and reducing the weight of a car makes it accelerate more quickly. Every 12 pounds you remove from a car has the same effect as raising its engine output by 1 horsepower. Better still, though, a reduction in weight makes the car brake and corner better, because there's less mass to slow down or move.

In practice, however, the answers that say "Because it looks cool" are probably closer to the actual reason most people do it. It's like custom wheels -- the performance reason for using special wheels is that a lighter wheel allows the suspension to work more effectively, which keeps the car planted better in corners and reduces momentum on acceleration and deceleration. (Again, a rule of thumb is that one pound of reduction in wheel/tire weight is comparable to 8 pounds of reduction in total vehicle weight, as far as acceleration goes.) But too often, the wheels people install are actually HEAVIER than the stock rims, which defeats the purpose.

It's worth going back to the reason we use the word "tuning" to describe what we do when we start changing out components on a car. It's like tuning a musical instrument -- you don't make a piano sound better just by sticking a bigger keyboard on it or putting on polished bronze pedals, you make it sound better by tweaking and tightening and making sure all the strings are at the right pitch and the keys all work smoothly. The same idea applies to cars -- it's much more important to make sure the parts are all working together than it is to put on the latest top-rated trick part that some guy at a magazine got paid to write about. (With apologies to my friends at Subiesport and Mazdasport... :-)

Answer 2

Many drag racers have used carbon fiber hoods and front ends to reduce weight on their car. More likely though most people just like how it looks and figure it makes their car look like a race car.

Answer 3

Carbon fibre is a lighter compound to light metal. This helps by making the car a few pounds lighter, it can go a little faster(fraction) and makes the car lighter on juice.

Some guys do it to impress. Looks good.

Answer 4

The reason for carbon fiber anything it because its really light and regular steel car hoods are pretty heavy.

Answer 5

Well carbon fiber is one of the strongest and lightest materials man has made so it offers protection with little weight added to the car. (jk it is just for looks. real carbon fiber is a little expensive)

Answer 6

lighter weight is the main reason but the right hood and car they look good too

Answer 7

It looks cool.
Just like custom rims, no purpose but they look cool.

Answer 8

its lighter so i guess it makes it go faster or something