My Hoodpad Project

[RoadiJeff]

I've been working on my hoodpad off and on for about a week. I finally finished it last night. Of the 25 or so things I had on my "what to do to the Viper list" this was probably the most time-consuming, even more involved than replacing the thermostat and plug wires combined. I must have spent two hours or more just taping around the Sneaky Pete logo.

I got the general procedure from other threads here in the forums and saw some pics of several great finished products. I noticed the top, flat area on the hoodpad and thought something needed to be there. You can see what I did in the pic. Although I used high temp spray paint I may go over it with a clear high temp paint after it cures in 6 more days. If I do it now the paint would just bubble up. The red looks a little dark in the photo but it comes real close to the shade on the engine components.

The short version of how I did the top half was to download a pic of an actual VIPER side emblem from an aftermarket website and loaded it into Photoshop. That way I started out with the same lettering style and dimensions that are on the car. Then I enlarged the pic, printed it out, made a stencil, taped it to the hoodpad and sprayed away. The detailed version is available on request.

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[jdoc7]

Nice job! Wish I had the patience to do something like that to my hoodpad.

 

[RoadiJeff]

I think it would be a nice project for anyone who parks their car for 4-5 months during the winter. Just put the hoodpad someplace where the dog won't step on it and every now and then spend a few minutes taping along some of the edges.

I did mine now because my wife is on a two-week cruise and I didn't want to get in trouble driving around while she's gone with the Viper's chick magnet potential. I'll have everything back together by the time she gets home for some fall foliage cruises.

 

[Casey]

I'm doing mine this winter too!

I've put it off with my past Vipers as I wasn't patient enough, and didn't have the time either.

This winter I'm going to get'r done!

 

[GTSnake]

Nice job. How many coats of paint did you use?

 

[DodgeViper01]

That looks pretty good and different.

 

[Leslie]

VERY nice job, will be great to see it on the Viper

 

[RoadiJeff]

Nice job. How many coats of paint did you use?

I started out with two cans of primer and sprayed the entire pad twice to cover up a few water spots or whatever from the previous owner. I put maybe 3-4 additional coats on the area where I was going to paint.

Next, I went over the entire rectangle area where the VIPER is with 4-5 coats of high temp low gloss black and the same for the Sneaky Pete area. That took around 1.5 cans.

Then I masked everything off with painter's tape and sprayed 4-5 coats of high temp red. I still have part of the first can left over.

I have a can of high temp clear that I might spray a few final coats with after the paint cures in 5 more days. When searching for ideas on how to do this I read a few posts about fisheyes in the paint after several months. I'm guessing it had to do with the heat, although I don't know if high temp paint was used initially.

I think the trick to not getting runs is to use lots of base coats to seal the surface and then for the final colors use very light coats and multiple passes, allowing at least 10 minutes between coats but no more than an hour. That's what it says on the cans I was using anyway.