Vehicle Collision Safety: OEM Steel vs Aftermarket Fiberglass Hood?

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outrun

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Note: I am not a vehicle safety engineer but if anyone has any advice I would appreciate it.

1998 V6 Camaro here has a stock OEM Steel hood...the car itself is quiet heavy at at hefty 3500lbs...which is more than the C5 Vettes and some Z28's even.

The SLP SS Camaro's do come with a fiberglass ram-air hood for note.

The question is that do you think I will tamper with the crash safety dynamics of my vehicle if I switch to a fiberglass hood for the weight savings?

Obviously the steel hood on an impact would crumple on impact dissemenating enrgy whilst the fiberglass components esentially shatter...as we have all noticed when goosenecking a fenderbender on the roads.

If it will mean sacrificing safety i who cares about weight reduction-

Thanks-
 
If an impact is hard enough to crumple the hood, I don't think it matters much. Hoods, decklids, and hatches aren't structual members and that is why auto mfgs use fiberglass for these pieces. It's basically to reduce the vehicle weight.

Front fenders would be another matter, since they are structural members, but I wouldn't worry about using a fiberglass hood.
 
yah hoods arnt structural parts of a car. unless its a really old car that has thick metal you cant even dent with a baseball bat.
 
Modern steel hoods are designed to crumple and have a rear "catch" built into the hinge to prevent the rear edge entering the cabin through the windshield and causing mayhem. Who knows how a composite hood will react? Crumple? A safety catch to prevent rear edge intrusion through the windshield? When my 96 Honda Accord was totaled, all front end safety features worked just as designed. So did the harness and airbags. The hood crumpled in a controlled manner and did not impact let alone penetrate the windshield. I felt my face impact the airbag - curiously not uncomfortable at all. I walked away with only a diagonal bruise down my shoulder and across my chest from the shoulder harness doing its job. My glasses weren't even damaged by the airbag deploying, nor was the bridge of my nose bruised. I'm not sure about front fenders being a significant structural component. They're simply minimal thickness mild steel stampings hung with mild steel bolts on the forward unibody structure (defintely a structural member!).
 
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