Hood Pins

There is no pratical purpose for hood pins for most drivers. Unless you plan on driving your can at excessive speeds (upwards of 120 mph) there is no real need, other than looking cool.

They are used on race cars as they hold the hood down more reliably than a typical hood latch does. This is mostly due to the thin sheetmetal construction used on race cars which have a tendence to flap around at the speeds the cars travel at.

Couple years ago, a friend of mine had his aftermarket hood fly open at 80 mph. Yeah, I got pins on my aftermarket hood. I took the lanyards off, didn't like the look. Mine also rusted, I prolly would have replaced them eventually, but the car was destroyed in an accident before I had the chance. Hood pins cost, what, $50? It's a cheap mod for piece of mind, IMO.

Some of the 05-09 mustangs, i have not heard of problems with the '10-'11 cars, have pretty bad hood flutter at 80ish and above. I have heard of some latches popping open because of it. Hood pins solve this issue, some people also like the looks. I have some hood flutter with my Steeda hood, did not really have any problem with the stock hood. I do not really like the looks and have heard of quite a few rusting problems.

I'm not a huge fan of them...but they do provide piece of mind. Two types that I think are decent looking and are made of alloy and stainless (to fight rust) are...

-Quik-Latch: themustangnews.com/content/2010/02/quik-latch-solves-mustang-hood-pin-woes/

or the ones at Late Model Restoration

-LMR: latemodelrestoration.com/item/LRS-16892BL/Mustang-Billet-Hood-Pin-Kit

These kits aren't cheap...but they look nicer and are of much better quality than the cheapo ones from the JC Whitney catalog...you get what you pay for.

Hope this helps!

Anybody have the take OEM off radiator brackets from when adding hood pins? I am looking for a pair and can't find them anywhere. Can't be ordered from Ford without ordering the whole radiator support

I've had my Hood Pins on for about 6 months now and the Lanyards on for about 2 months, I had to replace my lanyards because some little runt dogs ripped them off and mangled them, I called Shelby and ordered new lanyards and clips, I believe it cost like $30 shipped.

So if my lanyards do ever rust I'll just order new lanyards, the lanyards alone should only cost around 20 bucks, not too bad IMO.

What I did when I installed my Hood Pins was to take some clear nail polish and dabbed it on the screws that hold the black round billet plates to the hood, I'm sure the screws are stainless, but I wanted some extra assurance that they would not rust, I will prolly apply more clear nail polish once a year to the head of the screws just as a preventive measure