72-73 RS Hot Rod Project

[Uwon]

I am new to this forum and am amazed at the knowledge that you all share. So here is my project and issue I need some help with. *I am building a 72-73 RS "of sorts" out of a '78 SC tub. Front bumper *will be fiberglass from GT Racing. *I am being told time and time again that I need to replace the front vertical nose plate in order to accommodate the long OEM steel *hood which I already have. *I would rather not replace it because I want as much space as possible for a big oil cooler and the earlier nose plate appears to extend further forward into the bumper cavity by about 4".

Using an old scrap long hood and working from underneath through the gas tank cavity, I note that the long hood does match the contour of the side and rear trunk top lips except for the nose section where there is a space that can easily be filled with a rubber *moulding. It *looks like I can also use an early latch by making an L bracket mounted on the outside of the nose. As an alternative it looks like I can also use a later latch on the inside by attaching a bracket to the hood but this will require the rubber hood draw latches as the standard safety latch would be too far away to reach with your fingers.
So, (1) has anybody successfully used the early hood with a later nose section? And,
(2) if the above deodorant ended work, which latch system is better ( I suspect *the early latch)?
Cheers and thanks in advance for your comments.
Uwon

[Flieger]

Contact "TRE Cup" (Dave Bouzaglou) at TRE Motorsports. He does this sort of thing all the time.

TRE Motorsports

[Elombard]

Been done hundreds of times. I just used rubber latches to hold my long hood down on a later chassis. Also, TRE and other vendors make a FG hood with the latch attachment in the correct spot for the later chassis.

Do some searching there is lots of info here on the 'backdate' process.

[porschenut]

The RS front bumper accomodates the oil cooler just fine with the early front bulkhead, so that's going to be the easiest and most straightforward solution. If you really need a bigger oil cooler that won't fit, just cut a hole in the bulkhead so that the back side of the cooler can extend into the trunk area through the bulkhead. I've seen pics of that arrangement done by others. In fact, I suspect that will allow for greater cooling efficiency because air can flow through the cooler better without the bulkhead right up against the back of it.

[Uwon]

Many thanks for all your input. Cheers,

[RWebb]

we will need pics of this, of course...