I think a lot of the need for hood pins comes from the fact that its a lot easier for the latching hardware to pull out of a fiberglass or CF hood than a metal one.

The seibon hoods have the slots for the OEM 3 hood latches.
A couple people in Houston have tracked their cars with seibon hoods with no problems YET, but if you are getting into heavy track days I would highly suggest looking into proper hood pins. Mainly because they will be stronger than the factory units and safer for track use.

I have had a Seibon vented "TS" hood for about 3 years and probably 40,000 miles. No hood pins, frequently visit 150+ mph. It feels real sturdy when shut, so I havent felt any need for pins.

Actually the VIS carbon hood I bought come ready so you can just move the oem hardware over to the hood and after making a few adjustments it closes nice and tight with No wiggle or play. Like I said in my first post my IAT's were about 10% more than my ambient temps so trimming the 4 inches of plastic on the stock bumper exposing more air to the intercooler and also going with a vented hood Iam down to 0 difference. And yes that is just cruising normally. I will do some more logging of stop and go to see how fast the temps rise and how long it takes for it to go back down next.... Forgot to mention the oil temps seemed to have dropped a few degrees as well with that formulation...:tup::tup:

All you CF hood guys park in a garage I assume right?

Or just paint the hood.

Mines is ALWAYS in the garage...

What about getting caught in the rain? Does water get thru?

Under these conditions, what really matters is post IC temps -- that will tell you how efficiently your IC is working.

IAT's are good to know too, but the really critical detail is the temps after cooling.

Interesting -- although that may also be due in part to the kinds of coolers being run. Are these air to air or air to water coolers?

The only FI setup I've seen here running an air to water intercooler is the Stillen kit.

Iam not too concerned with the rain because the hood has a fiberglass channel under the slots in hood so the water actually stay in the channel until it is diverted to the front lower section of the hood...

water just pours right on through my seibon TS hood vents... a few years of daily driving, and its never caused a problem. when i wash the car, soapy water just runs straight down those vents. <shrug> i see no problem with it. gotta wipe off the engine later if you care about water spots on the pipes and etc. i dont.

The IAT sensor is after the intercooler...

Thankfully I've never had any heating issues and I live in South Florida. Oil cooler and that's it.

Oh.

Then, never mind :p

Sounds like a very efficient set-up if that's at full boost.