What is the purpose of hood pins?

[Byron]

and I don't mean the fake ones that just sticks on with 3m tape for cosmetic purposes... I meant the functional ones that actually do something. Seen them most commonly on CF hoods but can't seem to figure out what they are really for... are they for keeping the hood intact to the car (but doesn't the latch do that?) or is it for opening the hood quickly incase somethin happens inside?

thanks

[Maelfyn]

It's to hold the hood down. Carbon fiber hoods don't work with the stock latch.

[XYRCNCP]

SOME CF hoods dont work with the OEM latch, but I think all made for the celi do work with the latch, I know FI does....

[xdannyx25]

see back in tha days, muscle car hood latch's sucked, so they made latchs for extra assurance and safety.

[Jnsd]

I know a guy who's honda was just stripped. The theifs popped open the hood and disabled the alarm. Anyways he was basically told that if he had locking hood pins, they would not have been able to do this. Just a thought.

[chameleon]

see back in tha days, muscle car hood latch's sucked, so they made latchs for extra assurance and safety.

LOL, I don't know if you were being serious or not, but just in case some gullible person reads this, the latches on the classic muscle cars from the 60's and 70's were fine. In fact, there haven't been any advances in "hood latch technology" that I am aware of. The latches on your Celica's work the same way that they did on old muscle cars.

Weight saving hoods are not a new thing started by the import scene. Long before carbon fiber was being used on imports, muscle car guys have been replacing their stock hoods with light weight fiberglass hoods and a lot of these hoods required hood pins to keep the hood on. Carbon fiber is a really strong material and regular latches usually work just fine with them, most of the pins you see on imports with carbon fiber hoods are just for looks. In fact, a lot of the fiberglass hoods are strong enough to use latches too. The real reason you see hood pins on street cars is because race cars use them to secure the hoods because of the extreame speeds they reach, so they are used on the street cars to make them more closely resemble a race car.

[dragonfrog]

Well, chameleon's the closest. For stock hoods, the pins are for cosmetic reasons. For CF hoods, they're functional. Some do not have/work with stock latches and pins are needed to hold the hood down. Some work with the latches, but still, because of their light weight, it's recommended that you use them. ESPECIALLY, if you'll be racing. Just check out this thread:

http://www.newcelica.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=6010