As you can see from this photo shot from a helicopter overhead, I have Glad brand Press' n Seal on the bar to protect it from moisture. It was almost 80 degrees today, sunny, and windy so I had a great day for a nice dryout of the insulation. Overnight the insulation has a light impression of the bar. I was surprised how little interference there was as I am told the 2005-06 models have thicker insulation than previous models and are more likely to have a hood alignment problem after the brace is installed. I am sure this will change car to car. Random variation. I have seen some 2004 models that had larger insulation dents than my car. Not sure about that insulation thickness information I was given. I will say one thing I investigated was Dynamat http://www.dynamat.com/ insulation for my hood vs. the factory stuff. I called their technical support Friday after I got in from work and talked to them about their product. I really like it and it would be cool to see metallic silver insulation under a MINI hood. In fact I told them to come to the Dragon event next year! I will have some of this stuff in my car soon so standby for that segment.
I was watching the Formula One Grand Prix of Spain this morning and was reminded of the stuff they use on the cars to deflect heat. It looks like the gold stuff NASA used on the LEM that went to the moon during the Apollo missions. Very similar to Dynamat. Cool stuff and it works. I have talked to Steve Matchett http://www.speedtv.com/speed/talent.php about it before. It is used by most teams and will soon find its way to our road cars.
The $64,000 question...hood deflection? Wellll....maybe a slightly larger crack in the clearance. I measure 1 mm. Actually not bad at all. Hardly noticeable to the untrained eye. So mission accomplished. I like my new mod and I did it all myself. My bolts are all torqued to 25 foot pounds per the M7 instructions and my Mom painted the logo on the brace red for me. Cool eh?
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