I’m fucking bad at procrastinating. I am really bad, ADHD does that to you, task paralysis as they call it, but fuck it I’ve been raw dogging this shit for this long now. I probably released this bonnet 3-4 years ago at this point and NOW I am posting about it. Side note, I have other things I created, paid for the mold and production, but still haven’t posted it up… the trunk and wing…. I have it on my car at home, but you know…. ADHD.
Around 2016-2017? Power House Amuse was in turmoil over the ownership. Tanabe san the founder died years earlier from cancer *rip*, and the state of the company was in limbo between one of his workers, his family, and R1 Titan, the company that made all of their titanium exhausts….. Eventually this was resolved and R1titan took over all their operations.
Fast forward to 2023. I’m in a group chat with Haro, Feezy, Andrew, and some other jdm s2k perverts. One of the topics that keeps coming up, *besides DBW Toda ITBs*, is the OG dry carbon Amuse R1 Hood. Haro, a year or so earlier bought the R1titan Dry Carbon Amuse hood and it was a total piece of crap. Here are some pictures of what he bought…
Don’t mind the green circle, I was using that for something..,.. This is the R1Titan s2000 Dry carbon Bonnet they currently sell and retails over $5-6k USD! If you remember warren’s old hood from years ago…. it didn’t look this crap. Yes it is dry carbon, but you can see it is a botched job. The outside and the inside, the adhesive looks like shit, the mesh had some little standoffs where the OG hood did not have it. Overall it is a substandard product and not that same as what was being sold from Amuse pre-seperation….
To further demonstrate my point. This is Haro’s R1 Titan S2000 Dry Carbon Bonnet, and him pushing on it. You can see the incredible flex it has for a full “Dry Carbon” unit.
We deduced that R1titan changed carbon fiber manufacture in Japan and that would explain the drastic drop in quality. I was already going to Japan for various things, I decided to reach out to the company that I was pretty damn sure created the OG Amuse stuff. Luckily with my Japanese contacts I was able to get a response and in 2023 I was able to go there to meet the owners face to face to see if they can make me a proper version of the s2000 amuse hood.
The company did in fact make the Power House Amuse carbon items, with the help of Feezy, Haro, and Andrew we were able to get the hood made in the proper way. Since this was years after the the original one has been released, the structure of the carbon is much stronger and lighter than before, while we were in there we decided to make 2 changes that are small but are massive that don’t take away the integrity of the original bonnet. We were able to add a hole for the hood prop, something the original one never had, imagine paying $6500 for a hood and you have to use a stick! Along with that we decided to add a hood prop hole for service mode!
First let’s start off with this…. If you remember the video up top, this is the bonnet I had manufactured by the original manufacture of the Amuse R1 Bonnet……
A few months later after I got back I got my first prototype bonent… First impressions at the time. It’s light as hell, quality is top notch, and feels strong.
The service hood prop hole we added! Since this was the prototype we didn’t add the normal hood prop hole yet. But all current production ones will have it. Check out that quality compared to that r1titan thing up top. Night and day.
The holes for the windshield washer, this is offered with and without.
The flexing part up front on the r1titan unit, the legit one we make is much stronger does not move at all.
We decided to throw the hood on the scales and it weighed in at 7.4 lbs
For shits and giggs we also had an ASM Dry Carbon Bonnet to test against it. It weighs in at 11.4lbs….. You can also see the clear difference in quality.
We took the hood and bolted it up to Alan’s car. You can see how damn good the fitment is here. They are a few guys with r1titan hoods on IG and you can see a clear lift where the hood meets the fender.
Front fitment is spot fucking on.
Let me see an r1titan FRP/ half carbon/ Full carbon that has this fitment.
On Haro’s car with the hood up. Look at the difference underneath compared to the r1titan version.
I am in awe….. I will eventually post the trunk and wing I had made too… You can check out the trunk on feezy’s car for now.
So TLDR:
R1titan S2000 hood is not made from the original manufacture of the Power House Amuse R1 Hood. I went to Japan and contracted and paid for development costs with my friends, Haro, Feezy, and Andrew. We made an improved version of the hood made with service hood prop and normal hood prop hole made. Item is lighter and stronger, while retaining great fitment.
You can only buy it from formula-s and soon to be on my own website http://www.3catgarage.com
The S2k and the Ant 