Fitting a Rootlieb 4 piece hood to my Brookville 32 roadster,and hoping for comments from someone that has been down this road.

I am using the original style hood lacing, (Vintique) on the firewall. With the lacing in the groove on the firewall the hood does not fit good at all, I can make it fit good by putting a shim under the lacing, the thickness of the shim tapers from .060" to 170" and back to.060" is about 16" long. Doing this the lacing sits very high in the groove and personally do not like how that looks.

For kicks I put the lacing in the groove of the cowl and the hood fits very well. I can easily make it fit great with some very minor shimming.

What is the down side of having the lacing in the firewall groove?

Thanks