Christmas came today, and I got a GrimmSpeed Hood Strut Kit for my car. I’ve been looking into this kit for a while, for a few reasons:
- It allows the hood to open to a much higher point, which makes working in the engine bay much more pleasant (and allows more light in.)
- It means the hood is much more secure – especially when working in windy conditions. This is a light hood, and while the hood prop is SUPPOSED to prevent the wind from knocking it over, it can happen.
- It’s just nice! Cleans up the engine bay (I removed the OEM strut and brackets), and adds a touch of “upper class”
- I hate fumbling with the hood prop. The last time I opened it for tech inspection at autocross, I fumbled it, and it fell to the passenger side of the car, came unhooked from the mount, fell onto the pavement and BROKE (the plastic tip broke, which meant I could no longer use the prop.)
Anyway, I love the build quality of this kit. It isn’t cheap ($120 or so depending on the vendor) so I’m expecting good components since you can buy struts by themselves for like $20. Overall, I was pleased with the design. It isn’t complicated. Basically two very solid metal brackets are used (one to secure each end of the strut to the hood and body) along with some screws.
Installation was fairly straightforward, though the first of my two [minor] complaints with this kit has to do with the instructions. I’m a big proponent of saving the environment, and not wasting paper, but the instructions should come with the kit in printed form. It was a real pain to download and then view the instructions on my cell phone while fumbling with tools AND holding the hood open. Just print the instructions so I can have them open in the engine bay to easily view while working. Also, the instructions could be clearer. This isn’t rocket science (and I am an engineer) so it wasn’t difficult to figure things out, but what annoyed me was that the instructions kept saying, “…as you can see in the figure below,” but would then reference a photo that could have been much more clearly framed to show you what it needed to.
Anyway, once everything was installed (total install time was 10 minutes or so) it works beautifully. Not only do the struts strongly (maybe even a tiny bit too strongly) open the hood once its raised past a certain point, but they also pull the hood closed nicely from a low angle, meaning dropping it from about 6″ always results in the hood securely latching shut.
If I had one other complaint, it would be that I would have liked for the lower brackets to come with something to prevent them from damaging the treated surface on the body structure. On the third photo below, you can see that the lower bracket is only held in by one bolt, which would allow it to pivot slightly if not for the tab coming out the back that bends down and sits inside the pre-existing hole in the body. To me, this means that piece will ever so slightly move around (though this movement isn’t visible at all), wearing into the metal below, and also cutting into the side of that open hole. I might dip the tip into some thick PlastiDip (tool handle style) to give it a protective rubber coating, and I might cut a “gasket” out of some rubbery material to place between that lower bracket and the body.
But these are minor quibbles. Overall, I am very pleased with the kit. Perhaps a bit expensive, but well built, easy to install, and hopefully long-lasting. I’d definitely recommend it – especially if you do a lot of work on your vehicle and are frequently opening and closing the hood.
