Hood dampers
 

Looking to replace the silly prop rod for dampers. There are many kits available and am inquiring which one(s) are best to get.



Don

I personally run the grimmspeed ones.

Here ya go - :D

(I'm sorry, I'll let myself out - :()


humfrz

I've had my grimspeed hood struts for about a year now and they have been great, cheap mod that is 100% worth it.

I agree about being worth it. I installed them on my previous Mazda 3. I hate prop rods. So the Grimmspeed dampers seem to be the ones to get. They are a bit pricy but the brackets seem to be longer than the others and have two bolts mounting each side instead of one. Can anyone post a pic of the lower bracket mount location? I just cannot picture it in my head


Don

After having Honda hoods fall on my head (notorious for weak hood struts) i'll keep my simple hood props. Plus you can reposition them etc, much better than struts.

With more expensive kits you often end up paying for their aesthetics more than anything else.

The grim speed have a OE feel which is what I have. The only thing to consider is in extreme cold climates, they get tortured pretty good. Generally you should be fine though.

I got the 86speed ones when they were on sale. See no reason to get anything more expensive

If it's good enough for LFA, it's OK by me.

https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media...3926677538.jpg

OP's asking about which hood struts, not if hood struts. So much bullshit chatter.

I bought a friend's used Grimmspeeds. He had them for two cars. They're *cough* holding up just fine on the third.






Silly prop rods suck.

Maybe you missed it. OP called prop rods silly. I say Occam's razor.

I assume your speculating

Baby Jebus loves the prop rod

That's good enough for me

In other news: a guy at work got some no name ebay stuff for $100, they have been fine for 3 years, so far so good.

I went Grimmspeed. I've dealt with designing gas spring supports in the past, and their design looked the best in my opinion.

No way was I spending $200 on hood struts. I mean, I replaced the ones on my MDX for $15.95 shipped for the pair. They work great.


Paid $80 off of ebay for the pair on my FR-S. I have had them for 3.5 years, no complaints.




Edit: Looked through my purchase history. My hood struts are 3.5 years old. I forget sometimes I have owned the car now 6+ years.

A hood strut costs like $15 for the pair https://www.sixityauto.com/sixity-20...BoCQr4QAvD_BwE
A set of mounts costs the same https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01M0JCSTK...d-5d1350972647
Are these companies including $115 in stickers that were prepared by NASA engineers to show off at the car meets?

These things should be no more than $50 and also include a gift certificate for a complimentary happy ending at the local massage parlor.

I know... I was in a mood.

I WAS going to say something last night - but chickened out - :(


humfrz

I bought the GrimmSpeed hood dampers. They are a tad pricey (~$100 to $140), but I was willing to pay the premium for good design and manufacturing. The brackets are thoughtfully engineered and fully restrained. This is the only kit I was willing to shell money out for. The Greddy carbon kit ($200) looks pretty thoughtfully designed too, but costs more.


I was never impressed by the brackets on a lot of the cheaper cookie cutter import kits ($30 to $80), some are better than others.


I work on my car/have the hood open very often; I hardly use them for "show." My friend always thought dampers were just whatever, but he bought a set after he saw mine. We both work on cars frequently, and the convenience was well worth it.


Only drawback - on especially windy days (25 mph +), the shocks won't reliably keep the hood up when you're out in the open. However, if you use it in tandem with the prop stick (hood struts holding the stick in tension) or you're in the garage, it works fine. Other than that, totally satisfied with my Grimmspeed purchase.

I had the 86speed V2 shocks. They were cool but the sticker came off and the hood never really closed 100% correctly.

I got rid of them because I realized I bolted 5 pounds of steel to my hood

Just ordered the 86Speed V2 dampers and the OE arm rest. Hoping the lower bracket on the dampers works out okay and doesn't move around. If not a small modification should fix that


Don

I've had my Grimmspeed ones for years and have no complaints!

http://www.seriesblueadventures.com/...d-hood-struts/

Lol. No more than $50? You just listed $30 worth of generic parts, which do not include the proper method of attaching specifically to our hoods. Do you consider it unfair if a company makes more than $5 off the sale of a product? Come on...

I think everybody should only be rationed 5 squares of toilet paper daily.
That $30 includes profit too so... With profit in there already and another $20, that is plenty. At $50, they'd probably be walking away with still $35 in profit.
I am in construction and my materials work out to be roughly 60% and I walk away with only 40%. With them making 70% profit, I think that's plenty.

I've had my Grimmspeed hood struts since 2013. No problems whatsoever. If I were to do it again I'd still get the Grimmspeed ones. I've seen the other dampers in person and they don't look as nice and don't open the hood as much as the Grimmspeed.

Okay, I'll bite.

Despite the belittling and insulting post I'd like to educate you a little bit so maybe you won't do the same thing to someone else.

You've done an excellent job identifying two main components of a hood spring system, which is a start. So you buy these 2001 Camry gas springs and this set of generic set of mounts. DONE! Just got yourself a hoodstrut kit for $100 less than we sell it for. Man, we must be absolute THIEVES!

So you go and mount it. But how do you do that? I see you got two right angle mounts, that's good. But you needed four. Luckily you're very clever and have some scrap angle iron around to make one of the flat mounts into a right angle mount. Brilliant! Also, you had to cut and drill those pieces of angle iron. But you already had the drill, bits, and saw, so that counts as free, right?

Good. You got brackets that will now bolt to the car. But how do you attach them? It doesn't matter, this stuff is super easy and you do not mind drilling a hole in your hood and putting some self tapping screws into your hood. No one is going to mind some randomly drilled holes, right? Since it worked so great on the hood you do the exact same thing to the chassis of the car. But you have a little class, and you notice that the crappy galvanized brackets look awful next to the paint on the car, and the angle iron mount you made is already rusty, because you know..... angle iron. But, being a complete pro like you are, you have some spare black spray paint. Spray em up, they look fantastic.

So now you have gorgeous painted hacked together brackets, secured to the hood and chassis with permanent holes you drilled and fitted with self tapping screws. You knew exactly where to put them because all you have to do is put the springs between the hood and chassis and mount them. Except you notice that the hood isn't even open as high as it used to with the prop rod, what the hell!

You got this though, nothing but big plays coming: So you just move the brackets, drill some more holes, and screw the brackets in. Now it opens ALMOST as high as the hood used to with the prop rod. Good enough, right? No, because now when you go to shut the hood not only is it insanely difficult because the spring force is WAY too high because you bought gas springs for a Camry with a steel hood. You're pulling down with all your weight and you get the hood to start moving, the brackets are flexing because they're literally not designed to do what you're trying to make them to do, and then one of the brackets shears both of it's self taping screws right off because they were not even close to the correct size for the application.

But you're still very clever, and realize that you can just use one side, that's only half the spring force. You could have gotten this job done for HALF of what you spent. Maybe you'll hook your buddies car up with the other half of your design when you're done. So now its still way too stiff, but you can at least get the hood to start closing. You get about a foot away from latching and it won't budge. The gas spring is compressed to the maximum and the hood won't close. This is now the second time you realize you can't put the brackets where ever you want.

Still being the super clever person you are, you realize that maybe you can't just use any length of gas spring either, maybe there is a specific distance that it needs to be compressed and uncompressed too. And maybe you also need to make the fixed points of that spring in specific places too. And maybe the gas springs need to be a specific spring force in able to open and close without damaging any components, but while still being able to not fall down. Then you realize just how difficult it will be to make these four variables do what you think they're going to do.

And now you're out the thirty bucks you spent, the paint, hardware, scrap, and most importantly: The time you wasted. And you still don't have a set of hood struts, but you have a bunch of sweet speed holes that you drilled in your car to remember this occasion by.

But it's no big deal, you'll make that money back ASAP working at that local massage parlor.

To everyone else, that you very much for the kind words and recommendations. I also appreciate that most of you understand that while I'd love to give away everything we make, we simply can not. Unfortunately we need to not only order and produce these parts (the extremely high quality gas springs we use are completely custom and cost us more than those camry ones for example), but we also need to pay all of our wages, our building, our everything. And we can't exactly ask our distributors to sell these for us for free either. Unfortunately I also need to survive and haven't won the lottery, and while I do enjoy a good linkage design, I also need a little money.

We also refuse to cut corners on quality. The ones you can buy for $85 on ebay or whatever have very thin brackets that flex when you articulate the hood, especially because the gas springs themselves are not the proper force. The brackets themselves are universal garbage just like what was posted, but have at least been painted (not powdercoated like ours). The gas springs themselves are the bare minimum, poorly spec'd and will not last as long as ours. And above all, they open the hood LESS than the prop rod. As stated, these are fine for a lot of people and are a great way to save some money if you don't really care about the outcome.

See, I can have fun too :P Thank you again everyone, it still makes me very very happy to this day to see people recommending our hood struts. Please let me know if anyone has anymore questions, or if you'd like to go another round in hood strut 101.

Chase
Engineering

Waaaaay more eloquent than I would have been :)

Like I said, I've been thru that with hood, bonnet, and doors on street cars. Even in the CAD world, it's not the easiest thing to do. :party0030:

I also made a perfectly functioning oil catch can for about $20 instead of $300 that's been on now for a couple years doing exactly what the ones that cost 15x the amount does if anybody else wants to bite on that one.
Nice to know that some hood strut set out there is made to outlast the car it's on though.

Also:
"Despite the belittling and insulting post....you'll make that money back ASAP working at that local massage parlor." Nobody was directing anything at you little fella. You didn't have to take anything personally.
Good to know that NASA had their brightest engineers on the job for this though since we don't want our hoods ripping off or stuck open coming in on re-entry.

Of course some of our audience in here will also buy a custom $5k set of wheels on a $25k car and when they give up on their rocket bunny kit try to sell them for $4800 firm in classifieds so maybe some people just have
tons of money to shit away and have no concept of return on investment.

:P

I wish I could say it was my first rodeo.

I thought we were just having fun, no need to take it personally, right?

Chase
Engineering

Sweet! Can you make one for me? I'll pay you $25. That's a 25% profit, which I think is pretty generous. PM me so we can work out the shipping and payment details.

OP, get the Grimmspeed. I've bought cheap ebay ones that rusted within a year. I live in California. Not worth it imo

@GrimmSpeed are good guys. They take more care creating packaging for their items then the ebay designed parts

I have zero doubt that a perfectly functioning and appearing set up could be made for under $50 by buying the components. I have seen many such things done that were indistinguishable from a top line set. No it is not as simple as buying some parts and slapping them on but it is still fully doable and if you invest some time and labour to do it well it can save some cash.


But...


When there are reasonably priced pre made kits out there then why bother? Yes, you pay more but you also don't have to mess around. I personally am willing to pay a higher price for something from a reputable vendor based on customer service and warranty. They are going to make sure that it isn't going to rust in a year and if it does I would hope they will make it right.

Bravo! :clap:


I will add that fit/finish are top notch. Excellent integration with existing structure.

I can tell you how to make it for free and it might take an half hour to do so but something tells me you already spent the $300 and are just making a funny.

That was a fun story - :thumbsup:


humfrz

I don't want to make it myself. I've got other things I'd rather spend my money on. Therefore I am willing to pay someone to make one for me. I'll PayPal you $25 for one.

Shit , now I want some. More bolt-ons. I was happy with my little rod.

I am currently in the middle of crocheting together a car cover out of old discarded bathroom rugs so my time is limited right now.
You can still Paypal the $25 though if it's burning a hole in your pocket. I will buy some lottery tickets and if I win I will give you 25% of the winnings.

I think when I get some free time, I will take a crack at coming up with a hood strut set and I will for sure post it in here. Since I do in fact have all the necessary
tools ("drill, bits, and saw") including a welder if needed if I want to get fancy, it shouldn't be much of a thing.

I have the @GrimmSpeed hood struts and they work like a dream. They look good too! The little rod sucks if you're opening the hood all the time at track to help cool the engine. They work well in high winds too.

After this thread I'm going to buy their cold air intake :thumbup:

Be sure to keep track of the time you spend on that project, and the cost of all the tools used so that we can do a proper analysis of the total cost of the project at the end of it :)